Jazz

My dear papa owned an impressive vinyl collection and would travel to jazz festivals all over Europe to listen to his musical heroes. On weekends, he would fill our house with the sounds of Ellington, Miles and Brubeck. I did not know anything about how this music worked, but I could tell there was an indescribable magic to it, and I was instantly hooked.

Moving to San Francisco allowed me to pursue my wildest dreams and study Jazz Drums and Vocals at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music with Carlos Caro and Ms. Carmen Bradford. I was the first woman to graduate from the inaugural class of the Roots, Jazz and American Music program where I studied with jazz greats like Julian Lage, Chad Lefkowitz-Brown, SFJAZZ Collective Members David Sanchez and Warren Wolf, or the late Randy Weston.

I am proud to have been awarded the Marineau Family Foundation Scholarship, the Vincent Constantine Scholarship and the Dean’s Award for Academic Excellence.

This journey has lead me to some of the most amazing performance spaces such as SFJAZZ, or The Monterey Jazz Festival and allowed me to share the stage with Jonathan Blake, Luther Allison, David Flores, Martin Luther McCoy, Akira Tana and San Francisco Poet Laureate Tongo Eisen-Martin.