Richard Cortez - Mood Swings (2024) [Hi-Res]

This exciting new singer is one to watch! Emerging from the New York City jazz scene, Richard Cortez handles the Great American Songbook with a deep emotional intelligence, an unbridled passion for song, and an activist’s relationship to both his material and his audience.

Richard has shared the bandstand with some of New York City’s most celebrated and respected musicians — Sullivan Fortner, Grant Stewart, Joe Farnsworth, Jerry Weldon, Nicole Glover, Russell Hall and Emmet Cohen — to name a few.

Splitting his time between a number of weekly residencies at iconic venues across the city, Cortez has focused and refined his artistry while growing his diverse fan-base. Recent performance productions and venues include Live at Emmet’s Place, Jazz at Lincoln Center’s "Jazz at Pride" with Tony/Grammy Award winner Bryan Carter, Birdland Theater, The Django, Arthur’s Tavern, Mezzrow, and Smalls.

Cortez’s openly gay renderings of timeless treasures by Cole Porter, Billie Holiday, Jerome Kern, and so many others deliver sweetness, self-assuredness and disarming vulnerability with well-timed wit. Richard breathes exciting new life into this beloved material, forever reminding us that as we progress as a society, so do our stories told within these sacred songs.

Richard Cortez, vocals
Richard Cortez Band