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Allison Adams Tucker’s WANDERlust Brings Her to HPR’s Atherton Studio, May 12

Multi-lingual jazz vocalist Allison Adams Tucker returns to open the 2017 Atherton Summer Season on Friday, May 12 at 7:30 p.m. with a travel memoir in song. The jazz-inspired music and stories from her third album “WANDERlust” span countries and genres in six languages, and include tunes from Björk and Christina Perri to Astor Piazzolla, Pat Metheny and Antonio Carlos Jobim to Ennio Morricone, and even ancient Japanese folk songs. Honolulu is the 11th city on Tucker?s WANDERlust Tour, with previous performances in Los Angeles, Seattle, San Francisco, and New York City (at the historic Blue Note). The HPR concert will feature Ethan Capone on piano, Los Angeles-based O?ahu native Abe Lagrimas Jr. on drums and ?ukulele, and Reggie Padilla on saxophone.
 
Reservations for “Allison Adams Tucker – WANDERlust Tour” in the Atherton may be made online at www.hprtickets.org or by calling the station (955-8821) during regular business hours. Tickets are $30 general, $25 for HPR members, and $15 for students with ID; service fees are applied to online orders.

Hawai?i Public Radio is currently in the final week of its 10-day fund drive. While fund drive premiums are available, members may also select from various Atherton ticket packages -- including a pair of tickets to the Allison Adams Tucker concert -- for their thank you gift. Donations are accepted at bit.ly/supportHPR.

The Atherton Studio is located at Hawai?i Public Radio, 738 K?heka Street. Doors open a half hour before the performance. Advance ticket purchase strongly encouraged as the house is frequently sold out before the performance date.
 
Tucker's versatility is remarkable not only for her ability to sing in a half-dozen different languages but to weave entrancing and expressive stories in each of them. Regardless of whether the listener understands English, French, Portuguese, Italian, Spanish, or Japanese, the emotion of every word is crystal clear thanks to Tucker's lucent articulation and supple, silken phrasing.
 
"I'm fascinated with foreign cultures and languages, foreign communities, and foreign ways of thinking," Tucker says. "WANDERlust is all about the longing to experience things outside your own backyard. Music can open you up to a culture in an authentic way; it's usually the thing that connects me with people."
 
About the artist

Born in San Diego, California, Allison Adams Tucker began singing before she could speak. Allison was raised by classically trained musical parents, and began performing in front of audiences at age five. She studied piano, flute, violin, dance, and voice from elementary school and holds a BA in Linguistics / Music Vocal Performance and an AA in Italian. Her vocal palette has been colored by her experience in a variety of musical genres throughout her life, from a cappella Elizabethan madrigals to punk rock to country to commercial jingles. Since 2005, Tucker has found the most natural fit to be jazz. The genre's freedom of expression and intellectual tilt were both appealing, as was its openness to absorb styles and accents from throughout the vocalist's travels.

Growing up on the border with Mexico, Allison was exposed to intermingling cultures and her love for languages and world cultures also began at an early age. She has studied and sings in six languages besides her own, lived in Japan and Spain, and has traveled to over 15 countries. This "wanderlust" is present in the music she chooses today— with rhythms, melodies, and lyrics of Brazil, Italy, France, Latin America, Japan, and the U.S.

Allison's debut album "Come With Me" (Allegato Music, July 2008), co-produced by jazz guitarist Peter Sprague (Dianne Reeves, David Benoit, Chick Corea, Sergio Mendes) and arranged by Kamau Kenyatta (Gregory Porter, Hubert Laws, Earl Klugh, Patti Austin), received international acclaim, was nominated for Best Jazz Album 2009 by the San Diego Music Awards, and continues to receive airplay on radio stations in 18 countries.

Allison's sophomore album "April in Paris" (Allegato Music, June 2014) celebrating songs of springtime from around the world, was recorded in Paris on UNESCO's 1st Annual International Jazz Day at the end of a nine-concert tour through Italy and France with international musicians and arrangers from five countries. Arrangers include Kamau Kenyatta, Danny Green, Emmanuel Massarotti, and Jovino Santos Neto.

Allison returned to the studio for her third album "WANDERlust" (Origin Records, August 2016), this time in New York City under the direction of award-winning producer Matt Pierson (Brad Mehldau, Milton Nascimento, Joshua Redman, Jane Monheit). WANDERlust features a stunning all-star ensemble that not only bridges west and east coasts but adds flavors from around the world. Allison and Los Angeles pianist Josh Nelson are joined by New York jazz heavy-hitters Chris Potter, Matt Moreno, Scott Colley and Antonio Sánchez, along with percussionist Rogério Boccato and guitarist Romero Lubambo (both from Brazil) and French guitarist Stéphane Wrembel. The songs on WANDERlust are musical postcards from distant points of interest, from Rome to Paris to Takeda, Japan, as well as destinations that exist purely in the mind's eye.

As a session artist, Tucker's voice can be heard on national commercials and on the video game "The Saboteur" soundtrack singing French jazz in the company of Nina Simone, Ella Fitzgerald, Madeleine Peyroux, and others. This has resulted in a cult following by the typically "non-jazz listening" gamer audience, causing her interpretation of "La Vie En Rose" to become one of the top downloads on iTunes, Pandora, and Spotify worldwide.

As an international artist, Allison has entertained audiences in Japan, Europe, Mexico, and the U.S., including performances in the Blue Note New York, Ronnie Scott's London, Herb Alpert's Vibrato Los Angeles, San Jose Jazz, The Jazz Kitchen Indianapolis, Idyllwild Jazz in the Pines Festival, Hawai?i Public Radio, Takatsuki Jazz Street Festival Osaka, Body & Soul Tokyo, Le Baiser Salé Paris, Music Inn Rome, Lucca Jazz Donna Festival Tuscany, among others.

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