Ed Reed

Artist Information

Biography

*DownBeat Annual Critics Poll: Rising Star in Male Vocalist category
2011, 2009, 2008

*DownBeat Annual Readers Poll: placed in Male Vocalist category, 2011

*DownBeat Editors Pick, July 2011 for "Born to Be Blue" CD

*Received Jazz Hero award from Jazz Journalists Association 2011


Ed Reed didn’t make his recording debut until just before his 78th birthday in 2007 with the widely acclaimed "Ed Reed Sings Love Stories," followed in 2008 by his second CD, "The Song Is You." Both recordings, exquisitely conceived and tenderly executed collections of sophisticated tunes from the Great American Songbook, were released on his indie label, Blue Shorts Records.

The latest CD, "Born to Be Blue" was released on June 21, 2011. In the words of one reviewer, "his third album possesses all the distilled emotion and narrative coherence of a jazz masterpiece."

Reed was born on February 2, 1929, in Cleveland, Ohio. In 1936, the family relocated to Los Angeles where his father worked as a waiter on the Southern Pacific Railroad and was active in the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. At age 11, Reed learned how to sing to chord changes from his neighbor’s younger brother, then-teenage bassist Charles Mingus. The bebop bug bit Reed around 1944, when he first heard Charlie Parker on record. He began to sing on talent shows hosted by pianist Hampton Hawes and others at the Club Alabam and Last Word on Central Avenue and the Trophy Dash in Hollywood, and on amateur nights at the Lincoln Theater. At 17, he dropped out of school, ran away from home, and joined the army. While stationed at Oakland Army Base, he sold marijuana to supplement his meager military income and started to use heroin. He left the service after 30 months with a general discharge. Back in Los Angeles, Reed ahd his first professional engagements as a vocalist with a combo led by now-legendary trumpeter Dupree Bolton, but his addiction to drugs quickly undermined his singing career.

Ed Reed spent more than a decade of his life behind bars for crimes related to heroin addiction, yet those years weren’t entirely wasted, as he had the opportunity to rub shoulders—and even perform—with such jazz greats as Art Pepper, Dexter Gordon, Frank Morgan, and Frank Butler. Reed’s is a story of the triumph of the human spirit over great adversity.

Reed has been clean and sober for the past 25 years and is a health educator working with addicts, alcoholics, and their families.

Reed started singing again in public in the early 1990s at Bay Area restaurants. In 2005, he attended JazzCamp West where New York-based multi-instrumentalist Peck Allmond first heard him and convinced him to record. This encounter resulted in "Ed Reed Sings Love Stories," produced by Bud Spangler, followed a year later with "The Song Is You." Allmond, who plays numerous instruments on both CDs, wrote the arrangements for both albums and also produced the second CD.

His latest CD, "Born to Be Blue" grew out of a successful 5-night run at Marians Jazzroom in Bern, Switzerland with Randy Porter (piano), Robb Fisher (bass), and Akira Tana (drums). They jelled so well that they decided to make an album, adding tenor saxophonist Anton Schwartz for the Bay Area sessions provided by Reed and Bud Spangler.

In just a few short years, Ed Reed's music has been critically acclaimed, reviewed in numerous jazz publications (including Downbeat, Jazziz, and JazzTimes to name a few), Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Seattle Times, and Boston Globe.

He was a guest on Marian McPartland's icionic "Piano Jazz" radio show on NPR stations in 2008, was profiled by Nat Hentoff in the Wall Street Journal in June 2009, and placed in the Male Vocalist Rising Star category of the Downbeat Critic's Poll in 2008 and 2009.

Reed has performed at internationally renowned clubs in New York, Boston, Seattle, Los Angeles, Oakland, San Francisco, and Bern, Switzerland.


Publicist
Terri Hinte
510-234-8781

Bookings
Maxine Harvard
623-566-5336

Instrumentation

Singer/piano/bass/drums

Discography

CD-Born to Be Blue (2011)
CD-The Song Is You (2008)
CD-Ed Reed Sings Love Stories (2007)

Available on CD Baby, Amazon, Digstation, iTunes, Napster, Rhapsody, and many other popular digital sites.

Official Website

http://www.edreedsings.com

Links

• Facebook
• YouTube

Audio

• Bye Bye Blackbird
  Listen  
• Inside a Silent Tear
  Listen  
• Throw It Away
  Listen  
• Old Country
  Listen  
• Wee Baby Blues
  Listen  

Video

Photo Gallery

Press

• Nat Hentoff: Ed Reed's Stories of Regret and Recovery [+ Show ]
  

  Hearing him on Victor Young's "Ghost of a Chance," the Ellington/Strayhorn "Day Dream," and Gordon J...Hearing him on Victor Young's "Ghost of a Chance," the Ellington/Strayhorn "Day Dream," and Gordon Jenkins's "Goodbye" underscored how much I have missed, for years, the enveloping sensuous balladry of Duke Ellington's Herb Jeffries and the conversational intimacy of Johnny Hartman in his sessions with John Coltrane.
  
  Mr. Reed's "hypnotic baritone," as Christopher Loudon described it in Jazz Times, is heard in a continuing, luminous autobiography in "Love Stories" - one of dreams destroyed, regained, abandoned and surprisingly fulfilled. He uses space like an inner musical instrument.
  
  Nat Hentoff
  June 16, 2009

• Review: The Song Is You [+ Show ]
  

  Ed Reed is a storyteller, one who pours both his heart and nearly 80 years of life expriences...into...Ed Reed is a storyteller, one who pours both his heart and nearly 80 years of life expriences...into a phrase. On his recent first recording, "Ed Reed Sings Love Stories" (2007), he debuted a lush tone that belied his age. Here [on "The Song Is You"] Reed and company serve as tour guides using tempo and timbre to present exceedingly fresh takes on a selection of songs that leans almost exclusively on the Great American Songbook.
  
  Elliott Simon
  July 2008

• From San Quentin to the spotlight [+ Show ]
  

  A master balladeer and a jazz singer in the truest sense, [Reed] absorbed the influences of Nat "Kin...A master balladeer and a jazz singer in the truest sense, [Reed] absorbed the influences of Nat "King" Cole and Bill Henderson while honing an idiosyncratic style with phrasing that flows according to a lyric's emotional contours.
  
  Andrew Gilbert
  July 20, 2008

• Review: The Song Is You [+ Show ]
  

  The City Paper: Nashville’s Daily News Reed has so much sheer power, authority and conviction tha...The City Paper: Nashville’s Daily News
  
  Reed has so much sheer power, authority and conviction that you think you’re hearing someone far younger on “The Song Is You” (Blue Shorts). His renditions of “Where or When,” “I Get Along Without You Very Well,” “It Shouldn’t Happen To A Dream,” and “I Didn’t Know About You” don’t merely skip through the melody and zip into chord changes and alterations. Reed deftly explores the narratives within the song, carefully developing the storylines, clearly and cleanly presenting the lyrics and really making every tune a personal journey rather than simply a cover. Then, after 12 examples of mainly adhering to the jazz canon, his final number “Black Is” puts some topical fire and social edge into the proceedings … A mighty work…
  
  Ron Wynn, Riffs
  July 9, 2008
  

• Live Performance Reviews: Ed Reed at the Jazz Standard [+ Show ]
  

  When he hit the stage at The Jazz Standard on October 29, there was an energy in the room that was p...When he hit the stage at The Jazz Standard on October 29, there was an energy in the room that was palpable. Reed ... gave a languid and bluesy reading of ["A Sleepin' Bee"] that set the tone for what was to come. His sandy baritone, a big suggestive of Eddie Jefferson or Jon Hendricks, but softer in texture, hewed closely to the melody, but he altered notes here and there in a way that lent emphasis to certain words or phrases, making his take on the song uniquely personal...Reed is a singer who truly uses his hands to augment his lyric readings, and on "A Flower Is A Lovesome Thing" he almost made you see the blooms that are mentioned in the words. The regretful lyric of "Ask Me Now" was wistfully communicated by Reed, making you ponder upon how many times in life you rue not listening or caring when you really should have done so...With the conclusing selection, there was no doubt that on this evening the song was Ed Reed.
  
  Joe Lang
  January 2008

• Review: Ed Reed Sings Love Stories [+ Show ]
  

  [Reed] is mostly a balladeer who delivers each song like an expert ranconteur passing on hard-won wi...[Reed] is mostly a balladeer who delivers each song like an expert ranconteur passing on hard-won wisdom, as on an aching version of "Ghost of a Chance."
  
  Andrew Gilbert
  April 2008

• Review: Ed Reed Sings Love Stories [+ Show ]
  

  A baritone in the classic tradition of Johnny Hartman, Reed wrings all the sun-dappled romanticism o...A baritone in the classic tradition of Johnny Hartman, Reed wrings all the sun-dappled romanticism out of ballads like Billy Strayhorn's "A Flower Is A Lovesome Thing, but also grooves with ease and grace on "Bye Bye Blackbird." His timing, phrasing and intonation are ...unaffected by the wear-and-tear toll of aging ...his voice resonates with rich, dark, lower-register colors used to powerful effect on his moving, a capella rendition of the spiritual, "Motherless Child." A bebop-oriented improviser, Reed has a thorough grasp of chord changes, knowledge that helps him improvise as fluently as a horn player.
  
  Owen McNally
  February 7, 2008

• Reviews Vox: Ed Reed Sings Love Stories [+ Show ]
  

  These 11 exquisite tracks do more than just shine; they resonate from the depths of despair and self...These 11 exquisite tracks do more than just shine; they resonate from the depths of despair and self-navigated disappointment...What Reed does with the likes of "A Sleepin' Bee," "Ask Me Now," "Ghost of a Chance," "Daydream," and an "If the Moon Turns Green" that even Billie Holiday would surely bow to - each imbued with the wisdom and satisfaction that comes from a life lost and then regained - is transporting...Indeed, here's hoping he spends as many of his remaining days as possible in the studio, crafting similarly priceless jewels.
  
  Christopher Loudon
  August 2007

• Ed Reed: Beating the Odds [+ Show ]
  

  Reed's performances are warm, soft at the edges and full of character. He keeps things unpredictable...Reed's performances are warm, soft at the edges and full of character. He keeps things unpredictable, making surprising jumps up and down the register, while imbuing his delivery with an emotional quality that many young singers simply lack the life experience to match.
  
  Forrest Dylan Bryant
  September 29, 2007

• Reviews Vox: Born to Be Blue [+ Show ]
  

  "Stylistically harkens back to the elegant tenderness of Johnny Hartman...richly insightful...intens..."Stylistically harkens back to the elegant tenderness of Johnny Hartman...richly insightful...intensely moving...hypnotic renderings..."

• Review: Born to Be Blue
  

  Reed has a unique voice...nuanced and experience...sings with straight grace and confidence."

• Critic's pick:best jazz albums for summer [+ Show ]
  

  The Richmond-based singer puts me in mind of Jimmy Rushing, Joe Lee Wilson, Abbey Lincoln - folks wh...The Richmond-based singer puts me in mind of Jimmy Rushing, Joe Lee Wilson, Abbey Lincoln - folks who sing (or sang) from the gut, from life experience, doing it with nobility and smarts, while feeling inside a lyric."

• Newhouse: Ed Reed's singing better at 82 [+ Show ]
  

  ...his third CD, "Born to Be Blue" has just been released...it's his best work...the man is an agele......his third CD, "Born to Be Blue" has just been released...it's his best work...the man is an ageless prodigy...These are ballads, a lost art in music. And Reed's phrasing is as distinctive as his improvising

• Editors' Picks [+ Show ]
  

  “Reed has developed a jazz voice that is distinct—full of the pain, sorrow, love and beauty that go ...“Reed has developed a jazz voice that is distinct—full of the pain, sorrow, love and beauty that go along with taking that long, hard trail through life. All of that is on full display here. When Ed Reed sings... look for an intimate story every time. On Born To Be Blue, he tells these stories through songs like Nat Adderley’s “Old Country” and other chestnuts like “She’s Funny That Way” and “Monk’s Dream.” But when he sings Abbey Lincoln’s “Throw It Away,” he establishes a connection to the lyrics and phrasing of the Hall of Fame artist that is both beautiful and uncanny. Born To Be Blue is the kind of record that makes you happy that this life offers people more than one chance to offer their gift to the world…”
  
  Frank Alkyer
  July 11, 2011

• Ed Reed Ages Well [+ Show ]
  

  “Since recording his first album at the age of 78, Reed has taken his rightful place as one of jazz'...“Since recording his first album at the age of 78, Reed has taken his rightful place as one of jazz's most keenly observant singers, a balladeer with a fine-grained baritone who turns familiar standards into wrenching tales. Over the years there have been several dozen jazz artists who returned to the limelight after long stretches in obscurity, but Reed is that rarest of cases, a musician who has come into his own late in life. And with every performance he seems to make up for lost time. Given his track record of exponential creative growth over the past four years it might be premature to say that "Born to Be Blue" is Reed's definitive statement, but his third album possesses all the distilled emotion and narrative coherence of a jazz masterpiece.”
  
  Andrew Gilbert
  July 21, 2011

Setlist

Born To Be Blue
(Wells, Torme)

Monk's Dream
(Monk, Hendricks)

Wee Baby Blues
(Turner, Johnson)

Old Country
(Lewis, Adderley)

Throw It Away
(A. (Lincoln)

A Sleepin’ Bee
(Arlen, Capote)

A Flower Is A Lovesome Thing
(Strayhorne)

Never Kiss And Run
(Engvick, LaDrue, Dononcin)

Some Other Time
(Comden, Green, Bernstein)

Inside a Silent Tear
(King, B. Dearie)

Why Did I Choose You
(Martin, Leonard)

Here's To Life
(Butler, Molinary)

Basic Requirements

Calendar