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Isabel Stover Presents: Jazz Folk
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Isabel Stover Presents: Jazz Folk
Accompanied by pianist Jeff D'Antona, bassist Rick McLaughlin, and drummer Giuseppe Paradiso, Isabel Stover draws the emotive thread between timeless Jazz standards and treasured Folk classics with fresh, new arrangements.
“Elegant.” “An amazing range.” “Continually evolving.” These are just a few of the ways audiences describe Isabel Stover. She uses her richly textured vocals and mastery of phrasing thoughtfully and purposely as a way of delivering an authentic and heartfelt experience, fearlessly deconstructing musical compositions to their emotional core.
At its heart, singing is storytelling with structure. It makes sense, then, that Stover, a vocalist with both a Master’s degree in architecture and credits on a national radio storytelling show, would be skilled at choosing stories to tell and at setting them in the right arrangements.
A consummate professional, Stover is a skilled entertainer and arranger with an ear for unlocking the full potential of jazz and Brazilian standards and beyond. Her debut album, Her Own Sweet World, went to #1 on the charts in the first week of its release.
Stover’s passion for jazz was ignited after landing a spot in the Oakland Jazz Choir, a 30-voice vocal big band in the San Francisco Bay Area, and she began her studies at the California Jazz Conservatory. After moving East to Boston, she continued her education at the New England Conservatory and Berklee School of Music and developed her chops playing professionally amongst New England’s most talented musicians.
Stover delights in building new structures for songs. As a lover of architecture and history, she recalls one of her favorite performances — in the courtyard at Boston Public Library — where the incredible sonic experience created from the music enveloped in the surrounding buildings elevated their breathtaking beauty.
Please visit: www.isabelstover.com
Boston-based pianist and composer Jeff D’Antona splits his time equally as an educator and performer. Jeff leads his contemporary jazz group, The Jeff D’Antona Trio, performing original compositions as well as jazz instrumental arrangements of pop and rock tunes. As an accompanist and producer, Jeff has worked with jazz saxophonist Archie Shepp, gospel singer Evelyn Harris of Sweet Honey in the Rock, live hip-hop outfit Cold Duck Complex, jazz vocalist Cassandre McKinley, and rock/avante-garde guitarist David Goodrich. Jeff’s latest creative project, Planet Radio, features original pop/R&B compositions.
An associate professor at Berklee College of Music, Jeff teaches harmony, keyboard, and arranging courses. Online you can view Jeff's teaching at his YouTube channel, The Piano Shed, where he covers advanced concepts in jazz, blues, and improvisation. To learn more about Jeff’s performance schedule and watch his latest teaching tutorials, visit jeffdantona.com.
Rick McLaughlin is a multi-faceted musician. He is a bassist, educator, composer, arranger, author, producer, and music superfan. These characteristics have taken him to stages on four continents, performances and recording sessions with legendary musicians, to clinics, classrooms and private lesson both in person and virtual, and to the microphone as a podcast guest. Released in the fall, 2024, “The Wonder of Stevie” is a multi-part podcast focusing on the life, career, and music of Stevie Wonder. Among guests such as Barack and Michelle Obama, Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson, two-time Pulitzer Prize winning host Wesley Morris, and Stevie Wonder himself, McLaughlin reflected on the ways in which Stevie Wonder uses musical elements to tell nuanced, moving, meaningful stories. McLaughlin’s reflections stem from working with hundreds of students in a course that he designed and teaches on Stevie Wonder for Berklee College of Music, where McLaughlin is Associate Professor in the Harmony and Jazz Composition Department.
As a performer, McLaughlin has performed with the Grammy-nominated jazz group Either/Orchestra for more than 25 years. He has been heard on stages and in recording studios from Boston, MA to Los Angeles, CA; from Barcelona, Spain to Rome, Italy; and from Phuket, Thailand to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Along the way, he has shared the stage with jazz luminaries such as Don Byron, Steve Lacy, John Medeski, Bob Moses, Danilo Perez, and John Zorn, rock musicians Willie “Loco” Alexander, Morphine, and Peter Wolf, and country music star Roger Miller. He has also been a collaborator with Ethiopia’s great singers Mahmoud Ahmed and Alemayhu Eshete, and the innovator behind Ethio-Jazz, Mulatu Astatke.
His own debut as a leader, “Study of Light,” garnered critical acclaim, and featured a first-of-its-kind arrangement a movement from Ravel’s “String Quartet in F Major.” He has been heralded by MacArthur Fellow George Russell as “one of my favorite bassists.” Paul Olson, of Allaboutjazz.com, says that McLaughlin is “the most valuable player” on a recorded performance, and Michael Nastos of Cadence Magazine writes that McLaughlin’s playing is “electric and exciting”.
In addition to McLaughlin’s faculty position at Berklee College of Music, he has taught at New England Conservatory of Music, and given clinics in many of the same cities in which he has performed. McLaughlin has published articles for DrumPro Magazines, and his paper, “Which Way Do the Trade Winds Blow? Two Case Studies Examining the Voyage of Jazz to Africa” was published by Berklee College of Music’s online journal, FUSION. Compositions of McLaughlin’s can be heard on “Study of Light,” and on Either/Orchestra’s “Mood Music for Time Travelers.” Visit www.rickmclaughlin.com for more information.
Giuseppe Paradiso is a drummer, recording artist and composer active as a bandleader, sideman, and soloist. As a freelance recording and live musician, Giuseppe has worked internationally for over two decades, collaborating with hundreds of artists and musicians across different music genres, styles and artistic disciplines.
As a leader, Giuseppe has released three albums with his world-jazz music project MERIDIAN 71, featuring his original compositions: Otherness Collection in 2012, Metropolitan Sketches in 2020, and Parallel Dimensions in 2022 on the UBUNTU MUSIC record label, and worldwide distribution by The Orchard (SONY). His latest release Parallel Dimensions was supported by a LIVE ARTS BOSTON grant from The Boston Foundation, the Mayor’s Office of Arts and Culture and the City of Boston. His music has been air-played and reviewed worldwide.
Giuseppe started his musical studies on drums at the age of four years old, and graduated from Berklee College of Music as a scholarship recipient, as well as from the Italian conservatory of music N. Piccinni in Bari, Italy, where he studied percussion instruments, composition and piano. His performances include numerous venues, festivals and institutions such as Panama Jazz Festival (Panama City); Newport Jazz Festival (Newport, RI); Les Journee de la Percussion at Conservatoire Superior de Paris (France), Berklee College of Music, Festival Duni (Matera, Italy), Teatro Piccinni and Stadium San Nicola (Bari, Italy); Percussion Days at the Conservatory G.B. Pergolesi (Fermo, Italy); Harvard University and Agganis Arena at Boston University; Public Theater (New York City, NY); Gregory’s Jazz Club (Rome, Italy). His collaborations include seven-time Latin Grammy-award Javier Limón; Grammy-award Arto Tuncboyaciyan (Peter Gabriel, Chet Baker, Joe Zawinul); pioneer guitarist David Fiuczynski (Jack Dejohnette, Jo Jo Mayer); Orchestra Sinfonica della Provincia di Bari; award-winning artist and Silkroad Ensemble's clarinetist Kinan Azmeh (Yo Yo Ma); Chinese virtuoso Yazhi Guo, and Italian artists Vince Abbracciante and Mario Rosini, to name a few.
Website: www.giuseppe-paradiso.com