Rachelle Ferrell

Composer, lyricist, arranger, musician and vocalist Rachelle Ferrell is a recent arrival
on the contemporary jazz scene, but her visibility on the pop/urban contemporary
scene has boosted her audience's interest in her jazz recordings.
Born and raised in Philadelphia, Ferrell got started singing in thesecond grade at
age six. This no doubt contributed to the eventual development of her startling
six-and-change octave range. She decided early on, after classical training on
violin, that she wanted to try to make her mark musically as an instrumentalist
and songwriter. In her mid-teens, her father bought her a piano with the provision
that she learn to play to a professional level. Within six months, Ferrell had secured
her first professional gig as a pianist/singer. She began performing at 13 as a violinist,
and in her mid-teens as a pianist and vocalist. At 18, she enrolled in the Berklee College
of Music in Boston to study composition and arranging, where her classmates included
Branford Marsalis, Kevin Eubanks, Donald Harrison and Jeff Watts. She graduated in
a year and taught music for awhile with Dizzy Gillespie for the New Jersey State Council
on the Arts. Through the 1980s and into the early '90s, she'd worked with some of the
top names in jazz, including Gillespie, Quincy Jones, George Benson and George Duke.
Ferrell's debut, First Instrument, was released in 1990 in Japan only. Recorded with
bassist Tyrone Brown, pianist Eddie Green and drummer Doug Nally, an all-star cast
of accompanists also leave their mark on her record. They include trumpeter Terrence
Blanchard, pianists Gil Goldstein and Michel Petrucciani, bassists Kenny Davis and
Stanley Clarke, tenor saxophonist Wayne Shorter and keyboardist Pete Levin. Her
unique take on now-standards like Sam Cooke's "You Send Me," Cole Porter's "What
Is This Thing Called Love," and Rodgers & Hart's "My Funny Valentine," captured
the hearts and souls of the Japanese jazz-buying public. In 1995, Blue Note/Capitol
released her Japanese debut for U.S. audiences, and the response was similarly
positive. Her 1992 self-titled U.S. debut, a more urban pop/contemporary album, was
released on Capitol Records. Ferrell was signed to a unique two-label contract, recording
pop and urban contemporary for Capitol Records and jazz music for Blue Note Records.
For four consecutive years in the early '90s, Ferrell put in festival stopping performances
at the Montreaux Jazz Festival.
Although Ferrell has captured the jazz public's attention as a vocalist, she continues
to compose and write songs on piano and violin. Ferrell's work ethic has paid off,
and Gillespie's predictions about her becoming a "major force" in the jazz industry
came true. Her prolific songwriting abilities and ability to accompany herself on
piano seem only to further her natural talent as a vocalist.
"Some people sing songs like they wear clothing, they put it on and take it off,"
she explains in the biographical notes accompanying First Instrument. "But when
one performs four sets a night, six nights a week, that experience affords you the
opportunity to present the song from the inside out, to express its essence. In this
way, a singer expresses the song in the spirit in which it was written. The songwriter
translates emotion into words. The singer's job is to translate the words back into
emotion."
Ferrell has made her mark not as a straightahead jazz singer and pianist, but as a 
crossover artist who's equally at home with urban contemporary pop, gospel, 
classical music and jazz.