Julie Mack is a versatile vocalist whose repertoire extends from the swinging standards and bittersweet ballads of jazz and the American Songbook to the driving samba rhythms of Brazil. Born in the hip city of Hackensack, New Jersey, where legendary sessions were recorded a few years before her arrival on the scene, she began singing jazz as a student in Boston. She lived in New York and Tokyo before moving to the DC area with her family in 1999, and is happy to make her musical home in the Washington, DC jazz and Brazilian music community.
Julie is a charismatic and natural performer praised for her ability to connect with her audience, whether in an intimate jazz room or a concert hall. Recent performances have had guests at public and private events dancing to her Brazilian bands’ samba beat. Julie’s buoyant style and expressiveness show the influences of Blossom Dearie, Anita O’Day, contemporaries such as Stacey Kent and Holly Cole, and Brazilian singers such as Paula Morelenbaum, Elis Regina and Gal Costa. Her recently recorded EP, “The Sweetest Sounds,” with Wayne Wilentz (piano), David Jernigan (bass and guitar), Roberto Berimbau (percussion), Jim West (drums) and Lyle Link (tenor saxophone), highlights both jazz and Brazilian music.
Julie performs regularly with DC’s finest instrumentalists at clubs, restaurants, and public and private events in Washington, DC, Maryland and Virginia, including the Mid-Atlantic Jazz Festival in Feb. 2013, Sky Bar at the Beacon Hotel (DC); Vino Volo (Bethesda); Bistrot Lepic & Wine Bar (Georgetown); Tel’veh Cafe & Wine Bar (downtown DC); the Embassy of Canada; Germano’s Trattoria (Baltimore); Black Fox Lounge (DC); Twins Jazz (DC); Artomatic (Arlington); BGR, Veterans Park (Bethesda). In her “chamber jazz” voice/bass duo with David Jernigan, she has performed at area art galleries and exhibits, and at the Society of the Cincinnati music series at Anderson House on Embassy Row in Washington, DC.
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The Sweetest Sounds
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