Eden Brent's piano playing and singing style ranges from a melancholic
whisper to a full-blown juke joint holler. She ably blends an
earthy meld of jazz, blues, soul, and pop as she huskily invites
listeners into her lazy, lush world. A native of Greenville,
Mississippi, Brent had a 16-year apprenticeship with the late
blues pioneer Boogaloo Ames, who ultimately dubbed his protégé "Little
Boogaloo."
"Music school taught me to think, but Boogaloo taught me
to boogie-woogie," says Brent, who appeared alongside her
mentor in the 1999 PBS documentary Boogaloo & Eden: Sustaining
the Sound and in the 2002 South African production Forty Days
in the Delta.
Critics laud her "Bessie Smith meets Diana Krall meets
Janis Joplin" attitude, compare her to jazz/pop dynamos
Norah Jones and Sarah Vaughn, and wax effusively about her "whiskey-smoke" voice,
which serves as a constant reminder that Greenville, nestled
into a bend of the Mississippi River, is located a few hundred
miles north of New Orleans.
Brent's unshakable talent and her carefree demeanor have taken
her across the country and around the world, with appearances
at the Kennedy Center, the 2000 Republican National Convention,
the venerable Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, and tours of South Africa
and Norway under her belt. She won the Blues Foundation's 2006
International Blues Challenge, and was a 2004 inductee on the
Greenville Blues Walk. Sharing a bill with B.B. King, Brent performed
at the 2005 presidential inauguration, and solo, she's appeared
at the British Embassy and at the My South celebrations in Mississippi
and New York. She's also appeared on radio shows like the syndicated
Beale Street Caravan and XM's Bluesville, at festivals like the
Waterfront Blues Festival, Edmonton Labatt Blues Festival and
the annual B.B. King Homecoming, and aboard the Legendary Rhythm & Blues
Cruise.
"Eden Brent's boogie piano mixed with the whiskey-smoke
of her voice is a vice to savor & in her huge playing and
singing you can hear the ghosts of Mississippi in duet with the
future of the blues." - Chip Eagle, publisher of Blues Revue
For more information, visit www.edenbrent.com |