Belinda Underwood © Andrea Canter

With sultry, hypnotic vocals and frank, emotional original lyrics, Belinda Underwood offers an alternative to some of today's "cooler" jazz vocalists. Her voice draws you in with unfiltered feelings and subtle hints of human frailty. She says that her CD, Underwood Uncurling describes aspects of the previous three years of her life through three different recording sessions. "I feel like some sort of plant that is opening itself slowly as it grows. The songs on the album reflect my unfolding as an artist and as a person."

Belinda Underwood © Andrea Canter

After a childhood of violin lessons, harp lessons, orchestras and choirs, music became her choice when she fell in love with the upright bass at age sixteen. In high school she traveled as a bass player (on scholarship) to Australia with the Monterey Jazz Festival Honor Band, and in college she played and traveled with the UC Berkeley Wednesday Band. Singing professionally didn't occur to her until years later when she was playing the bass at the Jazz School in Berkeley. "It was hard for me sometimes, to translate my musical thoughts onto the bass during improvisation. There were lines in my head but my fingers couldn't find them fast enough, and rather than get frustrated during practice, I would just SING the bass solo "

Benny Green

After high school, Green moved to the West Coast and freelanced around the San Francisco Bay Area, gaining experience working as a sideman. But it was after his return to New York in the spring of 1982 that Green's career took a sharp upward turn. Benefiting from studies with Walter Bishop Jr., he joined Betty Carter's band in April 1983 and began a four-year stint of performing, recording and learning with jazz's most respected vocalist. The piano chair in Art Blakey's prestigious Jazz Messengers followed, as well as a year with the Freddie Hubbard Quintet in 1989. Green joined Ray Brown's Trio in 1992 and was with it un Brown's death.

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