“After you create something and record it, it’s such a wonderful feeling to get to hear it with other people and know they appreciate it,” Valerie Joyce, jazz vocalist and pianist said when I interviewed her recently. Her journey to get to where she is today as an independent recording artist literally crossed continents, cultures and even musical genres, and her recordings are now played all over the world.
Valerie, who makes her home in the Seattle area, grew up in Japan. Her mother is Japanese and her father is from the Pacific Northwest. Her household was totally bi-lingual and bi-cultural, and she grew up studying classical music and playing the piano. No, that background isn’t exactly what you would expect for a jazz recording artist.
Falling in Love With Jazz
“I grew up listening to all kinds of music, but jazz wasn’t something that I listened to a lot growing up in Japan,” she says. “It was when I came to the US to attend college at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, WA, that I discovered it. While most of her classmates were probably falling in love with one another, Valerie says she was falling in love with jazz. “In my college years I started to discover all the great jazz — Miles Davis, Bill Evans, and Thelonious Monk, and I started to collect a lot of records,” she says. That love grew as she discovered songs that are the classics in The American Songbook.
A classical piano student, she branched out to play piano for the school’s jazz big band and sing in the jazz choir. The singing came about almost by accident. She was asked if she would like to audition for the university’s jazz choir, so she did. “I auditioned and my teacher really liked what he heard, and I thought, well I guess I can sort of sing.” Let me assure you, this lady can do much more than “sort of sing.”
Early Career
After college, Valerie continued playing gigs in and around Seattle, and she began to book her own jazz vocal gigs as a duo, trio and in various groups. She self-produced her first album, and it was favorably reviewed by a radio personality in Puerto Rico. Some folks in New York saw the review and invited her to audition for Chesky Records, a high definition, grammy-award winning label started by brothers David and Norman Chesky and well-known to audiophiles.
Valerie recorded two albums on the Chesky label, New York Blue, a collection of standards, and The Look of Love: The Music of Burt Bacharach. Although both albums, which are available here, are now over 10 years old, they show off Valerie’s unique smoky, somewhat sultry voice and her ability to bring fresh interpretations to familiar and well-loved standards and pop classics, which she has continued to perfect in her more recent work with Blue Coast Records.
About For Heaven’s Sake
Valerie’s latest album with Michael Wolff accompanying her on piano is For Heaven’s Sake, which was recorded on her VJI Music label at Acoustic Recording in Brooklyn, New York and mixed by Cookie Marenco at Blue Coast Records. It goes without saying that the sonic quality of this album is superb, but what really makes the album soar is Valerie’s distinctive voice and Michael Wolff’s gifted piano accompaniment. “He’s an amazing artist and to be able to sing the great songs with just piano and voice was a great experience,” Valerie said when talking about this album.
The album really is just a girl singer and a guy playing the piano. And, the songs on the album are for the most part familiar tunes. What sets this album apart is the chemistry between these two and their innate ability to compliment one another without getting in each other’s way.
And, yes, there’s this little thing called talent, which both of them have in abundance. Just to take this album over the top, however, you will probably notice that both Valerie and Wolff know how to apply their own fresh interpretations to even the most familiar songs to make them their own. “I hope people enjoy listening to the beautiful songs and our new interpretations. A lot of the music is very classic, yet it’s very modern, and our interpretations make it sound new and very unique,” Valerie says.
So, with Fall in the air, this is an album to listen to with a good glass of wine in front of a fireplace. Starting with the title track, “For Heaven’s Sake,” and ending with “When You Wish Upon A Star,” there are eight more tracks in between that you will probably recognize and appreciate.
Additional Information
You can find Valerie’s albums, For Heaven’s Sake, and Invitation, as well as her contributions to several multi-artist collections at Blue Coast Records where you can listen to tracks, get more background information and make purchases. You can also connect with Valerie on Facebook and find out where she’s performing, especially if you live in the Seattle area.
“I feel like music is never ending studying and practicing, and what I love about our path [as independent artists] is that we get to create new projects and work with different musicians. It’s just a fun and exciting path.” And, for Valerie, that path has literally taken her around the world! I can’t wait to see where it takes her next.