Dee might earn SJO an A+
The Spokane Jazz Orchestra is bringing a Christmas present to the Bing Crosby Theater on Saturday: vocalist Dee Daniels.
Daniels is one of the premier jazz singers in North America and is especially beloved here in the Northwest. She lives in Vancouver, B.C., and is active all over the region – as well as around the world.
And she is a particularly fitting choice for this “Holiday in Jazz” concert, with its many familiar tunes.
“These are songs that everybody has heard a number of times, but she makes them sound fresh and exciting,” said Dan Keberle, the SJO music director. “You’ve heard ‘Silver Bells’ a hundred times, but you’ve never heard her do it.”
Why is Daniels so suited to this material?
“Dee sings a song from the heart,” said Keberle. “She sings with a lot of emotion; her voice is an instrument with a wonderful range. It’s a big, dark deep voice, and she brings her own expression.”
She’ll sing a range of Christmas songs, from “O Holy Night” to “Santa Claus is Coming to Town.” She’ll also put some nonholiday music in the mix, including arrangements of “Battle Hymn of the Republic” and Gershwin’s “They Can’t Take That Away From Me.”
Daniels, a native of Oakland, was a guest with the SJO in 2001 at the grand reopening of the Lewis and Clark High School Auditorium. Since then, she has made regular appearances at the Lionel Hampton International Jazz Festival at the University of Idaho in Moscow.
She does plenty of work in the Northwest but has also sung in the Netherlands with Sarah Vaughan and with Joe Williams in Germany.
“She’s an important figure in jazz,” said Keberle. “We’re lucky she lives out here.”
The first half of the show will feature the SJO, under Keberle’s direction, performing a range of instrumental holiday numbers. They’ll do an arrangement of “Silent Night,” turning that well-loved tune into a “slow, swinging ballad,” said Keberle.
They also will do a Thad Jones number titled “A Child is Born,” and a Duke Ellington adaptation of a classical piece – but not, as in years past, the “Nutcracker Suite.”
This time, it’s the Ellington-Strayhorn version of “Hall of the Mountain King,” adapted from Grieg’s “Peer Gynt Suite.”