Cathi Walkup
Bay Area resident Cathi Walkup is an acclaimed jazz singer and songwriter. An amber-toned alto, she possesses a refreshingly straightforward sound. Her easy manner on-stage perfectly compliments her choice of material: playful, breezy, and slightly irreverent, yet full of reflection or vulnerability when the moment calls for it. Her sets mix standards such as “Hit the Road to Dreamland” and “Anthropology” with imaginative titles such as “Tanya’s Wicked Body” and “Hang Up And Drive” An accomplished tunesmith and lyricist, Walkup’s own songs have been performed by artists across the country. The Contra Costa Times reported, “Her lyric writing is fresh and inventive, combining elements of 40s style with 90s angst.”
Walkup’s three self-produced releases have received favorable reviews at home and abroad: in Germany, the Netherlands, Brazil, South Africa and Italy. They have been heard on more than 90 radio stations. Of the most recent, Playing Favorites!, recorded live at San Francisco’s famed Plush Room, Jazzreview.com raved, “Cathi Walkup casts an enchanting spell…With a low and easy delivery and an inspired set of songs – some familiar and others off-the-beaten track, the vocalist conjures up a world lush in ambience and rich in character.” Playing Favorites! also made the top ten chart of Toronto’s leading jazz station, CIUT, within three weeks of its release.
Living in a Daydream, Walkup’s second recording, was “highly recommended” by All About Jazz. “As for this all Walkup affair,” wrote critic David Nathan, “it demonstrates how good the results can be when there is a faultless match between singer, songs and sidemen. This album is truly entertaining…” Living in a Daydream won the listener’s poll on Canada’s SkyJazz Radio three times and was featured on KCSM (San Mateo, CA) as part of their noontime concert series.
Night Owl, Walkup’s first foray into songwriting, was declared “buoyant and imaginative” by Jazz Now Magazine.
In addition to the projects she has led, Walkup has spearheaded the production of two compilation CDs that feature her and other outstanding Bay Area vocalists: Shanna Carlson, Sharman Duran, Jennifer Lee, and Jenna Mammina. The first, Quint-Essential, was short-listed on the Grammy ballot for Best Vocal Jazz Album in 2001. Jazz Improv Magazine called it “a superb sampler of very talented artists who deserve to be heard.”
Walkup spent her childhood in St. Louis, Missouri. The singing at her grandmother’s church, where she attended services during a summer visit to rural Hannibal, counts among her earliest memories. “For the longest time,” she says, “I thought that’s what church was about: music and singing. My mother sang around the house when she was happy and that made it a very natural and accessible form of expression to me.” Walkup’s initial musical education came through the public schools, where she had the good fortune to work with a gifted and exacting choir master. She learned music theory, performed in musical theater, and sang in an annual production of Handel's Messiah. At home, she heard classic pop and the American songbook, as well as some Hank Williams and Patsy Cline.
In the 1970s, Walkup moved to San Francisco. While the church first connected her with music, pinball – at the time, a religion all its own – brought her to jazz. The Café Babar in the Mission District, where Walkup and her friends spent endless quarters, had a jukebox stocked with jazz classics, the extensive private collection of the café’s owner.
“My friends and I would listen to jazz for hours as we played pinball,” Walkup remembers. “Although I knew many of the songs from my parents’ records and had even sung some standards at parties, there I heard Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, and Carmen McRae. The singing of Lambert, Hendricks & Ross opened my ears to horn phrasing. I really started to appreciate the depth of jazz.”
Walkup studied jazz theory with multi-instrumentalist and respected educator Jim Grantham, who taught at the Berklee College of Music before starting a series of jazz theory and improvisation workshops at Keystone Korner, the once noted San Francisco club. She worked on her piano skills at The Jazz School in Berkeley with two noted performers: Grammy nominee Mark Levine, an alumnus of Woody Shaw, Joe Henderson, and the Blue Mitchell/Harold Land Quintet, and vocalist/arranger Alan Copeland, whose credits include work with Frank Sinatra, Horace Silver, and the Modernaires. Both have given her unique perspectives on voicings and accompaniment.
Today, Walkup conducts her own workshops and masterclasses. In “Getting Your Music Out There,” she addresses the indie approach to making recordings and how one handles distribution, press, and radio promotion. Naturally, Walkup has definite ideas about songwriting and how to make it a more accessible craft for those who would pursue it. She tackles the creative process in “Songs I Wrote or Wish I Had.”
Walkup will be in included among the top 500 jazz singers of all time in Scott Yanow’s forthcoming reference work: The Jazz Singers. In addition to the Plush Room, she has performed at well-known venues throughout the U.S. including Oakland’s famed Yoshi's. In San Francisco, she has played at the Museum of Modern Art, Jazz at Pearl's, The Sheraton Palace, and the well-known Vespers concerts of The Old First Church. Her frequent excursions up and down the west coast also include Tula's in Seattle; The Old Church, Jazz de Opus and The Benson Hotel in Portland; The Claremont Resort Hotel in Berkeley; and Dizzy's in San Diego. Her festival appearances include the Vallejo Jazz Festival, the Sausalito Art, Wine & Jazz Festival, the Salem Art & Wine Festival in Salem, OR, and the Making Waves Festival. Walkup always enjoys the chance to perform back in her old home town where she has appeared at St. Louis’s Sheldon Concert Hall.
In addition, she runs a once monthly series, Bird's Nest Jazz, (one Sunday a month from 5-7 pm, info: (510) 534-6163) presenting concerts in her loft of some of the best Bay Area musicians and traveling luminaries. The fabulous Bob Dorough has appeared on the series twice.
Another new series, begun in 2006, Voila! Jazz, is a free, all ages series which happens every Thursday night, 6-7:30 pm at the Voila! Juice Bar and Cafe in Oakland, CA.