Bay Street Theater to Present JAZZ INSPIRED with Judy Carmichael and Billy Stritch, 5/21

Bay Street Theater & Sag Harbor Center for the Arts is pleased to announce Jazz Inspired with Judy Carmichael and Billy Stritch on Saturday, May 21 at 8 pm. Tickets are $50 sides, $65 Center, $75 with VIP Reception and available online at www.baystreet.org or by calling the Bay Street Theater Box Office at 631-725-9500, open Tuesday through Saturday 11 am to 5 pm.

Grammy-nominated pianist/vocalist Judy Carmichael and Grammy-winning pianist/vocalist Billy Stritch will play, sing and talk about their lives in music. Join us for back-to-back grand pianos! This is Judy and Billy's first time performing together so it's sure to be an exciting night.

Judy hosts her own public radio show, Judy Carmichael's Jazz Inspired on SiriusXm and stations across the country (locally on 88.3FM) talking to celebrated creative people who love jazz. Her Bay Street concert/conversation with Billy Stritch will be recorded for later broadcast. You get to be part of the show!

This is sure to be an amazing night of music with two of the greatest entertainers in the business. A great end to the Sag Harbor Heritage Day!

Judy Carmichael is one of the world's leading interpreters of stride piano and swing. Count Basie nicknamed her "Stride", acknowledging the command with which she plays this technically and physically demanding jazz piano style. Judy's CD "I Love Being Here With You" is her first all-vocal CD, exploring her love of witty lyrics, juicy ballads and Broadway Standards.

America's Jazz Times Magazine says: "Judy Carmichael exhibits a truly remarkable ability to channel Peggy Lee's breathy invitingness and her befogged insouciance. (She also) echoes the intense perspicacity of the solo albums of Annie Ross. In other words, she winningly blends two of the all-time finest, most intuitive jazz singers."

Judy Carmichael has played the major concert halls and festivals around the world from Carnegie Hall to the Peggy Guggenheim Museum in Venice (the first concert ever presented by the museum) to programs with Leslie Garrett, Joel Grey, Michael Feinstein, Steve Ross and the Smothers Brothers. In addition, Ms. Carmichael has done comic skits and performed her music on radio and TV (Jo Soares in Brazil,Entertainment Tonight in the U.S. and others) and performed private recitals for everyone from Rod Stewart and Robert Redford to President Clinton and Gianni Agnelli.

Ms. Carmichael has appeared frequently on Garrison Keillor's A Prairie Home Companion, been featured on NPR's Morning Edition, Entertainment Tonight, CBS'Sunday Morning with Charles Kuralt and with Charles Osgood, Mornings With Margaret Throsby for the Australia Broadcast Corporation and the BBC's Loose Ends andWoman's Hour and numerous other shows.

2016 marks the 17th anniversary of Judy Carmichael's Jazz Inspired, the popular Podcast, SiriusXM and Public Radio Show,which Ms. Carmichael produces and hosts, talking with everyone from Tony Bennett to Seth MacFarlane about their love of jazz and how it inspires them.

Judy Carmichael's Grammy-nominated recording Two Handed Stride teamed her with four giants of jazz, bassist Red Callender, drummer Harold Jones, guitarist Freddie Green and saxophonist Marshall Royal. She has written two books on stride piano and numerous articles on the subject of jazz. She has served on a variety of music panels at the National Endowment for the Arts, spoken before the presidentially appointed National Council on the Arts advocating for individual fellowship grants, and is one of the few jazz pianists honored as a Steinway Artist

Ms. Carmichael is included in "Who's Who in the East", "Who's Who in Finance and Industry in America", "Who's Who in American Woman", "American Women in Jazz", "Who's Who in the World" as well as the "Encyclopedia of Jazz".

Her recordings and music books are available at www.judycarmichael.com and iTunes. Judy Carmichael's Jazz Inspired can be downloaded free from iTunes or streamed from www.jazzinspired.com.

An award-winning composer, arranger, vocalist, and jazz pianist of extraordinary range and sophistication, Billy Stritch breathes new life into the Great American Songbook, all the while bringing an easy sense of humor and showmanship to his performances.

Born and raised in Sugar Land, Texas, Billy Stritch got his start at age 12, playing piano at his neighborhood First Presbyterian Church. Word spread about the child prodigy, and the local country club hired him for a four-year weekly gig in the piano bar. The dreaded requests came in droves, prompting Billy to rush home and learn all the requisite standards, which would subsequently fill his tip bowl! Inspiration came from jazz greats like Oscar Peterson and George Shearing, but his older sister's love for Elton John and Billy Joel opened up a new world of pop music which informs his playing to this day. After being turned on to singers like Mel Torme, Ella Fitzgerald, Mark Murphy and Carmen McRae, Stritch started to find his own voice to use in conjunction with the piano mastery.

While at the University of Houston, Billy teamed with two female vocalists and created Montgomery, Plant & Stritch. The jazz vocal trio appeared in local saloons, but soon they were playing the most important supper clubs in the country. Eventually, the JVC Jazz Festival paired the group with Mel Torme at Carnegie Hall, they became regulars at the Newport Jazz Festival, and they toured Italy with the North Sea Jazz Festival four years in a row. When the group broke up, Billy made the big move to New York City. He was playing a piano bar when Liza Minnelli stopped in, listened and immediately hired him to arrange for her "Steppin' Out At Radio City" extravaganza. This led to international performances on stage at The Palais de Congres in Paris, The Municipale in Rio de Janeiro, The Russiya in Moscow, NHK Hall in Tokyo and The Royal Albert Hall in London. He acted as associate producer, pianist and arranger for Minnelli's Gently CD, which earned two Grammy nominations, and was co-arranger with Marvin Hamlisch for Minnelli On Minnelli at the Palace Theater in New York City. His arrangements have also been performed in the annual Christmas Spectacular at Radio City Music Hall, most memorably in the "Multiplying Santa" fantasy.

As a composer, Stritch and Nashville writer Sandy Knox penned the 1994 Grammy Award-winning country song, "Does He Love You?," recorded by Reba McEntire and Linda Davis, which has sold over four million copies nationwide. The song was named one of the Top Ten Country Songs of 1994 by the readers of Music City News and also appears on Patti LaBelle's CD, Flame. Most recently, it was performed on "American Idol" by Reba McIntire and the show's winner Kelly Clarkson.

In 2001, a new door opened in the professional life of Billy Stritch. He was cast in the role of Oscar, the piano-playing crooner in the Broadway revival of "42nd Street" which starred Christine Ebersole. Their show-stopping number together, "I Only Have Eyes For You", led to television spots on The Rosie O'Donnell Show and CBS This Morning. In February 2004, Billy and Christine collaborated on a nightclub act entitled "In Your Dreams" which they have performed at Feinstein's in New York, The Cinegrill in Hollywood, and Manhattan's famed jazz nightspot Birdland. In November 2004, the two released a CD also entitled "In Your Dreams" on the Ghostlight Records label and they have many concert appearances scheduled through 2005 and beyond. Billy's other TV appearances include Sondheim: A Celebration at Carnegie Hall, The Today Show, The Charlie Rose Show and The Oprah Winfrey Show. He was also guest conductor forThe Rosie O'Donnell Show when regular musical director John McDaniel was on the road in concert.

His first solo recording, "Billy Stritch" (DRG Records), finds Stritch swinging standards with Chip Jackson on bass and Terry Clarke on drums. His follow-up CD on the Touchwood Record label, "Waters Of March: The Brazilian Album", features Dave Ratajczak on drums, David Finck on bass, along with a 40-piece string orchestra. "Jazz Live", his third release (Fynsworth Alley), was recorded live at The Jazz Standard in New York City with John Arbo on bass and Dave Ratajczak on drums, and caused the London Times to rave, "Equally gifted as a player and a singer, and doing both with no-holds-power, Stritch is not afraid to dazzle!"

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