Roberta Gambarini has the unique ability to play her vocal chords the way other musicians might play the piano or saxophone. Much like the pianist\u2019s or saxophonist\u2019s fingers dance up and down the keys, going from high to low in fast, magical harmony, the Italian singer skillfully leaps from one lovely chorus or elongated, sustained word to a series of \u201cbebop, debop, debops\u201d without so much as taking a breath.<\/p>\n
Hailing from Turin, Italy, Gambarini\u2019s super human vocal talent has been embraced across the globe. It all started shortly after she could crawl, her parents introducing her to jazz music at an early age, when her father was a tenor saxophonist. <\/p>\n
\u201cMy parents are big jazz fans,\u201d Gambarani said in a recent radio interview. \u201cThey used to take me with them to jazz concerts when I was very little \u2013 Dexter Gordon, Eddy Davis, Sweets Edison, James Moody. I saw Dizzy, Ella, Sarah. \u2026 that was the soundtrack of my childhood.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gambarini\u2019s explorations of her own musical prowess started at age 12 when she took up the clarinet. By the age of 17 she was singing in jazz clubs throughout northern Italy. She moved to Milan and began recording, then to the U.S. after winning a scholarship from the New Conservatory of Music in Boston. She went on to take third place in the prestigious Thelonious Monk International Jazz Vocal Competition, capturing the attention of the U.S. jazz world. <\/p>\n
In 2004, Gambarini began performing with some of the jazz heroes of her childhood \u2013James Moody, Jimmy Heath, Herbie Hancock and many more and launched into a tour with none other than Dizzy Gillespie. In 2006, she raised even more admiring eyebrows with the release of her album \u201cEasy to Love,\u201d which received a Grammy nomination for Best Jazz Album and Gambarini a nomination for Best Jazz Singer at the Italian Jazz Awards. Renowned pianist Hank Jones proclaimed her \u201cthe best new vocalist to come along in 50 years.\u201d <\/p>\n
She was nominated for another Grammy in 2010 for her album \u201cSo In Love,\u201d and has been hypnotizing live audiences with her energetic, one-of-a-kind renditions of favorites from The Great American Songbook. <\/p>\n
Her voice has been likened to those of Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan and Carmen McRae, but the Italian\u2019s style is distinctly her own, each song and each performance rife with fresh trills and spontaneous twists. Spontaneity, she says, is the core ingredient of her performance.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s the nature of this type of music that we call jazz. You have to strive to be in the moment. And the moment is really all there is,\u201d Gambarini said.<\/p>\n
Roberta Gambarini makes her Vail debut Thursday, Aug. 21 in Lionshead from 6 to 8 p.m. for Jazz @ Vail Square. She\u2019ll be accompanied by Eric Gunnison on piano, Mark Simon on bass and Paul Romaine on drums. Jazz Tent tickets are $15 or $30 for VIP seats (including front of the tent seating, access to 1st Bank VIP Lounge and a drink ticket). For more information, visit vailjazz.org.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"