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"An expressive voice, at times warm and throaty, at times pure and delicate, that brings intimacy and a touching vulnerability!" "Melody has done an astounding transfer of vocal sound over to the world of Jazz...Pick up Melody's lovely CD, it's kinda sexy too!" MELODY BREYER-GRELL's Blujazz debut CD "The Right Time" was released to rave reviews and the coveted All About Jazz Best Vocal Jazz CD of the year. Quite a surprise to a Melody as she was entering a whole new world previously uncharted or expected. Her second, recently released CD "Fascinatin', Rhythms" has also garnered impressive reviews and air play on many syndicated programs across the USA. She has also given many live Interviews on these outlets. Her bio is not that of one expecting this type of reception, especially coming to this genre of music a bit later in life, after retiring her career in musical theater for a stint of pure housewifery. Realizing that she was actually a pretty diffident homemaker, she kept her husband but started to pursue performing again, this time with her eye on the standards of the Great American Song Book. Back tracking to childhood, Melody always was drawn to performing, and when it was determined that she actually could sing, she started doing musicals, opera and comedic theatre. Then she graduated High School! Receiving a scholarship to the revered Curtis Institute did not bode well for her. While she was a natural singer and performer, she was a pretty miserable student of advanced solfege and music theory. "It was just beyond my powers of concentration. I also did not know why a singer had to do two part dictation in the baritone clef? I also was the youngest person there and was really more concerned with going out and partying than studying". Thus the great career in opera never materialized. Although opera continues to be her passion, she found out some years later that the Great American Song Book offered her an outlet to display what she was really comfortable with---unique phrasing, personal arranging and putting together a concept CD. "If I was told that I would be doing Jazz-Pop and producing CD's when I was in high school, I would have said there was more chance of my becoming an astronaut." But life takes you where it wants you to go... Her first CD "The Right Time" had her vocalizing in a traditional melodic style, with clever, fresh arrangements, and simple improvisations to both familiar and lesser-known jazz and GAS standards. Each piece is specifically selected and sequenced to create a mood and sense of direction. While working up to her first CD, Melody appeared in many of New York's music room's, honing her performance skills. During that time, she listened to a wide variety of jazz singers, observing cutting edge moderns like Jay Clayton, Sheila Jordan and Mark Murphy; concurrently attending the shows of Blossom Dearie and every local singer she could find. Sinatra, June Christy, Carmen McRae, Ella - all the great ones were in her CD player. In time, Melody found her own personal style, "a happy meeting of cabaret and jazz...full of pleasures...Melody communicates words with clarity & warmth, while letting the composer's intentions shine through." (James Gavin, critic & author.) During that time Melody also moonlighted as the musical director of the jazz/supper club, "Chez Suzette." She also did some producing including 2005's "Sing Jazz" (based on the book that is edited by Dr. Gloria Cooper) played to a full house, offering a chance to hear a wide variety of singers - Giacomo Gates, Linda Ciofalo, Audrey Silver, Miles Griffith & Seth Fruiterman - all singing these newly published tunes under the Musical Direction of Dr. Cooper, herself a singer & pianist, as well as educator. Chez Suzette was sold but Melody was immediately hired at the "Triad" performance space and night club. Some very exciting events transpired during her tenure at The Triad. One especially exciting event was Sheila Jordan's 76th Birthday concert Celebration, live at the Triad, was was co-produced and recorded for posterity by High Note Records. Her final event was presenting the first NYC screening of the film 'Tis Autumn, a stunningly beautiful documentary tracing the carrier and life of neglected vocal jazz legend Jackie Paris. Melody also sees the humorous side to jazz. She has penned several parodies to familiar standards asking "What's So Funny About Jazz?", which she performed in 2007. "I could sit around all day and write parodies--this "business" is so absurd!" Another one of Melody's newest projects has been writing CD reviews, most recently for the Cabaret Exchange website. Ultimately her favorite place to be is in the recording studio driving side men crazy with her "ideas". Very ironic "coda" for someone who did not even want to learn basic music theory-- mp calling keys and tempos that she needed to work in. "Try that in opera and the conductor will send you packing---which is why I probably ended up in this field, rather than classical."
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