IMN : Updates for Becca Stevens

Confirmed Tourdates As Of April 11th, 2013

IMN

June 19th, 2013: The Abbey San Diego, CA USA [Becca Stevens & The Declassified Quartet]
June 21st, 2013: The Valenti Estate Rancho Santa Fe, CA USA [Becca Stevens & The Declassified Quartet]
July 11th, 2013: Royal Theatre Copenhagen, Denmark [Becca Stevens Band]
July 12th, 2013: North Sea Jazz Club Amsterdam, Netherlands [Tillery featuring Rebecca Martin, Gretchen Parlatto and Becca Stevens]
July 13th, 2013: Yenisei Stage, North Sea Jazz Festival Rotterdam, Netherlands [Becca Stevens Band (set 1)]
July 13th, 2013: Yenisei Stage, North Sea Jazz Festival Rotterdam, Netherlands [Tillery featuring Rebecca Martin, Gretchen Parlatto and Becca Stevens (set 2)]

Becca Stevens Band "pure pleasure from start to finish"

IMN

March 8th, 2013

from londonjazznews.com

Review: Becca Stevens Band at Pizza Express

This was a great gig. And Band on the Wall, Manchester, tonight, the final leg of an extensive European tour, will be spectacular. One person wrote on Twitter last night: “Becca Stevens gig was totally incredible. one of the tightest bands I’ve ever seen.” Seeing a band which has just developed the confidence of its individual sound, tried and tested its new songs on the road is very special. Becca Stevens, with Liam Robinson (piano accordion,vocals, smart patter), Chris Tordini (bass, vocals), Jordan Perlson (drums) are a totally convincing, seamlessly organized unit.

To read the full article click here

Becca Stevens: Jazz opened my voice

IMN

March 5th, 2013

from vimeo.com/louisianachannel

Becca Stevens: Jazz opened my voice from Louisiana Channel on Vimeo.

Interview with American singer Becca Stevens, who has been compared to Joni Mitchell by the New York Times. “I like a lot of freedom of expression, and then I also like to not be tied down to one particular thing” she says about her musical approach.

New York based Becca Stevens is a jazz, pop, and folk singer, guitarist and composer, who grew up in North Carolina in an exceptionally playful musical environment. In this interview Stevens talks about her influences and development as an artist. Both Stevens parents were musicians who involved their children in performing musicals and operas, composed by Stevens’ father: “When I was ten I was in a year long off Broadway tour of The Secret Garden.” Stevens explains.

To read the rest of the article click here

Becca Stevens Q&A

IMN

March 4th, 2013

from telegraph.co.uk

Becca Stevens Q&A
New York based singer-songwriter Becca Stevens talks about her musical influences ahead of her UK tour.

New York based singer-songwriter Becca Stevens has her roots in the folk music tradition of North Carolina. She sings and plays guitar, ukulele and charango. She finds — one US reviewer wrote — “a sweet spot where jazz phrasing and improvisation meet classic acoustic folk harmonic structure and indie rock panache”.

She is rounding off a European tour with two UK dates with her regular, tight, close-harmonising band — 4th March at Pizza Express in London and 5th March at Band on the Wall in Manchester. This is just her second visit to the UK as bandleader and she was talking to Leeds-based trumpeter Kim Macari.

To read the full article click here

"Jazz opened my voice"

IMN

February 28th, 2013

from channel.louisiana.dk/

To watch the video click here

The 10 Best Jazz Shows in NYC this week

IMN

January 3rd, 2013

3 IMN Artist’s are featuring in the Village Voice’s 10 Best Jazz Shows to see this week.

Becca Stevens Band
Becca Stevens is not really a jazz singer, but she sings with jazz musicians and makes music that sounds improvised at points. On her latest album, Weightless, she draws from Appalachian music, folk and whatever else suits her taste, which is good and capacious. The Becca Stevens Band plays Shapeshifter Lab — a venue name befitting Stevens’s sensibility — on January 5, 10, 24 and 31.

Kurt Elling
Kurt Elling’s got a big, powerful baritone voice that is best heard within the intimate confines of a jazz or supper club. He’ll be at Birdland January 8-12, singing songs from his Grammy-nominated new album, 1619 Broadway: The Brill Building Project, which pays homage to a slew of great American songwriters: from Carole King to Burt Bacharach to Duke Ellington.

Anat Cohen and Bruce Barth
Anat Cohen, who plays clarinet and saxophone, and Bruce Barth, a pianist, have similar musical sensibilities. They’re lyrical and sensitive soloists, and they know how to use blues language without sounding glib. They can pack a lot of power into a seemingly modest phrase. See them in action at the Players Club on January 16.

Becca Stevens releases video cover of Usher's "You Make Me Wanna"

IMN

December 20th, 2012

For those of you who have been to a more recent live show, you may have seen the Becca Stevens Band play Usher’s “You Make Me Wanna.” For everyone else, here is a beautifully shot live video of it.

Becca Stevens - Effortlessly Charming, A Treasure

IMN

December 12th, 2012

From Jazz Times

Weightless (Sunnyside, 2011)
Becca Stevens Band
By Kurt Elling for JazzTimes

Stevens is one of the current crop of highly educated young musicians. The writing and arranging on this recording show a level of contrapuntal accomplishment that could only have come from a long engagement with theory. Stevens’ lyrics seem similarly constructed, and are well tailored to her dense melodies. The combination creates a mathematical thicket that could make a listener tense up from concentration, if it weren’t presented with such a relaxed and graceful vocal technique. Stevens is a preternaturally precise vocalist, and ultimately it is her natural and abundant youthful energy as a singer that makes the success of such complicated arrangements possible. Moreover, her lyrics flower in substance with vivid images and knowing messages. Stevens is effortlessly charming in her stage demeanor and lights up like a firefly in performance. She is a treasure.

Read the full article here

Becca Stevens Draws You In

IMN

November 7th, 2012

jazzspeaks.org

Simply put, the music of Becca Stevens draws you in. It is, in the words of The New York Times, “impressively absorbing” from the first note, a captivating marriage of “big voice and no-bull emotional delivery” (The Boston Phoenix) and rhythmically invigorating acoustic guitar (and a host of related instruments).

Born and raised in North Carolina, Becca has been honing her craft as long as she can remember. Her father and mother are both musicians, and Becca started singing in the family band, the Tune Mammals, at the tender age of two. “My parents are both working musicians and performers,” Becca says. “The first sounds I heard in the delivery room were my dad playing an Irish slip jig on the fiddle. The tune was ‘The Kid on the Mountain’; I still cry when I hear it.” Childhood was a blur of singing, acting, and dancing, and a formative period in which the artist absorbed some of the most pronounced elements of her sound: the traditions of jazz and classical guitar, and folk music of North Carolina. Becca adds, “I grew up with the sounds of music and composing and singing and rehearsing around me all the time, so it was always a very natural thing for me.”

To read the full article click here

The wonderful, dark children’s music on “My Life is Bold”

IMN

October 12th, 2012

from klaskeymusic.wordpress.com

Kids Tapping at My Glass: The wonderful, dark children’s music on “My Life is Bold”
By: Kevin Laskey

What makes a particular book a work of children’s literature? Is it the subject matter? The writing style? The ages of the protagonists? For every “Poky Little Puppy” or “Cat in the Hat” that unquestionably seems to fit the characterization of children’s literature, there’s an “Alice in Wonderland” where the main character wanders alone through a mysterious land, meeting hookah-smoking caterpillars on the way. While most American adults believe that works of children’s literature never deal with dark and difficult issues like illness, injustice, and mortality,¹ many of the best-known works of children’s fiction do not shy away from them. Sara Crewe of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s A Little Princess must overcome the death of her beloved father and a descent into poverty to retain her inner goodness. Death and struggle against inner demons constantly hang over every moment of the Harry Potter series, and then there is the Hunger Games (nuff said about that one).

To read the full article click here

Q&A with Becca Stevens

IMN

October 6th, 2012

fredericknewspost.com

Q&A with Becca Stevens
Frontwoman of progressive folk pop quartet, the Becca Stevens Band
By: Katie Crowe

I read on your website that you grew up in Winston-Salem, N.C., in a very musical family. Tell me about your very first musical experiences.

My mom and dad are both singers, and my dad is also a composer. I was the last child of three, and by the time I was born they already had a family band, so I was literally born into it. The band was called The Tune Mammals, and we would travel around to perform my dad’s songs that he wrote, sort of like folky children’s songs, at festivals and schools. I think I was performing by the time I was 2, and we made a recording when I was 2 as well.

As a family, we did a lot of musicals. We did “A Christmas Carol” every year and “The Sound of Music” … . My mom was getting her master’s in opera … and she and I got more and more serious about it (theater). When I was 10, my mom and I got into a national tour of “The Secret Garden.”

That was sort of a transitional moment for me. When I got back I was still interested in theater, but definitely by the time I went to high school, I started to realize for me, it was more about music, composing and singing, and not so much about the theatrical side of the arts.

To read the full interview click here

Labels don’t work for not-so-secret group

IMN

September 27th, 2012

from gazette.net

Labels don’t work for not-so-secret group
By: Will C. Franklin

It wasn’t too long ago The New York Times called the Becca Stevens Band a “best-kept secret” after the release of the band’s “Weightless” CD.

For Stevens, whose melodic voice could soothe the most savage of beasts, that simply isn’t good enough.

“I don’t wish to be kept a secret,” Stevens says. “I want my music to reach as many people as it can and make them happy.”

Different websites have labeled the band, which performs at the Weinberg Center for the Arts on Oct. 4, as folk, indie, blues, pop — the list goes on. Stevens, who prefers the term “pop-infused jazz folk,” gets her singing and songwriting talents naturally.

To read the full article click here

‎HOME - Gift of Music

IMN

September 11th, 2012

‎“HOME – Gift of Music is an eight-song manifesto of hope from some of today’s most innovative musicians in jazz and beyond, including Gretchen Parlato, Doug Wamble, Becca Stevens, Alan Hampton, John Ellis and Claudia Acuña. Released today on Sunnyside Records, the singer-songwriter leaning repertoire captures the huge emotive capacity of the artists, with an intimacy as personal as a love letter. All album proceeds donated to Habitat for Humanity Japan.

To read more about the project click here

Review: Home - Gift of Music, "beautiful and riveting melodies"

IMN

September 9th, 2012

from sandiegocountynews.com

HOME-GIFT OF MUSIC’ CD Dedicated to the Survivals of 2011 Japan Earthquake/Tsunami and Reminds Us of Our Common Humanity
By: Danny R. Johnson

John Ellis, Becca Stevens, and Sachal Vasandani, joins the songwriting credits by adding beautiful and riveting melodies which tears at the heart of what this album is all about. Coming Home, Home, and Doves are songs thankfully without the gloss, but turns out to be durable, meaningful and they connect us to the one humanity we should be striving to become. The inspirational lift of these three particular songs contains lyrics which are free from their potential narcissism, and coveys a universal message that we are saving our own lives when we help others in need.

To read the full article click here

Becca Stevens Band: A Review and Interview

IMN

July 9th, 2012

from torontojazz.com

The Becca Stevens Band: A Review and Interview – June 30th, 2012 at The Horseshoe Tavern
By: Marika Galea

The Becca Stevens Band (sans accordionist Liam Robinson) played an intimate show at The Horseshoe Tavern Saturday night that pleased seasoned fans and new listeners alike.

The set included original songs from her two records, Tea Bye Sea and Weightless, as well as some covers and new material. Her cover of Canadian songwriter Joni Mitchell’s “Help Me” was a crowd-pleaser on the eve of Canada Day.

Stevens switched seamlessly between ukulele, guitar, and charango while delivering her lyrics. Drummer Jordan Perlson experimented with various textures through his use of brushes, sticks, various shakers and cajón as bassist Chris Tordini supported the music with warm, resonant bass notes and back-up vocals.

The acoustic trio, though lightly amplified, was relatively quiet, engaging the audience in an aural experience that proved that less really is more. The room was almost silent as the band drew the complete attention of both seated couples and university students gathered closer to the stage.

“I’ll Notice” was an example of one of my favourite things about Stevens’ vocal style – every note has a direction and purpose, whether decaying or growing. “One and Five” exemplified Stevens’ command of both jazz and popular harmony, making the name of the tune somewhat humorous. Tordini shone on “Canyon Dust” as he played arco harmonics and struck the centre of his bass to achieve a sound that blended perfectly with Perlson’s cajón.

The highlight of the night was Stevens’ cover of The Smiths’ “There Is A Light That Never Goes Out”, featuring a haunting introductory vocal line (played by the accordion on Weightless). Stevens’ singer-songwriter soul shone through her interpretation of the pop-like chorus. Perlson got a great bassy tone out of the cajón that blended perfectly with Tordini’s warm sound. On the outro, Stevens and Tordini delivered an intricate and percussive a cappella vocal duo.

I had the opportunity to speak with Becca (who happily greeted listeners after her Horseshoe set) prior to the festival about her music, her band, and life in Brooklyn. Snippets of our conversation are below.

To read the interview click here

Rebecca Stevens’ presence captured on Fourth Stage

IMN

June 29th, 2012

from ottawacitizen.com

Jazzfest Review: Rebecca Stevens’ presence captured on Fourth Stage
By: Patrick Langston

Slotting this jazz/pop/folk outfit into the Fourth Stage was a happy move. The room has its acoustic issues but it’s an intimate space, and it’s hard to imagine North Carolina-born singer/songwriter/guitarist Rebecca Stevens and her crackerjack company — accordion player, bassist and drummer — in anything bigger.

Stevens’ music has an urgent quality but she herself is given to smiling frequently during songs, clearly delighted with the music’s direction and the evident appreciation of her nearby audience.

“If you can’t find something to be happy about, dream of the prelude to a smile,” she sings in Reminder, a tune that made her giggle a bit at the end.

To read the full article click here