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Melissa Walker
With her rich, multi-octave vocal textures and impeccable phrasing, Melissa Walker has won kudos in concerts across several continents, working with such hallowed talents as Hank Jones, Gary Bartz, and Kenny Barron; young jazz geniuses like Christian McBride, Stefon Harris and Mokoto Ozone; and late greats like Ray Brown.
Her three CD releases since 1997 - and well-deserved Canadian Juno award nomination and US Indie honorable mention -- have created a nuanced corpus of jazz standards and new material unrivaled in its reverence for America's jazz tradition.
In performance in Manhattan at the Jazz Standard, Birdland, or Iridium; abroad, at the Blue Note or Sweet Basil in Japan or Pizza Express in London; or at Montreux and other jazz fests, Walker has turned heads and excited influential critics to rave about her "winning personality and technical excellence."
Melissa's anchored and wide-open musicianship mirrors her dual cultural heritage. Born the youngest of three sisters in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, where her father played professional football and parents eventually went on to earn doctorate degrees, Melissa graduated from Brown University intending to enroll in law school. But the legal life was not to be! Local performances led to out-of-town dates, then to her 1993 self-produced recording, "Little Wishes," and relocation to New York City, where she studied with pianist and master vocal-accompanist Norman Simmons. Matthias Winckelmann of Germany's Enja Records heard her sing, and she became the first female jazz vocalist signed by his impressive label since Abbey Lincoln many years earlier.
Her career on the ascent, Melissa recorded "May I Feel," her first Enja CD, in 1998, receiving a coveted US Indie Award nod for Vocal Jazz. Her subsequent CD, "Moment of Truth," released in 1999, vaulted her to the forefront of her generation of jazz stylists.
Media coverage followed: appearances on ABC, BET, Oxygen Network, Reuters and Fox TV; stories and reviews in Downbeat, US, Ebony, Jazz Times, Swing Journal, Billboard, Vogue, Munich Daily and London's Evening Standard and a host of European journals and newspapers -- all proclaiming her ability to command an audience. During these performances, Melissa worked with such seminal artists as Phil Woods, Buster Williams, Russell Mallone, Benny Green, Geoff Keezer, Steve Wilson, Ron Blake, Steve Turre and Geri Allen.
As her reputation grew, Melissa recorded her third Enja CD with longtime band mate and producer Clarence Penn, "I Saw the Sky," released in 2001. The release was a Canadian Juno Award finalist. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's well-known jazz critic, Bob Protzman, compared her to Sarah Vaughan. Jazz CD Review called her "a cross between Carmen McRae and Betty Carter."
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Melissa Walker: In The Middle Of It All
![Read "In The Middle Of It All" reviewed by Raul d'Gama Rose](https://s3.amazonaws.com/allaboutjazz/coverart/2009/melissawalker_rdr.jpg)
by Raul d'Gama Rose
If there was something similar to method acting" in music and it were not so passé a word, then it would be tempting to suggest that Melissa Walker's In The Middle Of It All is such a master class. As it happens, the record is a lot more than that, hinting at griot traditions and as exemplary a work in the contemporary troubadour tradition as anything put out today. It is cause for celebration that Walker, an enigmatic vocalist--because of ...
read moreMelissa Walker: I Saw the Sky
![Read "I Saw the Sky" reviewed by Dave Nathan](https://s3.amazonaws.com/allaboutjazz/photos/profile/musician/edfb583757e169f3096ec7aebd2584b7.jpg)
by Dave Nathan
Canadian born Melissa Walker decided to break off law studies to become a barrister at the court of song, and wasn't that a bit of luck for us. On this her third Enja release, Walker proves conclusively that great standards need never when in the hands of an imaginative stylist able to restore their magic and glitter. Walker uses a variety of vocal modes and instrumental backup to deliver a set of special interpretations. A string quarter opens Some Other ...
read moreMelissa Walker: Moment of Truth
![Read "Moment of Truth" reviewed by Robert Spencer](https://s3.amazonaws.com/allaboutjazz/photos/profile/musician/edfb583757e169f3096ec7aebd2584b7.jpg)
by Robert Spencer
Melissa Walker has a smoky, soulful voice. She is no screamer or wailer, but has just as much of an emotional impact as any of they do by skillful choices of rhythm and emphasis. She can even invest slight material like Janis Ian's mawkish Seventeen" with a certain sincerity and poise. And on an offbeat number like Abdullah Ibrahim's mournful ballad For John [Coltrane]," her delivery is languid and yet full of tremulous emotion.
Her backup band here is first-rate: ...
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