Dayna Kurtz

DAYNA KURTZ – Press Quotes

“There’s no logical reason why Dayna Kurtz is not a full blown star...Dayna Kurtz's husky, emotionally torn voice creates a dark-eyed cabaret, expressing jagged emotions with the slightest sigh or grand, moaning sustain.” – Boston Globe

"Kurtz tilts her head back at an angle and spins melodic, earthbound poetry that sets loose demons only to dismiss them into the ether...Kurtz makes ordinary misery voluptuous, and sings other people's songs as if she knows better than their authors what those songs are about." -Judith Lewis LA WEEKLY

“Rich as the darkest Godiva chocolate, the voice gets into your bones until you can barely sleep at night and can’t get through the day without it….Kurtz sounds at times like her musical DNA contains traces of Leonard Cohen and Tom Waits, not to mention the world’s great cabaret singers.” – Paste

“Dayna Kurtz’s diverse vocals feel both old and new, recalling Nina Simone of yesteryear…hypnotically haunting” – New York Post

“Dayna Kurtz’s voice is a deep-hued garnet of lifeblood and beauty…” – The Washington Post

“…Recalls the Buckleys, Leonard Cohen and Marianne Faithful. Like a younger Nina Simone, Kurtz can switch from languorous reflection to wounded, gutsy attack.” – Q Magazine (UK)

“Kurtz is a long-time influence on Norah Jones & these tough, honest songs filled with life, lust, beers & tears show why. American Standard is a masterclass in womanly wiles” Daily Mirror (UK)

"No one interested in american culture should miss her new work, It is astonishing, fresh and full of inspiration... " El Pais (Spain)

...everything falls breathtakingly together: lyrics, melody and that tremendous voice. Mitchell, Piaf, Holiday – she belongs alongside such huge names. -Frits Abrahams, NRC Handelsblad (Netherlands)

“It’s gorgeous and gripping-essential nocturnal listening.” - Paste

“Kurtz has an instantly recognizable voice, an almost hoarse whisper full of weary passion that sounds both comforting and dangerous, a voice on the edge of enlightenment or madness. “Love Where Did You Go” is as mournful and poetic as anything Leonard Cohen has ever cut, while she makes Billie Holiday’s “Left Alone” as chilling as the original, with an understated reading full of anguish and regret.” - HARP

Dayna Kurtz is the kind of artist who inspires wild-eyed zealotry among her fans, and there are three reasons for it: One, she's an artist's artist, one whose whiskeyed, determined alto often earns her comparisons with Nina Simone; two, while Europeans adore her, she's obscenely underappreciated in her own country; and three, her songs, which straddle a difficult space between jazz, rock, and folk, are pure poetry. Kurtz chooses her backing players as carefully as her words, and here they display an audible knowingness of her character -- when her mood shifts, they match it with idiosyncratic mastery. Another Black Feather owes its artist instant stardom. If that's unattainable, it should at least earn her the one descriptor all serious artists strive for: important. - Tammy La Gorce ALL MUSIC GUIDE

“What makes Dayna Kurtz’s new album “Beautiful Yesterday” so inspiring isn’t just the vast range of material. Nor is it her uncommonly distinctive voice, which cuts straight to the heart with a deep, soulful melancholy. …Her precious gift is how deftly she puts her stamp on almost anyone else’s song.” – Billboard

"Listening to Dayna's voice was like a drug. It wasn't just her tone or her range or her power, which, if I knew anything about vocal technique, I could praise at length. No, it was something emotional. Her voice sounded like desperation hurled into the world with exquisite control." Steve Almond (auther of Candy Freak) - excerpt from Rock and Roll Will Save Your Life



- Paste, Harp, Washington Post, Boston Globe, LA Weekly, Allmusic, Billboard, Q Magazine, New York Pos

DAYNA KURTZ – Press Quotes

“There’s no logical reason why Dayna Kurtz is not a full blown star...Dayna Kurtz's husky, emotionally torn voice creates a dark-eyed cabaret, expressing jagged emotions with the slightest sigh or grand, moaning sustain.” – Boston Globe

"Kurtz tilts her head back at an angle and spins melodic, earthbound poetry that sets loose demons only to dismiss them into the ether...Kurtz makes ordinary misery voluptuous, and sings other people's songs as if she knows better than their authors what those songs are about." -Judith Lewis LA WEEKLY

“Rich as the darkest Godiva chocolate, the voice gets into your bones until you can barely sleep at night and can’t get through the day without it….Kurtz sounds at times like her musical DNA contains traces of Leonard Cohen and Tom Waits, not to mention the world’s great cabaret singers.” – Paste

“Dayna Kurtz’s diverse vocals feel both old and new, recalling Nina Simone of yesteryear…hypnotically haunting” – New York Post

“Dayna Kurtz’s voice is a deep-hued garnet of lifeblood and beauty…” – The Washington Post

“…Recalls the Buckleys, Leonard Cohen and Marianne Faithful. Like a younger Nina Simone, Kurtz can switch from languorous reflection to wounded, gutsy attack.” – Q Magazine (UK)

“Kurtz is a long-time influence on Norah Jones & these tough, honest songs filled with life, lust, beers & tears show why. American Standard is a masterclass in womanly wiles” Daily Mirror (UK)

"No one interested in american culture should miss her new work, It is astonishing, fresh and full of inspiration... " El Pais (Spain)

...everything falls breathtakingly together: lyrics, melody and that tremendous voice. Mitchell, Piaf, Holiday – she belongs alongside such huge names. -Frits Abrahams, NRC Handelsblad (Netherlands)

“It’s gorgeous and gripping-essential nocturnal listening.” - Paste

“Kurtz has an instantly recognizable voice, an almost hoarse whisper full of weary passion that sounds both comforting and dangerous, a voice on the edge of enlightenment or madness. “Love Where Did You Go” is as mournful and poetic as anything Leonard Cohen has ever cut, while she makes Billie Holiday’s “Left Alone” as chilling as the original, with an understated reading full of anguish and regret.” - HARP

Dayna Kurtz is the kind of artist who inspires wild-eyed zealotry among her fans, and there are three reasons for it: One, she's an artist's artist, one whose whiskeyed, determined alto often earns her comparisons with Nina Simone; two, while Europeans adore her, she's obscenely underappreciated in her own country; and three, her songs, which straddle a difficult space between jazz, rock, and folk, are pure poetry. Kurtz chooses her backing players as carefully as her words, and here they display an audible knowingness of her character -- when her mood shifts, they match it with idiosyncratic mastery. Another Black Feather owes its artist instant stardom. If that's unattainable, it should at least earn her the one descriptor all serious artists strive for: important. - Tammy La Gorce ALL MUSIC GUIDE

“What makes Dayna Kurtz’s new album “Beautiful Yesterday” so inspiring isn’t just the vast range of material. Nor is it her uncommonly distinctive voice, which cuts straight to the heart with a deep, soulful melancholy. …Her precious gift is how deftly she puts her stamp on almost anyone else’s song.” – Billboard

"Listening to Dayna's voice was like a drug. It wasn't just her tone or her range or her power, which, if I knew anything about vocal technique, I could praise at length. No, it was something emotional. Her voice sounded like desperation hurled into the world with exquisite control." Steve Almond (auther of Candy Freak) - excerpt from Rock and Roll Will Save Your Life



- Paste, Harp, Washington Post, Boston Globe, LA Weekly, Allmusic, Billboard, Q Magazine, New York Pos

Dayna Kurtz is the kind of artist who inspires wild-eyed zealotry among her fans, and there are three reasons for it: One, she's an artist's artist, one whose whiskeyed, determined alto often earns her comparisons with Nina Simone; two, while Europeans adore her, she's obscenely underappreciated in her own country; and three, her songs, which straddle a difficult space between jazz, rock, and folk, are pure poetry. Another Black Feather, her third full-length, merits still more whipping up of the faithful. Each of these 11 tracks arrives swathed in soul-derived, deeply held meaning, and each follows lyrical twists that deliver a listener to places in her own heart she might not have had occasion to visit otherwise. There is sadness ("It's the Day of Atonement, 2001"), regret ("Venezuela," "Nola"), and tenderness ("All Over Again"), but most of all there is beauty; a common thread. Kurtz chooses her backing players as carefully as her words, and here they display an audible knowingness of her character -- when her mood shifts, they match it with idiosyncratic mastery. Another Black Feather owes its artist instant stardom. If that's unattainable, it should at least earn her the one descriptor all serious artists strive for: important. - Tammy La Gorce