Books + Records Presents: Live Jazz with Mara Kaye Trio
Referred to by Jazz Lives as “one of New York’s great gifts to the world,” blues and jazz vocalist Mara Kaye is “like some lost pocket of the blues that had never been explored in the old days, all wrapped up in a ball of 21st-century Brooklyn-bred attitude.” For over a decade she has traveled internationally and throughout the US, sharing legendary stages with champions of the genre, singing beloved songs of the past with a deep passion and respect for its original storytellers. Imagine a new artist with deep roots, one with the emotional power and swing of Billie Holiday, the deep-blue sorrows and joys of Bessie Smith, all the while leavened with Brooklyn spice. Her heart is in her music and there is no pretense, no distance as audiences from Moscow to Lincoln Center have found out.
Mara’s voice has been compared to “Louis Armstrong’s trumpet at a rent party” by blues legend Jimmy Vivino and praised by The Wall Street Journal as proof that things are getting better. Her debut EP, It Had to Be You, recorded straight-to-tape by Bigtone Records, was released in February of 2022 and features incomparable piano legend, Carl Sonny Leyland.
Mara's debut single, the forever iconic love song, IT HAD TO BE YOU, off of her recent Ep release with BIGTONE RECORDS features incomparable roots and blues piano legend Carl Sonny Leyland and can be heard on steady rotation on LA’s premier jazz station, KJAZZ 88.1 FM.
Her second single, DYSTOPIAN BLUES, an original tune, was featured on ‘The Kelly Clarkson Show’ and performed live on CBS News in 2020.
She most recently lent her writing and voice to Brooklyn hip-hop legend AZ’s track, NEVER ENOUGH featuring rapper Rick Ross.
She is a proud faculty member of Centrum Foundation’s Voice Works program and a past instructor at their Acoustic Blues Seminar in Port Townsend, WA teaching voice masterclasses alongside some of the country's top blues and voice artists.
She continues to teach in San Diego and Los Angeles, leading voice workshops and coachings in both cities.
After a lifetime in New York, Mara is thrilled to call California home.
"For too many years, young jazz singers all but ignored the blues, but the attention now being paid to the form by outstanding young artists such as Mara Kaye is proof that things are getting better.”
- The Wall Street Journal
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