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The Colors Of Jazz
The experience of jazz is a creative fantasia of music. The Melissa Behring Project offers up classic songs by Cole Porter and Johnny Mercer. They also incorporate more mainstream songs by artists such as Prince and Sade and put their own jazz interpretation into it. Each musician that makes up the components of the Project offers a creative spark of talent that forms one fluid motion of music. They will be playing the first Friday series at the Village Theater at Cherry Hill in Canton. The theater is a 400-seat premiere performing/visual arts center offering opportunities for all ages to experience culture and the arts as both participants and patrons. The theater features different styles of music the first Friday of every month and is located in the historic district in the west of the township at the intersection of Cherry Hill Road and Ridge Road.
Melissa Behring is the passionate and talented frontwoman that started this jazz ensemble in 2005. She has assembled a team of extraordinary and gifted musicians. Neil Donato plays piano and has established a professional standing that involves him in many creative projects that keep him in the studio and on stage across Southeastern Michigan. He has performed at numerous venues including the Ark in Ann Arbor and the Fisher Theatre in Detroit; he has also toured with the major Broadway show Mamma Mia! Clint Sabon is a percussionist who was trained with Larry Fratangelo who has shaped some of Detroit’s most talented drummers. Fratangelo has played with the likes of Kid Rock, Aretha Franklin and Anita Baker to name a few. Add an upright bass to the mix of these stellar musicians played by Michael Rais and you have a complete recipe for the blue notes of jazz mixed with a hazy violet sound that translates into relaxed perfection.
When I asked Behring what drew her to the sound and fluidity of jazz she responded with:
“When I was a kid I used to watch Lady Sings the Blues all the time; it’s a film about Billie Holiday’s life. I loved the music and memorized all the songs. A few years later, someone gave me a box set of Billie’s Decca Recordings and I was really hooked. I started buying all the great jazz singers CDs: Ella, Sara, Lena, Dinah and the sheet music, too. I learned as many of those songs as I could. A few years ago, I was introduced to Neil Donato, who is an amazing jazz pianist. We decided to start my dream group and to work on some of those old songs. We wanted to put an updated twist on the standards. So here we are playing this show in Canton and getting ready to go into the studio to record some of those songs that really inspired me to form the Melissa Behring Project.”
The live jazz performance by the Melissa Behring Project will take place on January 8. Come experience the colors of jazz as we enter the beginning of our new year with the sultry vocals of Melissa Behring and the fluid melodies of Neil Donato’s hypnotic piano playing. Add in Clint Sabon on the drums and Michael Rais on the upright bass and you have very a talented jazz quartet that will have you floating away in a dreamlike jazz trance. Because jazz is not just a sound; it’s a state of mind. | RDW
The Melissa Behring Project • 1/8 Village Theater
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