Lorraine Feather

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Lorraine Feather, 2018

Billie Jane Lee Lorraine Feather (born September 10, 1948 in Manhattan , New York ) is an American jazz singer and songwriter .

Live and act

Lorraine Feather's father was the jazz writer and producer Leonard Feather ; her mother Jane was a former big band singer (who temporarily shared an apartment with Peggy Lee ). Feather got the first name after her godmother Billie Holiday , but since the school days only used her middle name Lorraine, which was borrowed from the standard "Sweet Lorraine". As a child she took piano lessons from John Lewis ; from 1960 she grew up in Los Angeles , where she attended the LA Community College.

In the late 1960s she returned to New York to begin a career as a singer; she stepped u. a. in the Broadway version of the musical Jesus Christ Superstar , was a background singer for Petula Clark , Grand Funk Railroad and appeared in cabarets. In the 1970s she lived again in Los Angeles, where she had various club appearances, such as in the Parisian Room or Donte's . At the end of the 1970s she increasingly turned to jazz singing; first recordings appeared in 1978 with the band of pianist Joanne Grauer at MPS . Then she became a member of the vocal ensemble Full Swing ; Jake Hanna recommended the singer to the Concord Jazz label , for which she recorded her debut album Sweet Lorraine with Hanna, Chuck Domanico , Scott Hamilton , Herb Ellis and Joe Diorio and other albums in the 1980s. In 2004 an album was created with compositions associated with the Duke Ellington Orchestra ( Such Sweet Thunder: Music of the Duke Ellington Orchestra ); In 2010 her album Ages appeared , in which she was accompanied by musicians such as Béla Fleck , Shelly Berg and Russell Ferrante ; it was nominated for a Grammy as "best jazz album" .

She became increasingly active as a songwriter since the 1980s; She also wrote lyrics to Duke Ellington's "Creole Love Call" as well as to Billy Strayhorn's "Chelsea Bridge" and "Rockin 'in Rhythm". She was also responsible for the lyrics to the song "Faster, Higher, Stronger," which Jessye Norman performed at the 1996 Olympics final . She also sang theme songs for films and TV series such as Beverly Hills 90210 , Family Matters , The Days of Our Lives and Santa Barbara , and she wrote songs for the Disney film Dinosaurs . Lorraine Feather received seven Emmy nominations for her lyrics . In 2005 Feather worked as a songwriter for the theater project The Thief ; In 2007 she wrote texts for the musical Pest Control and for the musical adaptation of Tom Wolfe's book Purgatory of the Vanities . Feathers songs have been covered by artists such as Phyllis Hyman , Kenny Rankin , Patti Austin , Diane Schuur and Cleo Laine .

She is married to drummer Tony Morales. the couple first moved from Los Angeles to Half Moon Bay , in 2007 on the San Juan Islands in Washington state.

Discographic notes

year album Label
1997 The Body Remembers Bean bag
2001 New York City Drag Rhombus Records
2003 Cafe Society Sanctuary Records
2004 Such Sweet Thunder: Music of the Duke Ellington Orchestra Sanctuary Records
2005 Dooji Wooji Sanctuary Records
2008 Language Jazzed Media
2011 Tales of the Unusual Jazzed Media

Web links

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Remarks

  1. ↑ The LP (MPS 15527) under the name of the pianist Joanne Grauer contained only three titles with Feather on the B-side ( Joanne Grauer: Introducing Lorraine Feather ).
  2. ↑ Morales previously worked for the Rippingtons , David Benoit and Rickie Lee Jones , then ended his music career to work in internet management.
personal data
SURNAME Feather, Lorraine
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Feather, Billie Jane Lee Lorraine (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American jazz singer
DATE OF BIRTH September 10, 1948
PLACE OF BIRTH Manhattan , New York City