Kavita Shah is a vocalist and composer from New York, NY. She has been hailed by NPR for possessing an “amazing dexterity with musical languages”.

Early years

Shah's family is of

Gujarat Gujarat (, ) is a state along the western coast of India. Its coastline of about is the longest in the country, most of which lies on the Kathiawar peninsula. Gujarat is the fifth-largest Indian state by area, covering some ; and the ninth ...

i origin, and her parents are originally from Mumbai, India. Raised in Manhattan, Shah began her musical training in classical piano at age 5. She spent her formative years performing regularly at Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center as a member of the prestigious Young People's Chorus of New York City, with whom she trained in styles ranging from opera to gospel to folk music in more than 20 languages. She traces her commitment to jazz to the childhood influence of uptown saxophonist

Patience Higgins Patience Higgins is a New York-based jazz saxophonist, flutist, and multi-reed musician. He also plays clarinet, oboe, and English horn. He has performed with Duke Ellington Orchestra, Barry Harris, Archie Shepp, Jimmy Scott, Stevie Wonder, Ray Ch ...

, a former neighbor whose band she would later join at

Harlem Harlem is a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded roughly by the Hudson River on the west; the Harlem River and 155th Street (Manhattan), 155th Street on the north; Fifth Avenue on the east; and 110th Street (Manhattan), ...

venues including like Minton's and the Lenox Lounge. Shah attended New York City public schools, and became fluent in Spanish at the age of 16 after living with a host family in Ecuador. She went on to major in Latin American Studies at

Harvard College Harvard College is the undergraduate college of Harvard University, an Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636, Harvard College is the original school of Harvard University, the oldest institution of higher lea ...

, where she also studied Yorùbá and became fluent in Portuguese and French. During her undergraduate years, Shah lived abroad in Perú, China, and

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

, where she conducted fieldwork on Afro-Brazilian music and politics; her honors thesis "Experiments with Transnationalism: Constructing Diaspora in the bloco-afro Malê Debalê” was awarded the Kenneth D. Maxwell Thesis Prize in Brazilian Studies and the Cultural Agents Thesis Prize. While at Harvard, she also received the

Cecília Meireles Cecília Benevides de Carvalho Meireles (7 November 1901 – 9 November 1964) was a Brazilian writer and educator, known principally as a poet. She is a canonical name of Brazilian Modernism, one of the great female poets in the Portuguese l ...

Prize and the David McCord Prize. After college, Shah briefly worked at ''

The Nation ''The Nation'' is an American liberal biweekly magazine that covers political and cultural news, opinion, and analysis. It was founded on July 6, 1865, as a successor to William Lloyd Garrison's '' The Liberator'', an abolitionist newspaper tha ...

'' magazine and

Human Rights Watch Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization, headquartered in New York City, that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. The group pressures governments, policy makers, companies, and individual human r ...

, before a chance meeting with NEA Jazz Master

Sheila Jordan Sheila Jordan (born Sheila Jeanette Dawson; November 18, 1928) is an American jazz singer and songwriter. She has recorded as a session musician with an array of critically acclaimed artists in addition to recording her own albums. Jordan pionee ...

on the

New York City Subway The New York City Subway is a rapid transit system owned by the government of New York City and leased to the New York City Transit Authority, an affiliate agency of the state-run Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA). Opened on October 2 ...

would steer her toward a career in music. She earned a Master's in Jazz Voice from Manhattan School of Music, where she studied with Theo Bleckmann, Peter Eldridge, Steve Wilson, and Jim McNeely.

Music

Shah has performed at venues and events including the Kennedy Center, Art Basel: Miami,

Rochester Jazz Festival Established in 2002, the CGI Rochester International Jazz Festival Presented by M&T Bank takes place in June of each year, in Rochester, New York. It is owned and produced by RIJF, LLC, whose principals are John Nugent, Co-Producer and Artistic D ...

, San Jose Jazz Festival,

Melbourne Jazz Festival The Melbourne International Jazz Festival is an annual jazz music festival first held in Melbourne, Australia in 1998. The Festival takes place in concert halls, arts venues, jazz clubs and throughout the streets of Melbourne. The 2021 Festiva ...

, Park Avenue Armory, Blue Note, Joe's Pub,

Blue Whale The blue whale (''Balaenoptera musculus'') is a marine mammal and a baleen whale. Reaching a maximum confirmed length of and weighing up to , it is the largest animal known to have ever existed. The blue whale's long and slender body can ...

Vermont Jazz Center The Vermont Jazz Center is a school for jazz founded by guitarist Attila Zoller in Brattleboro, Vermont. Zoller started the center as the Attila Zoller Jazz Clinics in 1974. The center was renamed Vermont Jazz Center when he incorporated the busin ...

Philadelphia Museum of Art The Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMoA) is an art museum originally chartered in 1876 for the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. The main museum building was completed in 1928 on Fairmount, a hill located at the northwest end of the Benjamin Fr ...

, the Rubin Museum of Art, and

Copenhagen Jazz Festival Copenhagen Jazz Festival is a jazz event every July in Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark. Copenhagen Jazz Festival was established in 1979, but beginning in 1964 Tivoli Gardens presented a series of concerts under the name Copenhagen Jazz Festiva ...

. She has worked with

Lionel Loueke Lionel Loueke (born 27 April 1973) is a guitarist and vocalist born in Benin. He moved to Ivory Coast in 1990 to study at the National Institute of Art. Biography Loueke grew up in what he has described as a family of poor intellectuals in the W ...

Martial Solal Martial Solal (born August 23, 1927) is a French jazz pianist and composer. Biography Solal was born in Algiers, French Algeria, to Algerian Jewish parents. He was persuaded to study clarinet, saxophone, and piano by his mother, who was an opera ...

, François Moutin,

Greg Osby Greg Osby (born August 3, 1960) is an American saxophonist and composer. Biography Born in St. Louis, Missouri, Osby studied at Howard University, then at the Berklee College of Music. He moved to New York City in 1982, where he played with Jaki ...

, Steve Wilson, Alune Wade (Senegal), and

Mulatu Astatke Mulatu Astatke (; French pronunciation: Astatqé; born 19 December 1943) is an Ethiopian musician and arranger considered as the father of "Ethio-jazz". Born in Jimma, Mulatu was musically trained in London, New York City, and Boston where he ...

. She was named “Best Graduate Jazz Vocalist” by ''

Downbeat ' (styled in all caps) is an American music magazine devoted to "jazz, blues and beyond", the last word indicating its expansion beyond the jazz realm which it covered exclusively in previous years. The publication was established in 1934 in Chi ...

'' in 2012 and won the ASCAP Herb Alpert Young Jazz Composers Award in 2013. Shah's 2014 debut album, ''Visions'', was produced by Benin-born jazz guitarist Lionel Loueke, and released on saxophonist

's record label Inner Circle Music. "Visions" integrates a jazz quintet with the West African

kora Kora may refer to: Places India * Kora, Bardhaman, West Bengal * Kora, Bharuch, Gujarat * Korha, Katihar, also known as Kora, in Bihar * Kora, Kendrapara, Odisha * Kora, Wardha, Maharastra * Kora, Tumakuru, Karnataka * Toyaguda, Adilabad, Telan ...

and Indian

tabla A tabla, bn, তবলা, prs, طبلا, gu, તબલા, hi, तबला, kn, ತಬಲಾ, ml, തബല, mr, तबला, ne, तबला, or, ତବଲା, ps, طبله, pa, ਤਬਲਾ, ta, தபலா, te, తబల� ...

, and includes special guests Loueke (guitar, vocals), Steve Wilson (saxophone, flute), and Rogerio Boccato (percussion). In 2017, Shah premiered the contemporary work "Folk Songs of Naboréa: a song-cycle for seven voices” at the Park Avenue Armory. The concert was named by NPR critic Nate Chinen as one of the Top 10 Performances of the year. In 2018, Shah released ''Interplay'', a bass-and-voice duo album co-led by François Moutin, on Dot Time Records. The album features standards and originals, and includes improvisation; Moutin and Shah are joined on two tracks by pianist

and vocalist

. The ''DownBeat'' review of the release commented on "Moutin's dark, reedy bass acting like a dance partner to Shah's pliant, flickering vocals, which retain a tonal richness even through passages of extreme agility."

Jazz Times ''JazzTimes'' is an American magazine devoted to jazz. Published 10 times a year, it was founded in Washington, D.C. in 1970 by Ira Sabin as the newsletter ''Radio Free Jazz'' to complement his record store. Coverage After a decade of growth ...

also described the album as "a stellar rapport" between the duo who "are fearless in their interpretations".

Discography

As leader

* Kavita Shah, ''Visions'' (Inner Circle Music, 2014), co-produced by Lionel Loueke.

As co-leader

* François Moutin & Kavita Shah, ''Interplay'' (Dot Time Records, 2018), with special guests

As sideperson

Miho Hazama is a Tokyo-born composer and jazz musician, based in New York City. Early life and career Miho Hazama started to play electric keyboard at the age of three at Yamaha Music Foundation's School, and received attention when she proceeded to the fi ...

m-unit, ''Dancer in Nowhere'' (Universal Japan, 2018). * Jay Sand, ''All Around this World: South and Central Asia Vol. 1'', produced by Samir Chatterjee (2015). * Fredy Guzmán, ''Waijazz'', produced by Lionel Loueke (2015). * Steve Newcomb Orchestra, ''Caterpillar Chronicles'' (Listen Hear, 2012).

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Shah, Kavita American jazz singers Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Harvard University alumni