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Dena DeRose Trio at Steamers Sepember 1st |
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Written by Ronaldo Oregano
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Monday, 28 August 2006 |
 Photo by Jimmy Katz
DeRose and her trio have
developed a hard-swinging and dynamic sound that audiences crave, and
have accumulated a list of performance credits that proves it. From the
legendary Blue Note, Iridium and the Jazz Standard in New York, Jazz
Alley in Seattle, and the Kennedy Center in DC to Body and Soul in
Tokyo and Alexander Plaz in Rome, they always deliver “….vivid and
often exciting demonstrations of how innovative her musical concepts
are…” (Philip Elwood, San Francisco Examiner). Dena has brought that
vitality and innovation to performances alongside the likes of Ray
Brown, Clark Terry, Marian McPartland, Benny Golson, Rufus Reid, Slide
Hampton and many, many others, and numerous jazz festivals worldwide
have had Dena on their roster, including Monterey, San Francisco and
Litchfield in the U.S., the Red Sea Jazz Festival in Israel and the
Ancona Festival in Italy.
As a recording artist, Dena DeRose has 5 CDs to her credit, all of which have
received superior accolades. Cadence Magazine gave her both their Album
of the Year and Best Vocal Jazz Album awards for “Another World” and “I
Can See Clearly Now”. Christopher Louden of Jazz Times says that the
MaxJazz label “… takes another big leap forward” with the release of
her latest," A Walk in the Park". It also received three Grammy
considerations.
(Click here for audio preview of Dena's CD "A Walk in the Park")
Astoundingly, Dena has also found time to hone her skills as a jazz
educator, and is on the faculty at some prestigious education venues,
including the New School and Purchase College in New York, The Hartt
School of Music in Connecticut and the Groningen Conservatory of Music
in The Netherlands. She frequently teaches at clinics and workshops,
such as the Dave Brubeck Institute, the NJPAC Jazz for Teen Program,
the Stanford Jazz Workshop and several summer jazz camps. She has
served as a judge at both the Thelonious Monk Competition and the NJ
Star Ledger Scholarship Awards.
In 2000, Terry Teachout of the New York Times wrote, “Dena DeRose sings
jazz as if she had been at it her whole life long, and then some”. He
was closer to the truth than he might have imagined. Her mother heard
her picking out melodies on a toy organ when she was three. She studied
classical piano throughout her childhood, until she was enticed into
the world of jazz by playing Count Basie’s music in her junior high
stage band. At 17, she found Doug Beardsley, the only jazz teacher in
hometown Binghamton, and started lessons.
By the time she went to college, the passion for jazz she now exudes
was fully evident. She was performing anywhere she could, taking on
private students, and practicing so many hours a day that sometimes she
would sleep in her studio. To feed her insatiable jazz appetite, she
would slip away from campus and drive four hours to New York City to
hear piano idols Hank Jones, Mulgrew Miller and Kenny Barron.
It is a rare music career that isn’t peppered with challenges and
obstacles, and Dena’s is no exception--her jazz fervor led her right
into a case of carpal tunnel syndrome, aggravated by arthritis, which
was severe enough to require surgery, and forced her to completely give
up the piano. With her spirit and her livelihood both in jeopardy, in a
club one night, someone dared her to get up and sing a song. She did
it, she liked it, and so did the audience. Dena had not only found her
ticket out of the physical predicament, but, two years later when she
had recovered enough to add piano back into the act, she also
discovered that the singing had helped her add lyricism and melody to
her piano lines.
In 1991, she brought the whole package to New York. Some ten years
later, having never let up in the meantime, Dena’s talent began to be
widely acclaimed. In addition to the Cadence magazine awards for her
recordings, she was selected by Downbeat’s Critic’s Poll as 2002’s
“Artist Deserving Wider Recognition”, and All About Jazz anointed her
as a Jazz Artist of the Year in 2003. She was featured on the Morning
Edition program on National Public Radio, and twice on NPR’s “Marian
McPartland’s Piano Jazz”. As her renown spread to the international
scene, feature articles and reviews on Dena were published in the New
York Times, Downbeat, Jazz Times, LA Times, Seattle Times, Jazz Is,
France’s Jazz Hot, Italy’s Ancona, and several others.
Catch Dena and her trio September 1st at Steamers
located at
138 W. Commonwealth Fullerton, CA Phone: 714 871-8800. |
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 Saturday, 22 November 2008
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