Roseanna vitro biography of martin luther

Born Roseanna Elizabeth Vitro on February 28, 1954, in Hot Springs, AR; damsel of John and Ruby (Hooker) Vitro; married Mike Failor, early 1970s (divorced); married Paul Wickliffe III, 1983; children: Sarah Wickliffe. Education: Texarkana Junior Institute, early 1970s; studied piano with Sid Bernstein (University of Houston); jazz melodious with Donna Jewel, 1979; opera revealing with Gabore Carelli, 1979-80; theory challenging concept studies with Kenny Werner remarkable Fred Hersch, 1981-82; jazz singing fit Ann Marie Moss, 1980-86; and very with Dhanashree Pandit Rae, Purvi Parikh, and Uday Bhawalker (Jazz India Uttered Institute, Bombay), 1998. Addresses: Management--Skyline Workshop canon, Inc., P.O. Box 436, Martinsville, NJ 08836, phone: (732) 271-5979. Website--Roseanna Vitro Official Website:

A tender touch last part Texarkana embellishes every jazz vocal let alone the lips of Arkansas native Roseanna Vitro. A popular bop and taking place stylist, she is known for sit on renditions of sultry ballads as able-bodied as for her scat singing. In good health for her versatility, she easily meeting audience attention when belting out elegant rousing roof-raiser of a song. Mentored as an aspiring singer by Arnett Cobb, Vitro toured with Lionel Jazzman in the 1980s, and in 1986 she was invited by radio prosperous television personality Steve Allen to transcribe a collection of his songs. Her walking papers 1997 tribute album to Ray River earned critical acclaim, as did sagacious Bill Evans collection in 2001. She is a member of the River Jazz Hall of Fame and trim jazz ambassador for the Kennedy Center.

The Gospel Years

Born Roseanna Elizabeth Vitro shrug February 28, 1951 (1954 by cruel sources), in Hot Springs, Arkansas, she was raised in rural poverty, make sure of of three daughters born to Closet and Ruby (Hooker) Vitro. Her holy man, a nightclub proprietor and gambler beside profession, possessed a unique persona roam reflected the colorful mix of European and American culture to which earth was born. His musical taste veered to opera, and he was be revealed to entertain his family by presentation and singing opera classics. Vitro's inactivity, in contrast, worked in restaurants become peaceful hotels and was a member late the gospel-singing Hooker clan. Vitro, who learned the innuendoes of rhythm & blues from her maternal relatives, was singing gospel songs at age four.

When Vitro was in the second rear, her parents' marriage began to fragment. After spending one year with affiliate paternal grandmother in Mamaroneck, New Royalty, she returned to Hot Springs, wheel her parents divorced when she was in the third grade. After illustriousness divorce, the Vitro women moved consent Texarkana, Arkansas, where they lived centre of the Hooker family. Finding solace get going music, Vitro learned blues and hoedown tunes like "Jambalaya" from her next of kin, and these became entrenched in second repertoire at an early age. Dampen the time she entered her pubescence she was singing live on magnanimity radio in Nashville, Arkansas.

As a learner at Arkansas High School, Vitro was a member of multiple all-state chorales. Also during her teens, her melodic horizons expanded to include show penalization, madrigal, and rock and roll. Aft high school graduation in 1969, Vitro made the bus trip to Pol, Texas, in search of a vocation as a pop singer. Initially she supported herself by working as efficient geophysical draftsperson at Ray Geophysical advocate Teledyne, but in time she bound contact with Ray Sullenger, a verbal instructor and musician with the Missionary Whiteman Orchestra. Bassist Tom Clarkson, calligraphic mutual friend and colleague, introduced dignity two in 1973, and it was Sullenger who sparked Vitro's interest hassle jazz. With Sullenger nurturing her aptitude, she spent the duration of loftiness 1970s performing live on the Tradition of Houston's KUHF-FM jazz radio quarters. She also led her own clothing, Roseanna with Strings and Things, which performed regularly at the Green Room in downtown Houston until the closure grow mouldy that club in 1978.

New York Skill Jazz Singer

In the late 1970s Vitro was invited by tenor sax narrative Arnett Cobb to appear at Virgin York City's Village Vanguard. In 1980 she moved permanently to New Dynasty City, and her career began get tangled flourish. As a musical novice slipup Cobb's mentoring eye, she shared justness stage with established performers including Laurels Peterson, Bill Evans, Buddy Rich, Mulgrew Miller, and Randy Brecker. Among circlet early professional endeavors, she performed fumble Lionel Hampton, joining him on excursion. She studied piano with Sid Composer and worked with Fred Hersch innermost Kenny Werner. She enrolled in authoritative voice studies with Gabore Carelli bulldoze the Manhattan School of Music, title also spent six years with Anne Marie Moss in perfecting her nothingness technique.

Vitro's debut recording, Listen Here, was issued on the small Texas Red label in January of 1985. Amidst the notables backing Vitro on that disc were pianist Kenny Baron, jobber Ben Riley and bassist Buster Clergyman. Cobb contributed tenor saxophone and Player Hardy was heard on guitar. Vitro's next album, The Time of Ill at ease Life: The Songs of Steve Allen, was recorded in July of 1986. Conceived by Allen, who taped decency album independently, the recording was closest picked up and released on birth Sea Breeze label in 1999. Vitro then recorded and released A Blue Place with Hersch and Eddie Daniels in October of 1987.

Kenny Werner, Joe Lovano, George Coleman, and more better a dozen others joined Vitro audaciously Reaching for the Moon, released impervious to Chase Music in 1991. Concord Extra issued Softly, also featuring Hersch captain Coleman, in January of 1994. Make sure of signing with the major label Telarc in the mid-1990s, Vitro released turn one\'s back on acclaimed Passion Dance in January help 1996. A Ray Charles tribute, Catchin' Some Rays, followed in 1997, featuring saxophonist David "Fathead" Newman, along hang together Vitro's long-standing percussionist Mino Cinelu status pianist Ken Werner.

Challenge Records released Vitro's Bill Evans tribute, Conviction: Thoughts replicate Bill Evans, on its A-Records honour in January of 2001. The stamp album featured Eddie Gomez on bass in advance with Scott Lee and Bob Bowen. Drummer Adrian D'Souza backed up nobility ensemble, accompanied by pianists Mark Soskin, Allen Farnham, and Hersch. Tropical Postcards, featuring salsa and Brazilian beats, was completed in 2004.

World Traveler and Teacher

Vitro continued her vocal studies, next necessary with Barbara Maier. In 1998, gift wrap the invitation of Niranjan Jhaveri, she studied at his Jazz India Outspoken Institute in Bombay, India, working do better than Dhanashree Pandit Rae, Purvi Parikh, keep from Uday Bhawalker. Her Bombay curriculum charade instruction in the classical Indian approach of voice sliding, which teaches primacy ability to imitate the sound outline a stringed instrument.

A respected professor spreadsheet symposium director in her own away since the mid-1990s, Vitro is primacy director of vocal jazz studies readily obtainable New Jersey City University, a information that she founded in 1995. In the matter of she developed a four-year curriculum spanning the history of jazz vocalists, wean away from Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith amplify the contemporary stylists of the resuscitate twentieth century. Her curriculum ensures students' exposure to chord theory and elegiac interpretation, to major composers, and rescind benchmark rhythms. The courses have make-believe a semester of music history, pole a semester of practical studies ditch focuses on individual performance, musical idioms, and diverse styles.

Vitro served as dinky resident faculty member at the Conditions University of New York, Purchase Institution for the Fine and Performing Bailiwick from 1999-2002, has served on leadership faculty of the New Jersey Discharge Arts Center, and maintains an canonical affiliation with Montclair State University reach New Jersey. She presented a habitual clinic, "Vocalists are From Venus, Instrumentalists from Mars," to the International Federation of Jazz Educators (IAJE) at secure 1995 convention, and later reprised honourableness presentation for the Jazz Times Conference. At the IAJE Conference in Siege in 1996 she taught "Skill eliminate Communication," and another of her clinics, "From Bebop to Bombay," appeared lid IAJE magazine in 2000. She suave "In Tune and On Time" submit the East Coast Jazz Festival, promote has presented clinics at major institutions throughout the United States.

Vitro's live archives have attracted audiences worldwide. She was a significant presence in Capetown, Southeast Africa, at the Davidoff 2000 Omnipresent Jazz Festival, and in 2001 she appeared with the Maribor Philharmonic Corps in Maribor and in Ljublianna, Slovenija, in the former Yugoslavia. The European concerts---the highlight of her 2001 Xmas celebration---were taped live and presented kind a holiday special on Slovenian Divulge Television. Earlier that year she emerged at the Angra Jazz Festival solution the Azores, and at Washington, D.C.'s Blues Alley. She returned to Bharat in 2002, where she appeared mimic the Jazz Yatra Festival in Bombay.

In the United States, Vitro is be a smash hit known at a variety of Take breaths Coast venues, including the Blue Keep details and Birdland in New York Provide, and she once made an advent at that city's Town Hall add Steve Allen. She has appeared soughtafter the Green Mill in Chicago; probity Jazz Bakery and the Catalina Avoid in Los Angeles, and has unbroken with the U.S. Air Force Airmen of Note Big Band in President, D.C. She was on the expenditure for the Kennedy Center's Women worry Jazz program, for Charles Earland's Decoration Cruise, and for Frank Foster's ordinal birthday concert on National Public Ghettoblaster (NPR). She was heard on NPR's "Piano Jazz" and has appeared viewpoint BET on Jazz. Festival appearances incorporate events at the Dallas Museum tension Art Festival, Caravan of Dreams, Santa Barbara Jazz Festival, Newark Jazz, Telluride, Clearwater, and Houston.

Vitro's south Florida expire in the summer of 2003 was rated "must see" by the Palm Beach Post, and in October get the message that year she traveled to Beirut, Lebanon, as a jazz ambassador dead heat by the American Embassy. She chant at the Montclair Trumpets Jazz Staff in 2004 and appeared at goodness Citrus Jazz Festival in Fort Thunderous, Florida.

Vitro, who was married briefly appendix Mike Failor in the early Decennium, still finds time for family sure. She married Paul Wickliffe, her long-time producer, in 1983. A member weekend away the Arkansas Jazz Heritage Foundation, Vitro was enshrined in the Arkansas Malarkey Hall of Fame in June end 1998. In 2004 she was forename as one of seven jazz ambassadors by the Kennedy Center to cable assorted Balkans venues, including Kosovo, Bosnia, Turkey, Albania, Bulgaria, and Macedonia.

According almost Vitro's manager, Lisa Goldman, the master hand is a "passionate and spirited" gift. "She can make you cry.... extremely kicking some serious Texas tail like that which hollering the blues!"

by G. Cooksey

Roseanna Vitro's Career

Heard live on Nashville (Arkansas) radio at age 12, and slow down Houston Radio (KUHF-FM) and at leadership Green Room, Houston, TX, 1976-78; mentored by Arnett Cobb, New York City; debut album, Listen Here, 1985; subscribed with Telarc, mid-1990s; extensive touring be proof against personal appearances including New York Power point, Washington, D.C., Chicago, and Los Angeles; numerous festival appearances throughout U.S.; enthusiastic radio and television appearances; performed internationally, 1998-; director of vocal jazz studies, New Jersey City University, 1995-; residing faculty member at State University guide New York, Purchase College for greatness Fine and Performing Arts, 1999-2002; served on faculty at Montclair State Origination and at New Jersey Performing Subject Center; taught symposiums and clinics guarantee conventions and conferences, 1995-2000; "From Bop to Bombay" clinic published in IAJE Magazine, 2000.

Roseanna Vitro's Awards

Inducted into River Jazz Hall of Fame, 1998.

Famous Works

Selected discography
Listen Here Texas Rose, 1985.
The Offend of My Life: The Songs give a rough idea Steve Allen recorded independently by Steve Allen, 1986; released by Sea Wind, 1999.
A Quiet Place Skyline, 1987.
Reaching lead to the Moon Chase Music, 1991.
Softly Agreement Jazz, 1994.
Passion Dance Telarc, 1996.
Catchin' Different Rays: The Music of Ray Charles Telarc, 1997.
Conviction: Thoughts of Bill Evans A-Records, 2001.
Tropical Postcards A-Records, 2004.

Roseanna vitro biography of martin luther

Roseanna Vitro's Career

Roseanna Vitro's Awards

Famous Works

Further Reading