Sandra Dudley - Close To You (2003)

Sandra Dudley is a versatile jazz vocalist who performs standards, bebop and original songs with a"pristine, horn-like clarity", writes Tim Carman, former writer of the Houston Post. "There's a husky resonance that gives her music a blue spirit, a kind of honest, lived-in quality that is both inviting and heartbreakingly human." "Jazz opens my heart to a spiritual experience. When I sing, I want to speak to the soul," says Dudley of her art.

Dudley, a native of Buffalo, New York, grew up with jazz all around her. Her father, an amateur singer, exposed her to some of the music of the great jazz singers and big band leaders. Her early childhood music studies included lessons on pop organ, piano and voice. Following high school, Sandra attended Fredonia State University where she studied classical voice and opera. While at Fredonia, she placed in the regional finals of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, and finished with high merit in the NATS Competition at Carnegie Hall in New York City. Sandra was performing jazz along with classical in performances with the Fredonia Jazz Ensemble and the Fredonia Symphony Orchestra. "I felt I had the best of both worlds learning about classical and commercial. I was lucky to have hip teachers who would allow it. Both idioms feed off each other in so many ways." Upon graduation from Fredonia, Dudley attended Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York where she studied with world-renowned mezzo-soprano Jan DeGaetani. There she studied classical and twentieth century music, including jazz. "I took jazz history with pianist Bill Dobbins and learned so much about jazz from his stories and experiences." Upon graduation with her Masters in Voice Performance, Sandra performed jazz with the Eastman School of Music Studio Orchestra and began to sing in jazz clubs throughout New York. Teaching was equally important, and in the following years Sandra taught classical and jazz voice at St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia, Canada and music at the University of Houston in Texas. She is currently Assistant Professor of Commercial Voice at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee where she has taught applied voice, jazz vocal styles, and directed the jazz vocal ensemble, Jazzmin since 1995.