Vivien Lee...cool jazz

(a forwarded message from Vivien Lee, Sacramento's best "cool jazz vocalist". check out her websites below and hear her music). m


Good morning everyone,

JBs Lounge is a beautiful room with hardwood floors wonderful couches and a much expanded stage. The new owners went into the remodel with a vision of making the Red Lion the place for many events like boxing, conventions, poolside events and jazz. Their special vision for JBs was to make it a new home for quality entertainment and, specifically, for jazz.

Recently, hotel owner Rick Enos came to us about opening JBs to jazz on Thursday (while making sure that Sunday Evening Jazz didn't suffer any consequences as a result of more jazz at the hotel). The program we came up with focuses on vocalists since there are a lot of them in Sacramento; and very few get a chance to be heard on Sunday or to develop professionally due to a limited number of venues here. The intended audience was to be hotel quests, Sunday Evening Jazz supporters who want more vocal jazz and the individual vocalist's following. Our intention is to try to expand JBs Lounge jazz with something different and continue our tradition of benefiting the jazz community at the same time.

Here's some of the different things we are trying:
· Each week promising jazz vocalists will showcase one set of music and be asked to carry the entire show for an hour. Usually, they will be advanced university students or semi-professionals wanting experience. I will be performing the rest of the time for the enjoyment of hotel quests and anyone else who wants to hang out.
· The show is from 7pm to 11pm and is free. The hotel is paying the musicians and is looking for business in the form of cocktails and food.
· The show is patterned more like a cabaret than a Yoshi's style jazz concert.
· The band is the same each week so that vocalists have a well rehearsed band available rather than having to find their own in order to avail themselves of the opportunity.
Since we started this 3 weeks ago, we have had a small number of hotel guests, some supporters of our guest vocalist and a couple of our Sunday Evening Jazz supporters. We have another month to get the ball rolling before the hotel decides on Thursdays as a permanent jazz night. Any support our Sunday crowd can give us in the short term will help to create the atmosphere that will draw others and convince the hotel. We're looking for slightly larger crowds that enjoy the jazz music. -- Vivian Lee http://www.myspace.com/vivianleejazz
http://www.myspace.com/savannasundayjazz