German Jazz Philharmonic
Heads // Brenda Boykin
Simply put, one of the great Jazz and Blues voices of our time. Or, to quote the reviewer and Blues historian Lee Hildebrand: “The most authentic and inventive female Blues vocalist of her generation.” She grips the audience immediately both with her performance and her personality wherever she sings – and she never fails to grip the musicians she’s sharing the stage with as well. In her own words: “Part of the showmanship is to turn to the other musicians and share some energy. […] I’m like a hostess at a party, walking around and making sure the energy is up in every part of the room.”
Brenda Boykin appeared, and continues to appear, on many festivals such as the Monterey Jazz Festival, the San Francisco Blues Festival, the DuMaurier Jazz Festival in Vancouver or the Umbria Jazz Festival in Italy and, most recently and very successfully, the famous Montreux Jazz Festival, and she has sung to audiences in Mexico, France, New Zealand, Japan and of course, on countless occasions, in the United States and Germany. She cites Sarah Vaughn, Ella Fitzgerald and Dinah Washington as her main influences. Brenda Boykin is a native of Oakland, California, and lives presently in Wuppertal, Germany.