Carol Sokoloff Jazz Vocalist & Songwriter

A new voice in jazz with new songs that stand up against the classics, Peabody award-winning vocalist and songwriter Carol Sokoloff, is an engaging performer who swings, sways and scats. Born and educated in Toronto, Ontario Carol Sokoloff now lives in Victoria, BC where she performs regularly and leads the group Carol Sokoloff and Trio Espresso. A published author and poet, a choral director and arranger, and a Mideast dance artist, Sokoloff brings a joy in words, music and dance to the performance of jazz.

Let Go!, Carol Sokoloff’s debut jazz CD (Dec. 2010) features ten new songs in the style of ‘The Standards,’ sometimes in medleys with well-loved pieces. The album also features a collaboration with jazz master Wayne Shorter on “Follow the Footprints,” an adaptation of the saxophonist’s ‘Footprints,’ featuring Sokoloff’s lyric. It is the first of a series of Sokoloff’s Wayne Shorter adaptations which the composer has approved.

A former broadcaster, Carol Sokoloff produced a CBC radio documentary on American Songbook icon, composer Harold Arlen. She was privileged to get to know the reclusive composer in his later years and met his collaborator, lyricist Yip Harburg and colleagues Burton Lane, Comden and Green and Kay Swift. "I feel like the influence of these great creators of the American Songbook is manifesting in my music,” Sokoloff writes.”I am inspired by the sophistication and elegance of their songs, both harmonically and lyrically, and strive to meet those standards! I also know that today’s jazz singers lack contemporary material.”

Carol Sokoloff and Trio Espresso were featured in the 2009 Victoria JazzFest, which wrote, “One of Victoria’s finest jazz vocalists, Carol Sokoloff radiates a rare warmth and burnished vocal technique from the bandstand...” Sokoloff has studied extensively with top jazz vocalists including Kurt Elling, who calls Carol Sokoloff “an intuitively gifted songwriter whose composition ‘Winter Moon’ reminds me of Hoagy Carmichael.” Elling selected the vocalist to sing ‘Winter Moon’ at a Jazz Port Townsend Festival concert. She has also worked extensively with jazz singer, Nancy King, Portland’s Queen of Scat.

Carol Sokoloff received a Peabody Award for her writing, theme music and performance, and poetry for an educational radio series broadcast on the CBC radio network. A compelling performer, Carol Sokoloff brings meaning and warmth to every song. Her Miiddle Eastern dance background adds excitement and variety including a captivating version of Ellington’s Caravan, complete with colourful veils.