Grace Kelly | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Kelly in 2015 | |
| Background information | |
| Birth name | Grace Chung |
| Born | May 15, 1992 Wellesley, Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Origin | Boston, Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Genres | Jazz |
| Occupation(s) | Musician, composer, arranger, educator |
| Instrument(s) | Saxophones (alto, soprano, baritone), vocals, Venova |
| Years active | 2004–present |
| Labels | PAZZ Productions |
| Website | gracekellymusic |
Grace Kelly (born Grace Chung; May 15, 1992)[1] is an American jazz musician, composer, and arranger. Kelly has produced and released recordings of her own, scored soundtracks, and tours with her band. She was named one of Glamour magazine's Top 10 College Women in 2011;[2] and she has been featured on CNN.com[3] and on the NPR radio shows Piano Jazz with both Marian McPartland and Jon Weber, as well as on WBGO's JazzSet with Dee Dee Bridgewater.[4]
Working professionally since she was a preteen, Kelly was dubbed a prodigy in the jazz world.[3][5][6][7] In 2014, Kelly worked with the producer Stewart Levine on her EP, Working for the Dreamers, which was released in September of that year.[8]
She was featured in the December 2015 issue of Vanity Fair as a significant millennial in the jazz world.[9] Kelly was named "Rising Star – Alto Saxophone" in DownBeat's 2016 Critics Poll.[10] Her Trying to Figure It Out (2016 PAZZ) release was voted the number-two Jazz Album of the Year in the 2016 DownBeat readers' poll.[11]
Born Grace Chung in Wellesley, Massachusetts, to Korean parents, she moved to Brookline, Massachusetts, when she was 2 years old. She briefly played clarinet and classical piano before finding her voice on the saxophone.[12] Kelly stated, "Saxophone reminds me of the human voice. And I always felt this very compelling, this feeling, that someone was singing to me. The Girl from Ipanema was on repeat in my household when I was a little girl and thought: ‘I wanna learn this one day.’ It’s one of the instruments that’s closest to expressing the human voice.”[13][12]
Her mother remarried in 1997 to Robert Kelly, who legally adopted Grace a few years later, thus changing her name to Grace Kelly.[1] Kelly wrote her first song "On My Way Home" at age seven.[14] Kelly counts it a major breakthrough in her career when singer/songwriter Fred Taylor approached her after she sat in with vocalist Ann Hampton Callaway at Sculler's.[15] He offered to book her first headlining show at a major jazz venue.[15]
Kelly left Brookline High School at age 16 and earned her GED. After studying in the Jazz Department of New England Conservatory of Music's School of Preparatory Education, she enrolled at Berklee College of Music, where she graduated in December 2011 with a Bachelor of Arts in professional music at age 19.[16] Kelly studies or has studied saxophone with Jeremy Udden, James Merenda,[17] George Garzone, Lee Konitz, Greg Osby, Jerry Bergonzi, and Allan Chase.[1]
On March 15, 2005, when she was just 12, Kelly released her first CD, Dreaming.[18] While in the recording stages, Kelly met Ann Hampton Callaway, a jazz cabaret singer, who offered to write the liner notes to Kelly's first CD.[1] Grace won numerous ASCAP Young Jazz Composer Awards. Grace previously won the "Jazz Artist of the Year" for the third time at the 2016 Boston Music Awards'[19] she had won the same award in 2008 and 2010. She was voted alto saxophonist of the year by the 2016 NYC Jazz Fans Decision Award.[20]
In 2009, she played with the Foxboro High School Jazz Ensemble and Dave Brubeck for the "Let Freedom Swing/Celebration Of America" concert held at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.[21]
In 2009, Kelly was selected by the Boston Celtics to play the national anthem at the TD Garden for preseason and play-off games.[22]
For the Kennedy Center's 15th Annual Mary Lou Williams Women in Jazz Festival, in 2010, Kelly performed as part of an all-star quintet of Dee Dee Bridgewater, Geri Allen, Terri Lyne Carrington, and Esperanza Spalding for a set that celebrated the 100th anniversary of Mary Lou Williams's birth.[23]
In 2012, Kelly was selected to perform at the 30th Annual NEA Jazz Masters Ceremony with Phil Woods and Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra.[24]
At 15, Kelly and NEA jazz master Lee Konitz recorded the album, GRACEfulLEE. The album gained a 4 1/2-star review from DownBeat.[25]
At 18, she released her sixth album, Man with the Hat, recorded as a collaboration with another NEA jazz master Phil Woods.[23] The title of the album honors Woods, who has had a signature leather cap as his trademark since 1976.[26] The title of the album also refers to when Woods invited Kelly, when she was 14 years old, on stage during one of his performances and presented her with his iconic leather cap as a gift after her solo on "I'll Remember April".[27]
In 2017, when she recorded Go Time: Brooklyn 2, Kelly had Leo Pellegrino as a guest.[28] On November 30, 2019, Pellegrino and Kelly announced the official formation of a new "group, a band... a collaboration" called 2SAXY, which would consist of a duet between Kelly on alto saxophone and Pellegrino on baritone saxophone.[29]
Kelly's 2013 single "Sweet Sweet Baby", recorded for the Woodward Avenue Records label, reached number 7 on the Billboard Smooth Jazz Singles chart.[30] The track was also included on the label's 9 Mile Road compilation.[31]
Kelly is a featured performer in the 2014 documentary Sound of Redemption: The Frank Morgan Story, co-produced by author Michael Connelly and directed by N.C. Heikin.[32] In the documentary, she performs "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" as part of a tribute concert held in San Quentin State Prison, where Frank Morgan was incarcerated at different times in his life.[33] The documentary had its world premiere at the Los Angeles Film Festival on June 14, 2014[34] and was followed the next day by a tribute concert at the Grammy Museum, featuring Kelly, George Cables, Ron Carter, Mark Gross, and Roy McCurdy.[32][35] The documentary was selected for multiple additional film festivals, including the 2014 Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival,[36] the 2014 Maine International Film Festival,[37] the 2014 Virginia Film Festival,[38] the 2014 Atlanta Film Festival,[39] the 2015 Palm Springs International Film Festival,[40] and the 2015 Vancouver International Film Festival.[41]
Kelly has performed many times with jazz musician Jon Batiste and his band Stay Human as the house band for the New York City-based late night television show The Late Show with Stephen Colbert as well as at other New York City locations.[42][43][44]
Kelly released her tenth CD, Trying to Figure It Out, in 2016; it includes the track "Blues For Harry Bosch", a composition written for the Amazon.com produced television series Bosch. In the second season, episode 2, of the series, Kelly is featured, as herself,[45] performing "Blues For Harry Bosch" in a scene in front of main character Harry Bosch Titus Welliver and his Lieutenant Amy Aquino filmed at the Catalina Jazz Club.[46]
Kelly was Executive Producer and music composer of the 2017 short film The Bird Who Could Fly, directed by Raphael Sbarge, written by Robert Munic and Raphael Sbarge. The film won multiple awards in the "Asians on Film Festival of Shorts 2016 Fall Quarter".[47]
In partnership with Berklee College of Music, Kelly established the Fred Taylor Scholarship Fund[48] by producing, emceeing, and performing at an all-star benefit concert[49] at the Berklee Performance Center on September 12, 2017, raising enough funds to establish an endowed scholarship fund.[50]
With Vance Gilbert
With Bill Bandfield's Jazz Urbane
With Bob Dorough
With Various Artists
| Song | Date released |
|---|---|
| "Sweet Sweet Baby" | November 26, 2011 |
| "Ready Set Stay" | April 24, 2013 |
| "Eggshells" | June 25, 2013 |
| "Working For The Dreamers" | September 24, 2014 |
| "Blues For Harry Bosch" | March 22, 2016 |
| "She's The First" | November 1, 2016 |
| "Worth It" | June 29, 2017[54] |
