Dimitriou’s Jazz Alley presents Spencer Day April 9 & 10
SPENCER DAY
April 9-10, 2013
FROM: The Pacific Jazz Institute at Dimitriou’s Jazz Alley
2033 6th Avenue, Seattle, WA, 98121
CONTACT: Rachael Millikan, 206-441-9729, rachael@jazzalley.com
RE: Performance at Dimitriou’s Jazz Alley
SHOW ADMISSION: $21.50
The Pacific Jazz Institute at Dimitriou’s Jazz Alley presents Spencer Day in support of his new release, The Mystery of You. Band members are Spencer Day (piano), John Storie (guitar), Matt Mayhall (drums), Erik Kertis (bass), and Paul Cartwright (sax). Set times Tuesday and Wednesday at 7:30pm. Doors open at 5:30pm.
Since his last release in 2009, vocalist-songwriter-pianist Spencer Day has spent some time in the uncomfortable places where light and clarity disappear into the mysteries of uncertainty. He survived the journey, and he’s come back with a story to tell and a wiser perspective about himself and the world. That story – rooted in his own experience, yet filled with revelations and truths that are universal to any human being who has ever put his or her heart at risk – is captured in the 13 tracks of The Mystery of You, his new album set for release March 12, 2013. Filled with stylistic nuances that range from smoky noir to Latin jazz to surf guitar to Middle Eastern and Asian melodies, The Mystery of You tracks the sometimes exhilarating, sometimes harrowing arc of a romantic relationship from passionate beginning to painful demise to enlightened aftermath. “It’s been one of the hardest things I’ve ever dealt with in my adult life, but it’s also been a huge opportunity for growth,” Day says of the ill-fated relationship and the music that emerged from it. “Each of these songs represents a different phase in that growth process. Along the way, I really started trying to understand my own psychology.”
Self-exploration is nothing new to Day, who recalls a troubled childhood in a conservative town in Utah, and a volatile home life resulting from his parents’ troubled marriage. His primary means of escape were music and movies. He grew up listening to a wide cross-section of composers, including Cole Porter, George Gershwin, Joni Mitchell, John Lennon and Paul Simon, and the classic MGM musicals in the local theater – the only options available in his G-rated hometown – eventually left their mark on his creative sensibilities.
His 2004 debut album, Introducing Spencer Day, was primarily a collection of standards, and the title track from Movie of Your Life, released the following year, won the San Francisco Academy of Art University’s 2005 competition for best original song. Day performed at the 2007 San Francisco Jazz Festival, and has been a recurring headliner in a number of high-profile Bay Area clubs, including Yoshi’s, the Plush Room, the Great American Music Hall and the Herbst Theatre. On the opposite coast, he has earned raves for performances at the Town Hall, Joe’s Pub and the Canal Room in New York City, and the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. Vagabond, released in 2009, was a musical hybrid that drew from the Great American Songbook, but also maintained an alternate aesthetic that sidestepped easy categorization by borrowing from influences like Burt Bacharach, Roy Orbison and Dusty Springfield. www.spencerday.com.
UPCOMING SHOWS
The Gipsy Kings
Molly Ringwald April 15
Sugar Blue
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