Claire Dickson, Cambridge, MA, 29 Jan 2011
Claire Dickson and her trio.
Jan. 29, 3:30pm
Club Passim, 47 Palmer St., Cambridge, MA (617) 492-5300
Tickets: $12/ $10
Jazz vocalist Claire Dickson turns 14 this month and celebrates with an afternoon show at Club Passim on Jan. 29, 3:30pm. Winner of the national Downbeat Magazine Student Jazz Award for Junior High School jazz vocals, Claire wants more young people to get into jazz and hopes that families will be able to come to this special afternoon show. Her trio is Michael McLaughlin, piano; Greg Loughman, bass; and Eric Rosenthal, drums. Claire is a remarkable vocalist, regardless of age, and has been turning heads with gigs at Ryles, Amazing Things Arts Center, the Lily Pad and at Jordan Hall, where Ran Blake invited her to sing on his Chabrol Noir Concert in November.
Claire emerged on the Boston jazz scene at the age of 12 with an astonishing ability to scat and reinterpret classic jazz, bop and post-bop material on a level far beyond her years. But Club Passim has been a touchstone in her performing life—she sang her first solo there when she was 3, with the Family Folk Chorale, was the warm-up act for the Von Trapp singers there when she was 5, and performed her first jazz publicly there at an open mic when she was 12.
Claire is set to release her first CD later this winter, “Scattin Doll,” which will feature the material that garnered her the Downbeat Jazz award. Recorded when she was 12 and 13, she effortlessly spins off tunes by Charlie Parker, Duke Ellington, Gershwin, and others, material that almost any singer would find daunting. But, as the title implies, she more than just sings the tunes, she has emerged as a remarkable improviser and reinterpreter, exploring territory where most singers never go.
Claire will be performing with pianist Michael McLaughlin, composer and teacher at Tufts University who has performed at the Berlin Jazz Festival, New York Jazz Festival and the Bell Atlantic Jazz Festival with Naftule’s Dream; drummer Eric Rosenthal, another Naftule’s Dream member who has also performed with artists as diverse as Either Orchestra and Anthony Braxton: and bassist Greg Loughman, who has performed with Curtis Fuller, Sheila Jordan, and Ray Santisi.
“Claire is a young lady with a natural affinity for improvisation and an unspoiled joy in her music making. I look forward to following her development as a musician.” @mdash;Joe Mulholland, jazz pianist & Chair of the Harmony Dept. at Berklee College of Music
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