A Tribute to Billie Holiday and the Blues | with Mara Kaye & The Mike Sailors Quartet

Thu, Apr 10

Join us for a live taping and listening-room concert for A Tribute to Billie Holiday and the Blues | with Mara Kaye & The Mike Sailors Quartet! Mara Kaye - Vocals Mike Sailors - Trumpet Ross Margitza - Piano Aidan Berg - Bass TBA - Drums About Mara Kaye: Bred and buttered in Brooklyn, powerhouse vocalist Mara Kaye is what Jazz Lives calls “one of New York’s great gifts to the world.” With a voice described as “Louis Armstrong’s trumpet at a rent party” (Jimmy Vivino, Conan O’Brien Show), she moves effortlessly between vintage jazz, blues, and hip-hop, lending her smoky swagger to rap legend AZ’s track “Never Enough,” featuring Rick Ross. Her debut single, a stirring rendition of “It Had to Be You” featuring roots piano icon Carl Sonny Leyland, is on steady rotation on KJazz 88.1 FM, and her original song “Dystopian Blues” was featured on The Kelly Clarkson Show and performed live on CBS News. Mara’s raw, timeless voice has filled legendary venues from Jazz at Lincoln Center and Smalls in NYC to The Green Mill in Chicago and the streets of New Orleans. She created and performed the role of chanteuse Marion Rhodes in the immersive Off-Broadway show Sleep No More and was an original cast member in Broadway Asia’s SpongeBob SquarePants The Musical. She’s shared stages with blues greats like Joe Bonamassa, Jontavious Willis, and Jimmy Vivino, and early in her career toured with the Yerba Buena Stompers, led by her mentor John Gill—playing alongside musicians who once backed up Louis Armstrong himself. About Mike Sailors: Mike Sailors has performed around the world in venues such as the Blue Note (New York, Tokyo, and Sapporo locations), Ronnie Scott’s, Porgy and Bess, Dizzy’s Club Coca Cola, The Jazz Standard, Smalls Jazz Club, Carnegie Hall, and Lincoln Center; and has appeared at the Montreal, Detroit, EFG London, and Tokyo Blue Note Jazz Festivals. He has also been an active musician in Broadway orchestras, most notably as the Music Director of Sleep No More. In addition to leading the Mike Sailors Nonet, once dubbed "an all-star outfit" by the New York Times, he has performed as a sideman with the Birdland Big Band, the Hot Sardines, the Gerald Wilson Orchestra, and The Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra. An active composer and arranger, Mike has written for such luminaries as Dewey Redman, Dick Oatts, Sean Jones, Jimmy Cobb, and Peter Bernstein. He has composed and recorded music for numerous commercial campaigns, as well as for TV and Film – most recently for the Netflix original series, Cannon Busters. Sailors is also a performing artist/educator with Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Let Freedom Swing educational program, is a copyist and editor for the Essentially Ellington jazz program, and currently serves as the Professor of Jazz Trumpet at University of Texas at Austin. Please Note: This is a live-taping, so we'll be enforcing a whisper-policy! Cold bottles of still and sparkling water will be available for purchase, but this event is BYOB. Ice will be available if needed, wine keys and 9oz cups provided! 22 free parking spaces onsite are first-come-first-serve. First Show: Doors at 7:45pm, Show at 8pm. Second Show: Doors at 9:45pm, Show at 10pm.