Back in the 1990s, when Kitty Margolis was making her name, she perennially topped the “Talent Deserving Wider Recognition” category in the annual DownBeat critics’ poll. But if her resolute devotion to San Francisco (her Bay Area roots go back four generations) really kept her from catching the world’s ear, you wouldn’t know it from the international acclaim she’s garnered: for over two decades now she’s filled houses—and brought them down—all over the world. A musician’s singer, she’s performed and recorded with several generations of A-list instrumentalists, including Lionel Hampton, Joe Henderson, and Roy Hargrove.
Margolis’s vocal influences run the gamut from folk/pop innovators like Bonnie Raitt and Joni Mitchell to jazz mavericks like Betty Carter and Sheila Jordan. But if her powerful delivery, her inventive phrasing, and her agile improvisations draw comparisons to those originals, Kitty Margolis is nobody’s carbon copy. A consummate musician, a mesmerizing performer, and a big-hearted bandleader, she’s made her own mark. (Among other things, she was way ahead of the jazz-DIY curve, releasing records on her own Mad-Kat label since 1989.)
Margolis’s trio includes two stalwarts of the Bay Area jazz scene in pianist Murray Low and bassist John Shifflett. Low has performed with jazz legends like Clark Terry and Benny Golson and is particularly known for his work in the Latin Jazz idiom. John Shifflett has worked with everyone from Madeleine Peyroux to John Zorn and with the cream of the Bay Area music scene, including Boz Scaggs, Scott Amendola and Taylor Eigsti. The only non-Californian in the group is actually familiar to Humboldt County audiences: drummer Allison Miller put on a dynamic concert with her group Boom Tic Boom as part of the RJA’s fall 2011 season and has also previously performed here with Ani DiFranco.
Kitty Margolis will also present a free workshop on Saturday, Mar. 31 at noon in the Studio Theater on the Humboldt State University campus.
More information about Kitty Margolis and the remainder of the Redwood Jazz Alliance 2011-2012 season can be found at RedwoodJazzAlliance.org. Advance tickets ($15 General Admission, $10 Students & Seniors) may be purchased at the website and at Wildberries, Wildwood Music, People’s Records and The Works.