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Award-Winning Jazz Songwriter Bett Butler returns

Posted by Mandala (Maclash) on 3/18/2008, 4:12 pm
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Award-Winning Jazz Songwriter Bett Butler returns to Elephant Room with Chamber Jazz Trio Sunday, March 30

Jazz singer/songwriter Bett Butler is featured with the Chamber Jazz Trio at Austin's Elephant Room Sunday, March 30, 9:30 pm-1:30 am. Her latest release Myths & Fables, in heavy rotation on Texas jazz stations, features popular tracks like "Angel in a Dog Suit" and "When Love Has Left the Room," first-place winner in the jazz category of the 2006 International Songwriting Competition.

San Antonio TX—March 10, 2008
An engaging musical storyteller, Butler honed her vocal and performance chops onstage in regional theaters and rowdy Riverwalk roadhouses for two decades. In the tradition of songwriters like Joni Mitchell and Abbey Lincoln, her original songs refuse confinement to formula and are inhabited by offbeat characters and contradictions: the artist who dreams of flying beyond the stifling domesticity demanded by her lover in “For Gabriele;” small-town residents still reeling from a generations-old suicide in “Secrets;” a saucy broad demanding equal satisfaction in the bedroom in “It Ain’t Over ‘til It’s Over;” and "Grim Fairy Tale," a dark political fable which bounces along as a happy samba. Her vocal influences range from Billie Holiday to Ella Fitzgerald to Etta James, while she has a unique scatting style blending vocal and unison piano lines.

In the Chamber Jazz Trio, she's joined by two formidable musicians. Her producer and spouse, bassist/composer Joël Dilley, currently touring Russia with classical/jazz pianist Valeri Grohovski (www.grohovski.com), has recorded or played in concert with Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson, Willie Nelson, Herb Ellis, and Arturo Sandoval and has two critically-acclaimed releases under his belt, River of Hope and The Window, which "shines with ample chops and imagination," according to KRTU 91.7 FM's Sound Check. Cecil Carter, a respected jazz educator at San Antonio's St. Mary's University, plays trumpet, flugelhorn, and occasional piano. Together, the trio make up "an ensemble that always sounds new," writes San Antonio Express-News columnist Roberto Bonazzi, author of Man in the Mirror: John Howard Griffin and the Story of BLACK LIKE ME. "Their jazz conversations are....hip, exciting and entertaining.... replenishing the standards with passion, innovation and wit."

Of Bett Butler's first album Short Stories, Singer Magazine raves, "Her poetry and vision, combined with keyboard prowess and sterling vocalizations, amuse and entertain track after track." KRTU 91.7 FM's Sound Check calls Myths & Fables, winner of a performance grant from the Artist Foundation, "a must-have for jazz fans.” Along with Dilley's River of Hope and The Window, they' re available at live performances and online from www.jazzartstore.com, www.amazon.com, www.cdbaby.com, and digital sources like iTunes and Napster.

For CDs, photos, press kits, and additional information, please e-mail bett@mandalamusic.com, or call 210.227-JAZZ (5299).

Who: Bett Butler with the Chamber Jazz Trio
What: Original Jazz
When: Sunday, March 30, 2008, 9:30 pm-1:30 am
Where: The Elephant Room
315 Congress Ave
Austin, TX 78701
512.473.2279
No cover

For more information:
Visit Bett Butler's website www.bettbutler.com.
To hear tracks from Myths & Fables, go to her MySpace page at www.myspace.com/bettbutler.
(Detailed bio and high-resolution artist photos are available for download at http://mandalamusic.com/bett/press/index.2.htm.)

Visit Joël Dilley's website www.joeldilley.com
To hear tracks from The Window, go to his MySpace page at www.myspace.com/joeldilley.

Contact Info:
Bett Butler
Mandala Music Production
Phone: 210.227-JAZZ (5299)
Email: bett@mandalamusic.com
Web: www.bettbutler.com