Kellye Gray - Blue And Pink, The Pink Songs

Styles: Vocal
Year: 2003
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 65:49
Size: 151,3 MB
Art: Front

( 7:49)  1. Honeysuckle Rose
(11:28)  2. Well You Needn't
( 6:47)  3. Speak No Evil
( 5:30)  4. Do Nothing
( 8:58)  5. Footprints
( 8:08)  6. Blue Skies
( 6:22)  7. Billie's Bounce
(10:43)  8. Well You Needn't (Bonus Track)

The Pink Songs are the be-bop, swings and out tunes from the Blue and Pink concert recordings. They were recorded in February 2002 in Houston, Texas at Ovations Nite Spot. Kellye Gray has been a jazz recording artist since 1990. Her first disc, Standards In Gray (Justice Records) sold an impressive 60,000 plus CD's. Standards and her second recording, Tomato Kiss (Proteus) charted in the top 20 of the Gavin Report. “Powerful”, “imaginative”, “emotionally uplifting” are some of the adjectives critics use to describe the talents of singer Kellye Gray. Most importantly, Kellye is that breed of jazz singer who has developed a sound that is truly their own. Her style is post-modernist and she uses her voice like an instrument within the ensemble. She possesses what critics like to call  “musicianly chops”. Singing and performing since the age of five, Kellye caught the "bug" very early on in life. She has studied voice, speech, acting and music for over 20 years in Texas, New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles. She has released four CDs as a solo artist and has appeared on many others as a featured vocalist or as part of a compilation. 

Gray, a native Texan, began her career in the most unlikely of places. She cut her teeth up and down Austin’s own Sixth Street during the 1980’s where the music was more rock and roll and covers than be-bop and swing. On a Kellye Gray date back then it was not unusual to hear Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, a Madonna or Prince cover all in the same set. But, creative choices and great taste allowed “the KGB (the Kellye Gray Band)” to attract not only a college crowd but also a more sophisticated crowd of up-and-coming baby-boomers. The group quickly became a frequent headliner at many of Austin’s festivals, like Aqua Fest and Old Pecan Street Festival. Kellye was recognized as one of the Austin Chronicle’s favorite singers and jazz groups several years in a row.  Kellye moved to Houston in 1987 performing nightly at the Blue Moon. 

There she developed a strong following that attracted the fledgling Justice Records to her door. She recorded Standards In Gray (Justice Records) in 1989 and the disc soared to the top of the Gavin Report as well as other jazz charts. She was named a member of the Texas Jazz Heritage Society, a group founded by the late Arnett Cobb. More...https://store.cdbaby.com/cd/kellyegray2

Blue And Pink, The Pink Songs

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Kellye Gray - And, They Call Us Cowboys

Size: 100,5 MB
Time: 42:14
File: MP3 @ 320K/s
Released: 2013
Styles: Crossover Jazz, Alt. Country/Pop
Art: Front

01. Help Me Make It Through The Night (4:01)
02. In The Ghetto (4:15)
03. If I Needed You (4:03)
04. Dang Me (4:36)
05. Deep In The West (5:15)
06. Sailing (5:24)
07. Only The Lonely (4:09)
08. Always On My Mind (6:47)
09. Night's Lullaby (3:40)

Ever wondered what would happen if a fearless woman grabbed hold of a bunch of classic country-type songs and jazzed 'em up? Well, And They Call Us Cowboys answers that curiosity, starting off with a breezy version of Kristofferson's Help Me Make It through the Night, a cut that has samba, lite jazz, mellow rock, and soul. The real basis for the CD is to pay attention to Texas musicians, of which Gray is one, as well as a couple almost-Texans who dug the groove and knew the strut.

Gray's intent is clearly shown in her take on Mac Davis' In the Ghetto, which comes across first as a reproving Plains mom haranguing one and all to hush the hell up and give a damn about someone else for a change…just before she turns the number into an Ella Fitzgerald jazz-scat. Roger Miller's immortal Dang Me gets the Ben Sidran treatment so thoroughly that it's damn near unrecognizable…except when you suddenly hafta blurt out "Yow! That's waaaaay the hell cool!" It also reminds the attentive that Miller had a jazzy underside in a bunch of his perkier stuff. Then there's the just as mutated take on Christopher Cross' Sailing, as though Betty Davis (Miles' wife, not the queen bitch actress) and Nina Simone decided to team up in one voice with a starry Mark Egany bass (Chris Maresh) ambientalizing the atmosphere in spare tonal poetics. Trust me, you'll never again hear this song, my favorite here, done so coolly and so outrageously at the same time. Gray must have extra wrinkles in her brain just to be able to think that way.

Orbison's Only the Lonely comes through in Marvin Gaye Trouble Man waves, a nightclub number in low lights where you can almost hear the clinking of wine glasses and the crowd's digging-it murmur. If you want to know what's really meant by interpretation, then you have to get this disc 'cause, frankly, I can't remember the last time I heard a set of tunes this radically reworked while remaining faithful to the intent and flavor of the originals. You just know that more than one of the composers here is going to hear Cowboys and think "Damn! I sure wish I'd written it THAT way!"

And, They Call Us Cowboys

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Kellye Gray - Purple Gray

Styles: Vocal
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 42:06
Size: 97,1 MB
Art: Front

(5:58) 1. All the Critics Love U in New York
(4:16) 2. I Would Die 4 U
(5:16) 3. Kiss
(5:38) 4. Gotta Broken Heart Again
(4:53) 5. How Come U Don't Call Me Anymore
(5:39) 6. Anotherloverholenyohead
(5:03) 7. Nothing Compares 2 U
(5:20) 8. The Beautiful Ones

With her stunning musicality and warm, enveloping voice, Texas native Kellye Gray is one of the most accomplished jazz vocalists on the national scene. Gray’s profile continues to grow by leaps and bounds, recording over half-dozen albums as a leader and logging performances nationally and internationally at world-class venues and festivals including Lincoln Center, the Spoleto Festival, Yoshi's, SFJAZZ. Kellye has been honored to share the stage with legends Ray Charles, Dizzy Gillespie, Etta James, to name a few.

Her debut release, Standards In Gray (Justice Records) broke her onto mainstream radio in 1990 landing the fledgling, indie release into the top twenty. Her sound, crafted over years of live performance, comes from her belief that the voice is an instrument. "The real deal", says KCSM's Alisa Clancy. Gray began songwriting by 17. Self-taught on guitar she produced one-woman shows in art galleries to present her original compositions. By 19 years old she was working as a professional improvisational comic actor. Her skills landed her in the prized Stage Manager position where she learned the art of foley sound. She was using the voice in ways other than singing doing sound effects.

By 12 her parents were dragging her to blues bars and strip clubs in Dallas' Deep Ellum district or to Gulf Coast roadhouses where they would dance to unknown acts like Clifton Chenier and B.B. King. You hear the blues and rhythm at the core of every note Gray sings. It would be her dad's record collection that 'accidentally' taught her about jazz. She hung upstairs in her room with Zepplin and the Doors, Aretha and James Brown while her parents hung downstairs with Monk, Sarah and MJQ. It would be her sleepless nights that had her downstairs digging through the stacks in the living room, looking for something to help her sleep. It wouldn't be until she was 27 years old that those nights of sub-conscious jazz chords would be revealed onstage in her primal journey through her first scat solo.

Being a child of the 60's, television and radio were her gods. Television exposed her to the vaudevillian performers, comics, singers, musicians, dancers and entertainers becoming mentors and guides. She is a natural born entertainer. Rendering (Grr8 Records) the latest release is a double-disc CD package celebrating the 25th Anniversary of Gray's career alongside her new ownership rights to her debut recording, Standards in Gray (Grr8 Records). She includes a newly remastered Standards inside the Rendering package to illustrate her journey along the career highway. Rendering was recorded live inside a recording booth in front of an audience of 30. One long concert. No rehearsals. No retakes. Open mics. No headphones. A challenge for any singer, but Gray raises the bar walking the edge of improvisation in total.

All About Jazz gushes, “On Standards in Gray she emerges fully formed and precocious, with the most accomplished chops, vocal, vocalese, and scat. She is the complete package, from beginning to end. What emerges on Rendering is the only thing that can maturity, poise, and accomplishment. It is nothing short of a divine revelation to listen to the former after the latter.” http://kellyegray.com/bio

"Simply the most exciting singer to debut" says USA Today

"This is a jazz singer of rare air.” says the International Music Review.

Purple Gray

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Kellye Gray - Rendering

Size: 118,4+117,2 MB
Time: 50:59+50:32
File: MP3 @ 320K/s
Released: 2017
Styles: Jazz Vocals
Art: Front

CD 1:
01. Don't Explain (Live 2015) (5:39)
02. I've Got A Right To Sing The Blues (Live) (4:53)
03. Morning (Live 2015) (4:22)
04. Out Blows Me (Live) (5:08)
05. A Time For Love (Live) (6:16)
06. God You Make Me Wonder (Live) (6:17)
07. How Long Has This Been Going On (Live 2015) (5:21)
08. How Insensitive (Live 2015) (7:16)
09. Good Morning Heartache (Live 2015) (5:45)

CD 2:
01. The Island ( 4:52)
02. All Blues (11:02)
03. Morning ( 3:20)
04. How Long Has This Been Going On ( 5:35)
05. Don't Explain ( 5:07)
06. Since I Fell For You ( 7:12)
07. How Insensitive ( 6:42)
08. Good Morning Heartache ( 6:39)

Jazz vocalist KELLYE GRAY has had a long and rewarding career. A singer with a powerful voice and a nearly four-octave range, she’s toured extensively across the country and around the world, sharing the stage with some of the top names in music. She’s also recorded over seven albums as a leader. Her first recording, Standards in Gray, was released 25 years ago. It received rave reviews and extensive airplay, and it launched a career that remains unabated today.

The album had been out of print for nearly 23 years when the record label that owned the rights gave her ownership of the master. The album had played a seminal role in Gray’s career, and getting ownership of it after so many years made her take stock of her artistic life. That led her to re-record many of the same songs that appeared on that first release. She calls the new album RENDERING, which the dictionary defines as “a depiction or interpretation; work of art or performance that portrays something,” and, indeed, RENDERING is a work of art that portrays Grays’ growth as an artist. She chose to re-release Standards in Gray and package the two CDs together as a kind of snapshot of then and now.

Standards in Gray was recorded over three days at Sugar Hill Studios in Houston, Texas, one of the oldest studios in the country and the purveyor of numerous gold records. It was recorded live to two-track analog tape, in the days before Sibelius and ProTools, giving the album a warm, rich sound, even after transferring it to CD format. For RENDERING, Gray took a very different approach.

Gray, a Texas native who has been living in San Francisco for many years, wanted to go back to her musical family to make this CD. She invited 30 old friends and supporters, including several who participated in her crowdfunding campaign, to join her at Wire Road Studios to record a live performance. She would have liked to bring back all the original musicians, but schedules and other circumstances did not make that possible. She was, however, able to enlist drummer Sebastian Whittaker, who passed away shortly after the concert at a young age, and saxophonist Warren Sneed, a mainstay on the Houston jazz scene, to join her again in the studio. RENDERING also features Pamela York on piano, David Craig on bass, and Andre Hayward on trombone, all Texas-based touring musicians with solid followings.

Rendering CD 1
Rendering CD 2

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