Amanda Carr

Boston based daughter of a big band vocalist and trumpeter (Nick Capezuto, most known for Herb Pomeroy Band), Amanda Carr is a multi-styled vocalist/pianist that began early on in her teens in the rock and pop genre, but has in recent years focused on fresh interpretations of the Great American Songbook, following in her parent’s musical footsteps. For over three decades she’s performed and recorded both in the U.S. and Italy. Both her and her CD’s have received critical acclaim from a tough bevy of jazz reviewers. Her 2005 recording, TENDER TRAP debuted on the National Jazz Charts at 55 and received 4-stars from All Music Guide. Her follow-up recording in 2007 was a feature story by Nat Hentoff in The Wall Street Journal which catapulted her to global exposure with sales and airplay. She’s also featured in Nat Hentoff’s upcoming Biography, “At the Jazz Band Ball: 60 Years on the Jazz Scene” due out in 2010 (Univ. of California Press) Among her varied performances, she stars in “A Tribute to Peggy Lee and Benny Goodman” a big band show that has travelled to various cities nationwide completing a 30-date 2008-09 touring season. Amanda has been featured with The Artie Shaw Orchestra, Harry James Band and has also appeared with the Glenn Miller Band among her many other guest vocal appearances. In 1998, she headlined at the EuroJazz Festival in Italy along with James Moody and George Mraz, returning the following year to record “Live in San Giorgio” with Trio Martinale. Amanda has composed and performed award-winning music for two PBS documentaries and received an Emmy nomination for “The Story of Golf”, a CBS special narrated by Jim McKay. She’s won awards for her musical contributions to “Boston Red Sox: 100 Years of Baseball History”. In 1999 she was awarded the Videographer Award by the NTA for excellence in Music Composition in addition to her multiple “Telly’s”. She has dozens of T.V. and Radio commercials to her credit and owns and operates a successful recording studio in the Boston area that acts as her Independant record label ,“Original Music Service”. Among her own recordings, her eclectic album credits include the late Dave Guard from the Kingston Trio on his final album “Up & In”, a year long project in the early 1980’s. Since then she has a long list of album credits as both a music composer and a vocalist. Along with 4 other CD releases since 1995, Amanda released big band CD “Common Thread” in October of ‘09, which is the third project with drummer/producer Kenny Hadley. Like their previous effort, SOON, this latest release also soared to #2 on Amazon’s Jazz Bestseller list with a Wall Street Journal endorsement. With distribution and airplay in over a dozen countries, including Japan and the Netherlands, and a growing International fanship, Amanda continues to perform with her own group and is becoming a popular guest vocalist with many other ensembles. Common Thread debuted on the BILLBOARD CHARTS at #32 and features the works of Grammy-winnning arrangers like Bob Freedman and world-class players like trumpeter, Lin Biviano. Amanda is the CEO of the newly formed not for profit organization American Big Band Preservation Society, Inc. which has a mission of preserving and promoting Big Band music through performance and education and acquiring a library of unpublished Big Band arrangements to share with the public. Please visit www.AmericanBigBand.ORG Become a fan of Amanda Carr on facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Amanda-Carr/115155285188994 Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.