BIOGRAPHY
SANDRA BOOKER
Singer/songwriter/actress/activist/playwright
Sandra Booker is regarded as one of the best voices in the modern jazz scene. She has performed with Lalo Schifrin and
the WDR Big Band, Wynton Marsalis & The Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, Billy Higgins, Frank Collett, Dado Moroni, Phillippe Martel, and the Dennis Dreith Band, amongst others.
Highly respected for her virtuosic scat ability, impeccable timing, crystalline tone, and irrepressible musicality, she continues to push the musical envelope to create a style and sound that is her own. Her deep Southern roots and razor-sharp musical intuition are ever-present in her interpretations of standards, contemporary, and original compositions.
She combines aspects of different genres to blend old styles into new ones, such as urban country, French neo-soul, or contemporary gospel/hip-hop. By fusing styles ranging from blues and R&B to Brazilian and classical music into her compositions and performances, Booker is changing the sound of music as she hears it.
Booker also studied classical voice with Bela Berger and Marion Cooper, a student of the prestigious NOCCA Institute (formerly the New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts -NOCCA). She briefly took jazz voice with Mike Campbell. Her voice has appeared in major radio and television advertising campaigns, including Coca-Cola and Ralph Lauren. She earned a B.A. degree from the University of Los Angeles, California (UCLA) in ethnomusicology, emphasizing jazz studies. She has conducted vocal workshops and masterclasses at California State University, Northridge (CSUN), Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz, LAUSD, and the Civica Scuole di Musica (Sondrio, Italy).
She has released two recordings, Very Early (1995) and When Love Happens: The Loving Day Concert (2011) on her label The Booker Group (formerly Jersey Boy Music), with three previously recorded projects slated for release in fall 2022 and spring 2023 including Sandra Booker and the New Trio "The Reunion Concert: Live from Pasadena Conservatory of Music-Barrett Hall." She continues her work as a playwright with her solo shows "Life without God: Confessions of an Atheist, Black Woman," which tackles the taboo subject of race and religion, and "She Can Be Evil - A Survivor's Story," addressing intimate partner sexual abuse, to rave reviews.
Booker is the founder of the Jazz Musicians Against Cancer fund that raises resources and advocates for music as a form of wellness therapy for cancer survivors and caretakers. She created Transgenre Music Nonbinary™ and the Artists Spotlight series for genre-defying creatives. She is gaining acclaim as a writer with the publishing of her peer-reviewed essay "The Untethered Tongue: Lifting the Black, Feminine Voice in Jazz" by the African-American Intellectual History Society (AAIHS). She is currently a contributing writer for Women In Jazz Media and is working on two novels, "I, ATHIEST," and "Clear My Name," to be released in winter 2024 and a member of the This is a Movement (TIAM) initiative seeking to create a more equitable music industry with a specific focus on gender justice and Jazz/Black American/Creative Music.