Join Katie Bull Thursday, October 27th at the 55 bar starting at 7pm for music from her recently released LOVE SPOOK album, and new originals featuring:

• Katie Bull - vocals
• Joe Fonda - bass
• Frank Kimbrough - piano
• Harvey Sorgen - drums

Free spirited jazz vocalist Katie Bull expands the view of her distinctive talent on Love Spook, her second album for Corn Hill Indie (Street Date March 1, 2005). On her debut release, Conversations With The Jokers, Bull, who shows the tonal and rhythmic influences of musical matriarchs Jay Clayton and Sheila Jordan, exhibited a convincing ability to bring a fresh approach to her interpretations of classic material from the Great American Songbook, leading AllAboutJazz to predict that the young singer, would "be a force to be reckoned with in vocal jazz." On Love Spook Bull, who shows an enormous amount of respect for both innovation and the tradition, demonstrates just how strong that force is on a program of a dozen songs about intimacy, loss, and discovery. The program is divided equally between uniquely personal originals and timeless standards she grew up loving and describes as "chambers of my own heart".

Katie Bull is a singer who is capable of creating the kind of music that has real meaning in today's world. She has the courage to tackle the contradictions inherent in love and life and the talent that gives her the ability to sing old songs in new ways. Love Spook offers music that is full of fun and relevance. Its an important step on Katie Bull's road to successfully sharing her considerable gift with a world she sees illuminated by the light of her own very creative insights.

Katie was born in New York City, and raised in the West Village on McDougal Street, and Westbeth. Her jazz piano playing-dancer father used to let her tag along to gigs and various jam sessions, as well as run around on the edges of the dance floors where he was teaching modern dance at NYU. He also snuck her in to hear extraordinary singers and musicians in various village venues including the Village Vanguard and Folk City, long before she was of legal age! She remembers Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, Bill Evans, and Elvin Jones, to name just a few. Soon, she and her dad moved to Brockport, a small town in upstate New York (way upstate, near Canada). It was there, at the jam sessions in the "parlor" of their home on Adams street that she met numerous extraordinary visiting jazz musicians and composers including percussionist Lou Grassi, to whom she is indebted for his encouragement and support of her career (Lou can be heard on Katie's premiere CD Conversations With the Jokers). As a suburb of Rochester, Brockport was within easy proximity of the Eastman School, where Katie often went to hear great jazz concerts of amazing jazz musicians; a formative moment was watching Keith Jarret improvise on that huge stage in that huge auditorium, and realizing how intimate he was being with the piano and the audience. She then returned to Tribeca, NYC - Manhattan, (before it was "Tribeca") and lived in a raw loft space with her father and stepmother. She got a regular gig at Walkers at the age of 15, singing standards once a week. At this time she was introduced to jazz singer/composer Jay Clayton, and singer Sheila Jordan, both of whom took her under their nurturing wings. She sat in a bit around town, at such venues as The Tin Palace, Sweet Basils, and Phoebes. The most memorable sitting-in moment was the night Joe Williams sat in at Sheila's gig, and then Sheila let Katie sit in too; Katie sang My Funny Valentine, and Harvie Swartz, on bass, pulled out his bow at the end of the tune -- his sensitivity sent electricity up Katie's spine. It was a moment Katie now recognizes as a defining moment in her life; this is jazz, this is a conversation! Soon she embarked on her own, attending SUNY Purchase, entering as a music major, exiting from the theater conservatory. It was at SUNY Purchase that Katie met mentor Chuck Jones who's revolutionary work in vocal production for the speaking voice changed her life. Since graduation Katie has been living in Manhattan. Her focus has been in the hybrid-arts movement, also known as the inter-arts movement. She has written and directed numerous experimental productions with her company the Bull Family Orchestra, and this work has allowed her to integrate her background in music, dance, writing, and directing. She has been vocal coaching the speaking voice, and singing in various downtown experimental theaters. She joins the jazz world now, a newcomer - - coming home.