Joy of jazz with Oleta
SOUL SISTERS: CAPTIVATING US SONGSTRESS JOINED ON STAGE BY WANDA
The event marks 20 years of a fruitful partnership with Standard Bank.
Oleta Adams, one of soul music’s legendary names, will set the stage alight when she performs at the Sandton Convention Centre (Pavilion) on April 27.
Adams will share the musical honours with South Africa’s own Wanda Baloyi. These two diverse performers make a dynamic package and something to which dedicated music followers can look forward.
T-Musicman general manager Mantwa Chinoamadi said: “T-Musicman is delighted to bring back Oleta Adams to our shores as we celebrate 21 years of the Standard Bank Joy of Jazz and 20 years of a fruitful partnership with Standard Bank. This journey deserves a spectacular celebration.
“We are honoured with the support we have had from business, public institutions and the public in general.
“Get your ticket and come experience and celebrate with us for one night only. This Road to Standard Bank Joy of Jazz paves a way to the exciting line-up announcement scheduled in May.”
Adams has inspired a legion of fans in the US and Europe with journeys of the heart through songs that draw deeply from her roots in gospel, while crossing easily into the realms of soul, R&B, urban, and popular music.
She came to the attention of the music world with the runaway success of her 1990 platinum debut album, Circle of One. The record spawned the impassioned hit single Get Here, the Brenda Russell composition that became the unofficial anthem of the 1991 Gulf War.
Her success, nurtured by worldwide tours with Tears for Fears, Phil Collins, Michael Bolton, and Luther Vandross, has been solidified by four Grammy nominations and a bottomless well of creative energy. She is a long-time resident of Kansas City in Kansas, where she has found sanctuary from the turmoil of the entertainment industry.
The youngest of three girls and two boys, Adams spent her formative years in Seattle before travelling over the mountains at age six to Yakima, Washington, where she first demonstrated her budding vocal gifts in the Pilgrim Rest Baptist Church where her father served as minister.
By the time she was 11, she was directing and accompanying four choirs, having already established herself as a piano prodigy.
She credits her further musical development in junior high school to Lee Farrell, “the bril- liant Julliard-trained teacher and voice coach who changed my life.”
School provided another outlet for Adams: the theatrical stage. In her senior year, she broke barriers and traditions as the star of Hello, Dolly!, admitting that “early on I realised the pleasures of being a big fish in a small pond.”
She will be adding to her musical legacy with the release this month of a new secular album, Let’s Stay Here, which she is producing herself in addition to writing eight of the 10 songs on the album. It will be her eighth album. The album is described as “evocative with a soulful jazz influence and songs that project many tantalising thoughts.”
It also features Nina Simone’s Feeling Good.
Get your ticket and come celebrate with us