Sparrow, Bob Dorough & Joanie Pallatto (photo: Southport Records)

"Joanie and Sparrow have elevated what they do together splendidly.  They're uniquely entertaining Chicago artists."
– Howard Mandel, jazz journalist

LIVE EVENTS – CHICAGO – NEW YORK – CHICAGO! (scroll down for details)

Chicago Jazz Festival – 40 Years of Sparrow 8/31/17
Noctambulo at Pangea, New York – Southport 40th Celebration 10/23/17
A Musical Celebration of Jazz Legend Bob Dorough!
Green Mill Jazz Club, Chicago – Southport 40th + CD Release 11/5/17

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Chicago Jazz Festival – Chicago Cultural Center, Randolph Square
8/31/17, 3:00 – 4:00 pm – FREE!
"Southport Records Celebrates 40 Years of Sparrow"
Bradley Parker-Sparrow, Joanie Pallatto and The Machine Band

"Southport Records Celebrates 40 Years of Sparrow" at the 39th Annual Chicago Jazz Festival.  With Bradley Parker-Sparrow, pianist/composer; Joanie Pallatto, vocalist/composer; John Devlin, bass and Luiz Ewerling, drums.  Special Southport Records guest artists will be Dave Gordon, pianist/composer and Marshall Vente, pianist/composer.
http://jazzinchicago.org/chicago-jazz-festival-2017/

The summer of 1977 was hot.  I was 23 years old and started work on my first LP,
Latin Black.  We worked in the first Sparrow studio called "The Pit", the lower level of an old coach house just north of Cabrini Green.  We tracked the project on the TEAC 3440 1/4" 4 track and used a BiAmp 1282 mixer with my longtime friend and producer, Michael Humphreys.  40 years later we have over 146 projects in print.  Time is music, and music is time.  Southport Records thanks the Jazz Institute of Chicago and the City of Chicago for hosting this musical tribute to the history of Southport Records and Sparrow... to the next 40 years!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
– sparrow

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Lampkin Music Group and Christopher Gines/Noctambulo @ Pangea presents
"A Musical Celebration of Jazz Legend Bob Dorough"
starring Joanie Pallatto and Bradley Parker-Sparrow
with special guests Martha Lorin, Christiana Moffa, Bill Nolte, Deanna Witkowski
Part of the Southport 40th Anniversary Celebration in NYC and Chicago
Plus a CD Party for Joanie & Sparrow’s new CD “Float Out to Sea”
One Show Only!
Noctambulo @ Pangea
178 2nd Ave (between 11th & 12th Streets)
Monday, October 23rd at 7:00 p.m.
Music Charge: $25.00 online or $30.00 at the Door (Cash Only)
Drink/Food Min: $20.00
Join us in a musical celebration with dinner and cocktails.

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/joanie-sparrow-cd-releasebob-dorough-tribute-tickets-37811601518

"A Musical Celebration of Jazz Legend Bob Dorough" will feature our entire “cast” performing their favorite “Bob Song” – in addition to other musical selections of jazz, cabaret and originals. A Bob Dorough tribute!

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Vocalist Joanie Pallatto and Pianist and Composer Bradley Parker-Sparrow claim Chicago as their home - their life in music has blossomed over the decades, along with their marriage.  As co-owners of Southport Records and producers and engineers at Sparrow Sound Design Recording Studio, together they have released close to 150 recordings since 1977 - mostly of jazz artists, along with cabaret performers and contemporary classical composers.  Over the years, the revered artists in the Southport catalog include Von Freeman, Willie Pickens, George Freeman, Fred Anderson, King Fleming and George Flynn.

Joanie Pallatto and Bradley Parker-Sparrow present their new CD Release “Float Out to Sea” which reveals ten original story-songs of “alternative jazz” with Luiz Ewerling, drums, John Devlin, bass-guitar-vocals, Bobby Lewis, trumpet and Janice Misurell-Mitchell, alto flute. Liner notes by Howard Mandel.

Joanie & Sparrow were named 2016 Jazz Heroes by the Jazz Journalists Association for their extraordinarily broad support of Chicago's community of musicians.  "The Last Cabrini" (a Southport Film ©2012) premiered at Chicago's CIMMFest 2016 - a cinema tone poem with Rick Kogan, narrator and Joanie Pallatto, voice.  Shot, directed, edited and composed by Sparrow.
https://youtu.be/HvQ12b70lxg

For over twelve years as curators of their "Southport Records Presents" series at Katerina's in Chicago, Joanie and Sparrow opened each evening with their duets of original music, followed by featuring a different artist from their Southport Records label. Thank you, Katerina!
www.chicagosound.com

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Bob Dorough is a national treasure! He was born in Arkansas and raised in Texas and has lived a life of music. A pianist and master of bebop, singer of scat and vocalese and a prolific songwriter, Bob is best know for his work as musical director, composer and performer of songs for Schoolhouse Rock! – the Saturday morning ABC-TV series (now in its 40th anniversary) created to help children with a wide range of studies, from math to politics, with songs such as "Conjunction Junction" and "Three is a Magic Number." His own recording career was off to the races in 1956 with "Devil May Care" for the Bethlehem label, and continued with more of his own sublime recordings. Bob was the featured vocalist on the Miles Davis "Sorcerer" album singing his own composition "Nothing Like You." He also wrote and sang "Blue Xmas" for Miles in 1962, which remains a dark and daring holiday classic. Davis also recorded an instrumental version of Bob's classic song, "Devil May Care," that same year. In 1995, Bob signed a contract with Blue Note Records and recorded three CDs for the label.  In 2002 his trio was chosen to represent the State Department and Kennedy Center, as an Ambassador of Jazz and Blues.
Bob Dorough is truly a living jazz legend – "Better Than Anything."
http://www.bobdorough.com/

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Jazz Vocalist Martha Lorin is based in the New York Metropolitan area, and she continues her close collaborations with the best musicians in jazz, working in the top venues of New York and environs.  Martha has been praised for the brilliance of her tone, the beauty of her voice and her exceptional way with a lyric. Martha has received a Back Stage Bistro Award in the Jazz Vocalist category and a Billboard Award for her songwriting abilities. “Come Walk With Me” is Lorin’s 2000 CD release on Southport Records, which features a treasure trove of Chicago’s finest musicians, from Fareed Haque to Larry Gray. Major musicians that Martha has worked with include Tommy Flanigan, Russ Kassoff, Billy Stritch, Jon Weber, Bucky Pizzarelli, John Pizzarelli, Clark Terry, Junior Mance, Jay Leonhart, Harvie S, Benny Powell, Saadi Zain and Sean Harkness. 

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Currently residing in and a native of Columbus, Ohio, Christiana Moffa is a powerhouse mezzo belter and cabaret singer.
A professional performer for nearly 20 years, she got her start when she “wowed” Chicago hot spots Pops for Champagne and Toulouse on the Park while recording a CD for local jazz label Southport Records.  “Can’t Help Singin’” was released in 1998, from which her arrangement of “Someone To Watch Over Me” was declared by the Manager of the George & Ira Gershwin Estate as “the most angelic version and voice” he has ever heard. This has been the greatest compliment of Ms. Moffa’s life. She made her New York debut at Club 88 shortly thereafter, opening to a stellar review by “Cabaret Scenes” that proclaimed her a seasoned vocalist the likes of Liz Callaway.

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Bill Nolte is a singer and Broadway actor. Raised in Genoa, Ohio, he graduated from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music in 1976, with a degree in Opera and Musical Theater. Bill made his Broadway debut in 1985 as Old Deuteronomy in the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Cats. Subsequently, he's appeared on Broadway in Me and My Girl, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat REVIVAL (1993-1994) and 1776 (1997-1998), King David as Goliath, Jane Eyre, Amour, Franz Liebkind in The Producers, La Cage Aux Folles in 2010-11, as well as the original album for Jekyll & Hyde alongside Anthony Warlow. Nolte’s off-broadway and regional roles range from Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof to Tony in Goodspeed Opera’s production of The Most Happy Fella, where he was awarded best leading actor in a musical in 2013-2104 from the Connecticut Critics Circle Award.

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Pianist and award-winning composer Deanna Witkowski introduces the jazz world to a spiritual body of music with her new release, "Makes the Heart to Sing: Jazz Hymns." The trio session with drummer Scott Latzky and bassist Daniel Foose explores Witkowski's thoughtful and deeply felt work setting traditional hymns in a jazz context.  Witkowski has released six critically hailed albums over the past two decades, and is the winner of the 2002 Great American Jazz Piano Competition. As an accompanist, she’s toured with soul-steeped vocalist Lizz Wright and held down the piano chair for ten years in the Jim McNeely–led BMI/New York Jazz Orchestra. Her projects as a leader feature fellow heavyweights like bassist John Patitucci and saxophonist Donny McCaslin.

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Southport Records was founded in Chicago in 1977 as an independent voice for new music from Chicago to a world audience. There are over 147 projects in print.  Real Jazz Made In Chicago – Real Music Made In Chicago
Southport Records
www.chicagosound.com

See and hear Joanie & Sparrow on youtube!
www.youtube.com/JoaniePallatto

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For more information or interviews, please email
Lampkinmusic@gmail.com

www.LampkinMusicGroup.com

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Green Mill Jazz Club – 4802 N. Broadway, Chicago
Sunday, November 5th, 2017   2:00 – 5:00, $10
Southport Records 40th Anniversary Continues!
Plus – Joanie & Sparrow CD Release Party “Float Out To Sea”
with Howard Mandel, Master of Ceremonies!

Celebrate at the historic Green Mill on a Sunday afternoon with Bradley Parker-Sparrow, Joanie Pallatto and The Machine Band: John Devlin, bass and Luiz Ewerling, drums – and special Southport Guests including Chicago jazz piano legend Willie Pickens, new music pianist-composer George Flynn, jazz vocalist Martha Lorin, TV POW and more tba!

Green Mill Jazz Club
4802 N. Broadway, Chicago, IL 60640  773-878-5552
http://greenmilljazz.com/
http://www.facebook.com/greenmillcocktaillounge