*To celebrate the October 26th, 2018, release of their brand-new Di-Tone Records project Phenomenal Woman: The Maya Angelou Songs, the critically acclaimed duo of vocalist Capathia Jenkins and award-winning composer, arranger and musician Louis Rosen will perform for three nights, Thursday through Saturday, October 25, 26, and 27, 2018, at the iconic jazz venue Birdland’s new Birdland Theatre in New York City. The Birdland Theatre is located at 315 West 44th Street between Eighth and Ninth Avenues.
This will be the first time Phenomenal Woman will be performed live since it was re-arranged for jazz sextet and recorded for release. Jenkins and Rosen originally premiered the material in March 2005 at New York’s famed Joe’s Pub, in its original piano and vocal arrangements. Phenomenal Woman: The Maya Angelou Songs features eleven songs that pay tribute to the genius of the late American poet Maya Angelou, with some of her most iconic poems forming the lyrics.
This unique project came to fruition in 2005 when Jenkins and Rosen were granted rights by Maya Angelou to perform the 11-song cycle, which had been specifically composed by Rosen for Jenkins. The rights were expanded in 2017 to include recording and publishing. At that time Rosen began arranging the tunes for a jazz sextet (and occasional organ). The duo then went into the studio with their co-producer, Scott Lehrer. In addition to the Maya Angelou Songs, the new release also includes four instrumental interludes penned by Rosen, called Songs Without Words. This is the fifth album collaboration for Jenkins and Rosen.
Critics have already hailed the project: The Chicago Tribune stated, “Jenkins has an uncanny ear for the droll irony and naked emotion of Rosen’s work, and a vocal range that brings out every shift in tone without bombast or pathos.” Bloomberg noted, “What is so memorable about this pairing is how unselfconscious and confident both are, Rosen as composer and songsmith, Jenkins his joyous, hand-in-glove interpreter. I’ve never been so seduced by music completely new to me yet as embraceable as any from the classic American songbook.”
The recording of Phenomenal Woman: The Maya Angelou Songs marks the completion of the recording of Louis’ Black Loom Trilogy, three song cycles composed for Jenkins on the poems of three major African-American writers, including Dream Suite: Songs in Jazz and Blues on Poems by Langston Hughes and One Ounce of Truth: The Nikki Giovanni Songs. The duo’s previous collaborations include South Side Stories and The Ache Of Possibility with four songs again on poetry by Ms. Giovanni.
Capathia Jenkins has been featured on Broadway in Newsies; Martin Short: Fame Becomes Me; Caroline, or Change; The Look of Love; The Civil War; and Off-Broadway in Nora Ephron’s Love, Loss, and What I Wore; (mis) Understanding Mammy: The Hattie McDaniel Story (Drama Desk nomination); and Godspell. She has numerous TV and concert appearances to her credit. For more information on Capathia Jenkins, please visit www.capathiajenkins.com.
Louis Rosen received a 2005 Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship in Music Composition. He has three solo recordings, including 2017’s Dust To Dust Blues, Act One: Piano Music from the Theater, and Time Was; numerous compositions, and two musical theater pieces, Book of the Night (1991) and A Child’s Garden (2000). He has also scored 30 theatrical productions on and off Broadway and at regional theaters. Rosen is also the author of the memoir “The South Side: The Racial Transformation of An American Neighborhood” (Ivan R. Dee, Chicago, 1998). For more information on Louis Rosen, please visit www.louisrosen.com.
For tickets for the Birdland performance dates, please visit https://www.birdlandjazz.com/calendar/.
