Carmen Lundy

“[Carmen’s] innate sense of theatricality illuminated every layer of drama in her story-driven songs.” —Los Angeles Times

“In a word, Carmen Lundy is unforgettable.”—All About Jazz

Carmen Lundy wants to make sure there are new songs to sing. The Los Angeles jazz vocalist, songwriter, arranger, bandleader, actor, and painter has spent the past two decades carefully designing just about every facet of her music. An artist fully in command of her materials, she’s released a series of acclaimed albums on her Afrasia label focusing on her finely wrought originals. While she’s earned multiple awards and honors over the years the most telling distinctions have come from her peers. Drum great Terri Lyne Carrington recruited Lundy for her 2011 Grammy Award-winning Mosaic Project, an album that features Lundy’s composition “Show Me A Sign.” The late, revered pianist Geri Allen featured her on the spiritually charged 2006 album Timeless Portraits and Dreams. They collaborated again on a 2016 Kennedy Center production of  Farah Jasmine Griffin’s play “A Conversation with Mary Lou Williams” directed by the Golden Globe and Emmy Award–winning S. Epatha Merkerson. A Miami native from a highly musical family — her younger brother is acclaimed bassist Curtis Lundy — she made a powerful impression on the late ’70s New York scene performing with the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra at the Village Vanguard. When a deal with Columbia Records fell through she connected with the esteemed educator and producer Dr. Herb Wong and he released her 1985 debut album Good Morning Kiss on his Palo Alto-based Blackhawk label. In other words, Lundy’s concert is a long overdue Stanford debut.