Reprinted with permission from Delaware Today, April, 2005

She's the "Bossa"

by Megan M.F. Everhart
Photo by Phil Flynn
Edited by Shannon German

After a year off the circuit, bossa nova jazz guitarist Judith Kay is back in action just in time for her latest CD release.

We know that when the "Girl from Ipanema" goes walking, all she passes go "ah." When Judith Kay, the girl from Arden, plays her rendition of Brazilian jazz standards and original compositions, all who hear her relax to the intimate, intricate rhythms of her bossa-nova-style guitar music.

Kay grew up in a home filled with song. Her mother always played records. "I heard good music growing up, good classical music and jazz," she says.

By the time she was 14, Kay wanted to be a professional musician. She began her career playing and singing great American pop standards, ranging from Cole Porter's "I Got You Under My Skin" to the Beatles' "With A Little Help From My Friends." She spent time at the Eastman School of Music and studied privately under composer Manny Albam and jazz guitarist Pat Martino. Among her repertoire were Brazilian-inspired songs, like "The Girl From Ipanema."

In the early 1980s, a musician friend brought records back from a trip to Brazil and, when Kay heard them, she realized there was a greater sound out there to explore. Brazilian, Latin and American jazz are all different categories of music, she says, even though they influence each other. "Real bossa nova has different rhythms that are more subtle and tricky" than American jazz, Kay says. Bossa nova, Portuguese for the "new trend," derived from samba but it has more melodic complexity and less emphasis on percussion.

Kay set out to learn Portuguese in 1986, studying with Paulo da Silva at the University of Delaware and working with audiotapes. Also that year, she traveled to Brazil for the first time to hear bossa nova firsthand, and returned in 1992 to study with Brazilian jazz historian Adriano Giffoni and perfect her style.

"I'm in the wrong country at the wrong time," Kay says, laughing. "I fit in in Brazil. Everybody plays guitar and everybody sings." In the United States, Kay finds herself among few female jazz musicians, and even fewer jazz guitarists. Kay admires the late Emily Remler, the jazz guitarist who died in 1990, and female vocalists and keyboardists Diana Krall, Miriam McPartland and Shirley Horn, but she doesn't know of any other women in this country who play her style of guitar. "That's changing, slowly," she says. "I'm [seeing] spunky, young women in jazz now."

Kay still plays a lot of Brazilian jazz, but she hasn't let go of those great American standards. Her most recent albums, "Judith Kay: Her Voice, Her Guitar" volume one and volume two, are a blend of songs like Irving Berlin's "Puttin' On the Ritz" and Brazilian songs like "Manha de Carnaval" by Luis Bonfa Antonio Maria, all with Kay's original arrangements. "Arranging is my main interest in music," she says. "Singing and playing are my avenue for my arrangements. That's the fun to me -- writing those little twists and turns in the chord progression, changing the time signature."

For 20 years Kay has struggled to keep a repetitive stress injury in her shoulder under control with exercise and physical therapy. In 2003, the injury flared up and kept her from her guitar for a full year. Most gigs are booked six to 12 months in advance so when a musician stops booking it often takes a year to have scheduled performances again.

After spending most of last year recovering, with daily physical therapy Kay is ready to play again. On April 16 she performs at the Delaware Friends of Folk (DFF) coffee house as she relaunches her performance schedule. "I am just recently finding out that the folk world will accept me and like me even though I'm not a folk musician," she says. DFF Board Chair John Kidd isn't surprised by the association. "We have a very broad definition of folk music," he says. "Folk music is music that folks play. Jazz is just one of the things we do."

Kay is also releasing her sixth CD this month, "Judith Kay: Even More - Her Voice, Her Guitar," which continues her unique blend of Brazilian and American songs.

Now healthy, Kay wants to expand her audiences, both as a solo performer and with her jazz combo, ChamberJazz.

However, she hasn't let go of her desire to compose original music. Last year she wrote "Waiting for the Rain," an a capella choir piece commissioned by the Berkshire Chorale of Reading, Pennsylvania.

"It's a wonderful way to get back to my writing. There is a dearth of good jazzy material for choir groups," she says. "It's also a good way to get people more interested in jazz. In this country you have to really search to find out about jazz. That's not right because it's our classical music. This is the birthplace of jazz."

DFF's monthly coffee-house concerts are at Wesley College Underground, College Center basement, 120 N. Slate St., Dover, at 7:30 p.m. Visit www. delfok. org.

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