October 27th
The B.O.B.
20 Monroe Ave NW / Grand Rapids, MI 49503
6:30- 8:30 pm
$5.00 for members and students and $10.00 for non-members.
Petra van Nuis & The Andy Brown Trio with bassist Joe Policastro & drummer Bob Rummage.
Petra van Nuis (pronounced Pay-tra van Nouse) is a Chicago-based jazz vocalist who has been described in Downbeat Magazine as having “a light, gorgeous, and fairly delicate voice…a gift for melody and plenty of rhythmic confidence.”
A Chicagoan since 2003, Petra sings at all the finest jazz venues in town including the Jazz Showcase, the Green Mill, Katerina’s, Andy’s Jazz Club, Fitzgerald’s, the City Winery, the Old Town School of Folk Music, and the Chicago Cultural Center. Along with six other Chicago jazz artists, she was nominated for the “Best Jazz Entertainer 2013” for the 33rd Annual Chicago Music Awards.
Germany’s Jazzpodium Magazine hails Petra’s fourteen year musical collaboration with her husband, guitarist Andy Brown, as “a magical musical dialogue, which can only partially be described as blind understanding.” Festival highlights for the duo include Joe Boughton’s Chautauqua Jazz Party and the Gorinchem Jazz Festival (Holland’s oldest jazz festival). Petra and Andy’s romantic style has been enjoyed in intimate club settings around the country including Shanghai Jazz (Madison, NJ), Night Town (Cleveland,OH), the Saugatuck Center for the Arts (Saugatuck, MI), and the Blue Wisp Jazz Club (Cincinnati, OH). Several European tours have brought the duo to Germany (Jazzhaus Heidelberg, Le Pirate, Jazz Club Neustadt, Jazz Club 77, Musikhaus Birlkehof) to the Netherland’s (Stichting Jazz Zevenbergen) and to Belgium (Jazz Cafe Hopper). With the re-release of their 2009 critically acclaimed CD Far Away Places on Japan’s Muzak label, Petra and Andy continue to spread their swinging sounds far and wide.
Petra and Andy often augment their duo with bassist Joe Policastro and drummer Bob Rummage forming the Petra van Nuis Quartet. In addition to Chicago performances, the quartet frequently tours the Midwest having played for the West Michigan Jazz Society (Grand Rapids, MI), Polyrhytms (Davenport,IA), the Firefly Jazz Club (Ann Arbor, MI), the Wilson Center for the Arts (Milwaukee, WI), the Detroit Institute for the Arts (Detroit, MI), and headlined the 32nd Michelob Women In Jazz Festival (Dayton, OH).
As a jazz singer, Petra’s unique and expressive phrasing gives her an instantly identifiable sound, and sets her happily apart from the crowd. Within one bar, you know it’s her, and you want to hear more! Much of Petra’s “own voice” comes from her intrinsically pure vision of how to sing lyrics – how to “speak” them, while choosing the perfect notes and length of phrase to convey meaning and musicality. Her improvisational excursions on the melody are born of a true jazz stylist, one with sophisticated taste and a genuine respect for the material. Petra lets us in on a candid and intimate view of her emotions, while always maintaining a sense of vivacious hopefulness. Sensuous, winsome and adorably hip, Petra’s delectable delivery of songs brings us the tantalizing flavors of Astrud Gilberto and Blossom Dearie in a young and appealing new voice.Chicago’s “first lady of jazz” Judy Roberts (excerpt from liner notes to “Far Away Places”)
The Kulture Vulture 