This Year's Kisses

March 2, 2011

Here's the latest from KUHF's jazz correspondent Eric Ladau:

Houston has a reputation as a great city in which to reinvent yourself and, fortunately for jazz lovers, singer Danielle Reich fits right into that category. Although she was a jazz lover from a very young age, Danielle studied opera, music theory and psychology at the University of Florida. Upon her arrival in the Bayou City, her classical training allowed her to secure a position in the Houston Grand Opera Chorus. Amidst all of the Verdi, Puccini and Mozart, bits of Billie Holiday and Thelonious Monk stubbornly clung to her musical gray matter, and Danielle found herself studying Jazz Theory with Joe Locascio at Houston Community College.

Her first jazz gigs were not what you would call particularly cool or glamorous -- early locales included the lobby of an office building and a gelato parlor in the Woodlands. However, Danielle's talent, dedication, diversity and swinging interpretations of old and new repertoire quickly endeared her to jazz musicians and lovers alike. She is currently busy singing most nights of the week at several locations around town, including the King Biscuit Patio Cafe, Tasting Room Uptown Park, El Pueblito Cafe and Vintropolis Wine Bar. More information can found on her informative website www.daniellereich.org/ and Facebook page www.facebook.com/daniellereichmusic After gigging around Houston for about five years, Danielle put together a group of her favorite musical collaborators for her first CD release, This Year's Kisses. The musical lineup includes pianist and arranger Andrew Lienhard, trumpeter and producer Carol Morgan, saxophonist Seth Paynter, bassist David Craig and drummer Daleton Lee. The full sextet performs this evening, Wednesday 3/2, at King Biscuit Patio Cafe, 1606 White Oak Drive in Houston and for us today on The Front Row.