Amanda Carr & Kenny Hadley live @ Scullers, tonight

Amanda Carr & Kenny Hadley Big Band
Live at Scullers Jazz Club
Thursday, October 15, 2009
DoubleTree Guest Suites Hotel
400 Soldiers Field Road, Boston
TICKETS: $22 Shows: 8 & 10 PM
CD RELEASE PARTY!

Jazz singer Amanda Carr and big band leader Kenny Hadley have just released Common Thread, a stunning new CD featuring elegant big band arrangements of lesser-known but remarkable gems from the Great American songbook. In sync with the new release, Carr and the Kenny Hadley Big Band are set to appear at Scullers Jazz Club in the DoubleTree Guest Suites Hotel [400 Soldiers Field Road, Allston] for two shows, at 8:00 and 10:00 p.m., this Thursday, October 15.

Tickets at $22.00 can be purchased on line at http://www.scullersjazz.com or by calling, 617-562-4111. Scullers is wheelchair accessible. "Common Thread" has a street release date of October 20, however the CDs will be on sale at Scullers tonight.

In addition to the new CD, Amanda and Kenny have just launched American Big Band Preservation Society, Inc. a 501C3 non-profit organization whose mission is “to preserve and promote American big band music through the preservation and performance of the great American songbook with an emphasis on acquiring, preserving and making publicly available unpublished big band arrangements.” The website is: http://www.americanbigband.org.
"Common Thread" features songs such as “I Could Have Told You,” “Small Hotel,” “They All Laughed,” “Time On My Hands,” and eight other delightful titles from composers such as Dizzy Gillespie, George Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Jimmy Munday, Joe Bushkin among other heralded songwriters of the 20th Century.

"Common Thread" is Hanover, Massachusetts-based Amanda Carr’s fifth CD, her third release with Kenny Hadley . . . but her first with the entire Kenny Hadley Big Band. Many of the arrangements on this release were done by Grammy®-winning jazz arranger Bob Freedman who has arranged for artists such as Sarah Vaughan, Ruth Brown, Wynton Marsalis, Dianne Reeves, Herbie Mann, Lena Horne, Billy Joel and many others over the years.

With the release of Soon, Carr’s 2007 CD, American historian, novelist and noted jazz critic Nat Hentoff took a strong interest and wrote an extensive story about the disc for the Wall Street Journal, saying “Amanda Carr, a true jazz singer in a time of wannabes -- after playing gigs around New England for years -- is now getting national and international recognition that will increase with the release of her new CD, Amanda Carr/Soon.” Carr performs frequently in the Greater Boston area but also sells out shows to ardent fans in New York City and Los Angeles. She has also appeared at Italy’s EuroJazz Festival alongside James Moody and George Mraz.

Kenny Hadley is one of New England’s most sought after drummers, arrangers and band leaders. Based just south of Boston in Braintree, Massachusetts and known primarily for his 16-piece big band and his trendy jazz elegance, his work also encompasses a diverse array of musical styles such as rock, funk and R&B.

Hadley has performed internationally and throughout the United States with artists such as Steve Lawrence & Eydie Gormé, Dizzy Gillespie, The Count Basie Orchestra, Rebecca Parris, Johnny Adams, Van Morrison, Peter Wolf and The Drifters, among others.