MARIA HOWELL

Mere words can only capture the refrain of Maria Howell’s awesome talent. She is the ballad of beauty and elegance. The melodies flowing from the petite vocalist are truly amazing. While casting a spellbinding smile, she mesmerizes her captive audience with incredible harmonies and rhythms. Best known for her role as the choir soloist in the 1985 Oscar-nominated film The Color Purple, Maria Howell is the perfect combination of artistry and entertainment.

A song stylist in her own right, Maria has shared the musical stage with such legendary artists as Nancy Wilson, George Benson, Ray Charles and Earl Klugh, and Ronnie Laws. After a very successful 6 year stint in Asia, Maria relocated back to the U.S. and performed at Sambuca Jazz Café for 9 consecutive years. She and pianist Bill Wilson (son of legendary jazz pianist Teddy Wilson), held the distinction of being the longest running act at the Atlanta, GA location. As of 2017, Maria hosts her live Hollywood music series called #DUETS, featuring “songs to soothe your soul.”

Maria is not only a song stylist and actor, but a very devoted supporter of her charity of choice, Students Without Mothers, where she has served as a board member for over 8 years. As the leader of the Noel Freidline Quintet for the last 26 years, Freidline has recorded 8 CDs, performed at jazz festivals as diverse as the Jacksonville (FL) Jazz Festival to the Bethlehem (PA) Musikfest to the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland, served as artistic director for the Columbia Museum of Art jazz concert series, Jazz on Main, launched a new jazz concert series in Jacksonville, FL called Jazz with Noel Freidline and Friends, held down a three-year house band position at the Bellagio in Las Vegas and performed for actress Julia Roberts’ surprise 35th birthday party.

Show Ticket :$55 | New Year’s Eve Gala Prix Fixe  Dinner: $155++ includes 4-course dinner, champagne toast, party favors

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KEITH DAVID

 A classically trained, multiple Emmy award winning actor and voiceover talent, he is  also a remarkable singer. He has presented Too Marvelous for Words, in which he portrays the legendary singer Nat King Cole, at venues around the country. He is developing a show about the legendary blues singer Joe Williams, Here’s to Life.

Born and raised in New York, Keith became interested in the arts at a very young age. After appearing in his school’s production of The Wizard of Oz, he knew this was what he wanted to do for the rest of his life. He enrolled in New York’s High School of the Performing Arts and continued his studies at The Juilliard School. After graduation, he was immediately hired by Joseph Papp as an understudy for the role of Tullus Aufidius in William Shakespeare’s Coriolanus. His work with Mr. Papp and the New York Shakespeare Festival launched his incredible career.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Jeanette Kimball was born Jeanette Salvant on December 18, 1906 in Pass Christian, Mississippi, the niece of blues pianist Isadore “Tuts” Washington. When she was seven she began playing the piano and as a teenager she performed as a professional musician with classical string formations, then in the field of jazz.

Moving to New Orleans, Louisiana she played in traditional jazz bands, first in 1926 in a “society” dance band, Papa Celestin’s Original Tuxedo Orchestra, with whom she went on tour in the southern United States. By 1929 she had married Celestin’s banjo and guitar player Narvin Kimball, and six years later left the band to raise their children. Post divorce, she retained Kimball and started her career anew in the mid-1940s. She went on to work with Buddy Charles, Herb Leary and Sidney Desvigne.

The 1950s saw Kimball working again with Papa Celestin, when he reactivated his band, which then was under the guidance of Papa French. She was a member of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band and played with Clive Wilson’s Original Camellia Jazz Band.

She appeared in 1976 on the Jazz Festival Breda live 1999 album Jeanette Kimball Meets the Fondy Riverside Bullet Band; their album Sophisticated Lady with Frank Fields and Freddie Kohlman. In the field of jazz, Jeanette worked between 1953 and 1991 on 72 recording sessions, among others with Alvin Alcorn, Paul Barbarin, Papa Celestin, Punch Miller and Johnny St. Cyr.

She left New Orleans in the 1990s to live in Ohio and South Carolina. Pianist Jeanette Kimball, received the Black Men of Labor Jazz Legacy Award in 1998, transitioned in Charleston, South Carolina, at the age of 94 on March 28, 2001.

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QUIANA PARLER

with The Lavon Stevens Trio

As lead vocalist, lyricist, and composer for internationally and critically acclaimed two-time Grammy Award-winning roots music group, Ranky Tanky, Parler spent weeks at #1 on several Billboard Jazz charts.

Quiana has spent over 20 years as the most sought-after vocalist in the Lowcountry. Known locally for years prior, she rose to national prominence after her success on the 2003 season of American Idol.

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SUTTON FOSTER

Tony Award®-winning actress and singer Sutton Foster returns to The Parker with Sutton Foster: Christmas Time Is Here! This show will feature her singing a collection of songs that includes a mixture of holiday classics and her own personal holiday favorites.

Foster is one of her generation’s most celebrated Broadway actresses, having won two Tony Awards® for her performances in Anything Goes and  Thoroughly Modern Millie. She has starred in numerous other Broadway productions, including Violet, Young Frankenstein, Shrek the Musical, and most recently concluded a lauded run in The Music Man.

Other notable stage performances include Into the Woods, Sweet Charity, and The Wild Party. In addition to her work on stage, Foster is known for her performances on television, including the hit series Younger, Bunheads, The Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.

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