Susie Butler

Bio
Susie Butler
Gifted with a unique voice that has been likened to a young Sarah Vaughan, Susie Butler’s musical style makes her one of the most exciting and acclaimed performers of today. Her music has played in every corner of the globe, especially in Asia.

Susie got her start by singing in church in Wichita, Kansas in an area rich with the jazz legacies of Count Basie, Charlie Parker, Lester Young and many more.

Doodlin’ her latest release from Razzz Records, an independent company owned by Cecil Berkley and Susie Butler, was recorded over a 9-month period within an intimate Berkeley studio setting. Here, in the tradition of “classical recordings,” Susie, along with a hand-picked collection of some of the Bay Area finest musicians.

With a host of wonderfully familiar contemporary compositions, including Horace Silver’s “Doodlin” and Henri Mancini’s “It Had Better Be Tonight,” together with standards such as “Misty” and Something Cool,” this twelve-track album, showcases Susie’s tremendous 4-octive musical range, vocal dexterity and her distinctive style like never before.

Susie describes this project as “the most exciting and interesting album I have ever made.” Her goal was to make a “great record with great songs and great musicians.” She has accomplished all that and more.

With an all-star band, consisting of some of the Bay Area’s most accomplished artists and musicians – Terrance Elliott, Jackie Butler-Hairston, Sudi Ali (acoustic piano), Algie Glasco, Eric Hunt and Dwayne Oakley (upright bass), Leon Williams (alto saxophone), Earl Watkins and Kamal Suite (drums), and Cecil Berkley (congo drums).

“I’m basically a live stage performer,” Susie explains. I have an extensive background in live theatre, cabaret and dance. “Bringing people together, putting them in a studio environment while I’m recording and interacting with them only brings out the best in Susie Butler the singer.”

What hits you first about Doodlin’ is the phenomenal quality of the musicianship, combined with vocal performances which simply take your breath away. Seldom has such talent been gathered together with such intimacy and spontaneity.

Although the display of emotion and energy derived from this now rare style of recording is evident in Doodlin’, the album has the obvious quality and production values of the most controlled and advanced studio setting.

Special guest appearances by long-time friends, saxophonist Leon Williams, pianist Jackie Butler-Hairston (sister of Dr. George Butler) and Earl Watkins (a mainstay of the Bay Area Jazz Scene since the 1950’s) on “The Things We Did Last Summer” (from the Nancy Wilson songbook), all combine on the album to pay homage to Susie’s pop and jazz roots.

“All of the tunes have a kind of immediacy and importance to me,” says Susie. “I hope we’ve achieved an interesting and eclectic band of familiarity and freshness, taking some standards and other material into different directions, in term of both arrangement and style.”
© 2007 Susie Butler