Rachel Z Rocks Jazz Live @ J&R

Flickr slideshow of Rachel Z @ J&R

Unique, fresh jazz pianist Rachel Z, brought her trio, Department of Good and Evil to a remote broadcast of WBGO’s Midday Jazz with Rhonda Hamilton from J&R Music World Jazz Store, 2nd Floor, 23 Park Row, New York, NY. Playing tunes featured on Department Of Good And Evil, accompanied by Maeve Royce on acoustic bass and Bobbie Rae, drums lifted the midday live audience and the local radio broadcast as well as the global internet stream.

In between her soaring renditions of songs culled from the pop idiom, Rhonda Hamilton asked Rachel about her first leanings towards jazz. Rachel said it was hearing Miles Smiles, the Miles Davis album featuring Herbie Hancock’s classical music influenced piano improvasions. Rachel was in High School, studying classical piano and being trained by her parents to follow her mother as an opera singer. Hearing something in Herbie’s playing Rachel focused on Miles Smiles until she understood. When she did, she found she’d been bite by the “jazz bug” and never went back to classical music.

Rachel continues a jazz tradition of using current pop songs as a platform heady explorations of sonic possibilities she finds in the song structure. For her new release, Department Of Good And Evil she devours songs by Death Cab for Cutie, The Church, The Yayas and The Police.

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