2006 West Texas Jazz Party Featured Artist
2006 West Texas Jazz Party Featured Artist
Rebecca Kilgore - Vocals & Guitar
An early exposure to swing jazz (via her father's record collection) gave Rebecca a deep respect and admiration for the vocalists of the 30s and 40s, and for the driving rhythm guitar behind Count Basie's band. She explored folk music as a teenager, but her love for swing music compelled her to join her first band in 1981 in Portland, Oregon: a popular swing combo called Wholly Cats (named after the Benny Goodman tune). This gave her the perfect opportunity to develop her guitar playing and singing skills.
After performing in a wide variety of musical situations, she now has a full schedule of ongoing gigs in Portland. She performs regularly with the Rebecca Kilgore Trio (with keyboardist Randy Porter and drummer Neil Masson), with pianist Dave Frishberg, is vocalist with the Woody Hite Big Band, Art Abrams Swing Machine, and Tall Jazz, and is guitarist/vocalist with Casey MacGill's Spirits of Rhythm. In the Western swing vein, Rebecca and fiddler James Mason co-founded Cactus Setup, whose other members now are Peter Schwimmer on banjo, guitar, and mandolin, and Fritz Richmond (from the Jim Kweskin Jug Band) on washtub bass.
Her out of town engagements have included jazz parties at Chautauqua, NY, Kingsport, TN, Cambridge Springs, PA, and Clearwater Beach, FIL (where she has shared the stage with Dave McKenna, Cal Collins, Ken Peplowski, Scott Hamilton, Bob Haggart to name a few), and festivals in Sacramento, Sun Valley, Scottsdale, Pensacola, San Diego, Friday Harbor, WA and Elko, NV. She has toured Germany twice with Hal Smith's California Swing Cats.
She appeared on Terry Gross' radio show, "Fresh Air", for an in-studio concert and interview at WHYY in Philadelphia, which was broadcast on National Public Radio.
She is featured on 13 recordings, with such jazz greats as Dave Frishberg, Dan Barrett, Bucky Pizzarelli, Hal Smith, Bobby Gordon, Michael Moore, Butch Thompson, and Dan Faehnle. Another recording project featured her vocals on 2 animated TV specials by "Far Side" carloonist, Gary Larson.
Rebecca is also an educator and has taught jazz vocal repertoire
and swing guitar at the Puget Sound Guitar Workshop and Sound Acoustic Music
Camp, both in Washington state.
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