Artist Biography
Like many singers of her generation, Robin Adler has been heavily influenced by the uncompromising and nonconformist approach to music of singer/songwriter Joni Mitchell. Listening in her teens to Charlie Parker, Billie Holiday and others perked her interest in jazz. But it wasn't until the 1980's when she first heard Joni Mitchell that becoming a singer became more than a possibility. Adler started taking vocal lessons from Robert Edwards, one of Los Angeles better teachers and later studied with Latin-jazz vocalist Kevyn Lettau.
Her professional development was aided and abetted by jazz guitarist Peter Sprague who called her for her first gig on New Years Eve of 1990. With Sprague and her husband drummer David Blackburn, she cut her first album It's About Time which was released at the end of 1998 on her own label, Righteous Ride Records. This session plainly reveals Mitchell's influence on Adler. The play list cuts a broad swath of the musical spectrum including jazz, traditional standards, folk-rock, new age music and a blues-tinged tune. Other vocalists like Holly Cole, Dianne Reeves and Katie King take a similar approach using a mixed musical style agenda for their albums. Also like Mitchell, Adler writes some of her songs, two of which appear on her album.
Adler has formed her own band which includes Blackburn, pianist Barnaby Finch and bass player Kevin Hennessey. They perform in jazz venues in and around Southern California. ~ Dave Nathan
Hometown
United States of America
Genre
Jazz