Pyeng Threadgill

Pyeng Threadgill is an American born jazz blues singer who studied music on a Mellon fellowship in Brazil, and graduated from Oberlin college. She has been a fixture in New York venues like The Kitchen, Joe's Pub etc, has toured Europe extensively, and moved to Berkeley CA after releasing 2 LPs on the Random Chance label. In her first Random Chance effort 2004's "Sweet Home: The Music Of Robert Johnson" she took some dirt encrusted Robert Johnson tunes and polished them with a laid back moderne jazzy feel that makes 'em shine and glimmer as bright as the platinum platters of contemporaries like Norah Jones. While embraced in the jazz world, and the daughter of jazz composer Henry Threadgill, Pyeng categorizes her music as progressive pop, asserting that jazz was once considered popular music. "I'm just trying to bring jazz in all of its branches back to a popular position, which is where it originated. People who listen to straight ahead Jazz may not listen to the more avant garde improvisation or mainstream Pop and if someone is listening to my music they wind up hearing influences from all of the above. That's when I feel I am succeeding as an artist." Her album "Of The Air", which inclues a cover of the Cure's "Close to Me" was recorded with Berkeley CA based guitarist Shelley Doty and local avant music scene producer Myles Boisen. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.