Sandra Locklear
“Music is a language of the human spirit. I can’t imagine a world without music and love lifting people up through the power of song!” - Sandra
A FRESH SOUND EMERGES
Seattle-based artist Sandra Locklear is both musician and singer with a natural gift for connecting with her audiences. With intuitive ease and passionate virtuosity, she pairs a rich alto voice with jazz piano stylings refined over many years of playing venues in the Pacific Northwest, Alaska, Canada and Europe. She effortlessly crosses over from jazz to blues, to folk to country, to pop and to rock with a technical proficiency honed since she took her first piano lesson at age 7. As a composer and performer Sandra sets a fresh standard full of vitality and soul.
PACIFIC NORTHWEST VENUES AND CLIENTS
VENUES include the: Seattle Art Museum, Washington Convention Center, Space Needle, Boeing Museum of Flight, Seattle Trade Center, Bellevue Collection, Bellevue Conference Center, Maydenbauer Center, Emerald Queen Casino, Chateau St. Michelle Winery, Salish Lodge; 13 Coins Restaurant; Olympic Four Seasons, Sheraton, Westin and Camlin hotels; Skansonia, Children’s Hospital, Thirteen Coins; the Seattle, Overlake, Harbor, Sandpoint country clubs; Hollywood Schoolhouse; Sunset, University and Ranier Clubs; Woodland Park and Point Defiance zoos; NW Folklife and IKEA Renton River Days Festivals.
CLIENTS include: Microsoft, Levi-Strauss, Real Networks, IBM, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, U.S. Navy, Majestic American Cruises, Puget Sound Access TV, Bellevue Square Merchants Association, Perkins-Coie, Muzak, Fluke Capital management, Trillium Corporation, Seattle Girls, Jennifer James, Highline School District, Women of Wisdom, B.F. Goodrich, Figi Industrial.
SANDRA AS PERFORMER AND COMPOSER
The unconventional road this disciplined artist has traveled only makes her music more resonant with the times. Juggling family responsibilities with the demands of a musical career, as a single parent she often took her son on the road and financed her own college music education. To satisfy her soul, Sandra went to West Africa to study the roots of jazz with the internationally acclaimed Sierra Leone National Dance Troupe, who in 2007 are still housed in a Guinean refugee camp seeking U.S. asylum. Her dynamic path includes overseas, Canadian and stateside tours.
Writing intuitively from a woman’s perspective, Sandra says of her composing, “... my style can change from song to song because I try to be true to what’s being conveyed. You can't do that if you're stuck in a box." In a balanced marriage of lyric and melody, she wraps her jazz-like harmonic and melodic sensibilities around tender and forthright feminine observations on life.
RECORDINGS
After years of touring, studying, and writing music, eventually Sandra was compelled to break out and do her own thing. With her own sure vision, in 2000 she took a hiatus to record an album of original music with her band and a few special guests. Energetic and sensual, Sandra’s finely wrought debut CD “Goddess Rising” melds smooth jazz and easy-listening rock, Latin grooves and poignant solo ballads that stretch beyond familiar musical terrain.
Executive producer Doug Hughes spotted Sandra in a Seattle dinner club in the fall of 2006 and paved the way for “Girl Gone Jazz”, Sandra’s latest release. In this elegant collection Sandra and her quartet return to her jazz roots to present fresh swinging standards, sexy bossa novas, riveting ballads and three more of Sandra's original songs.
EARLY INFLUENCES
Sandra began jazz and classical keyboard training with her lifelong music mentor, Hollywood B-3 jazz organist Margo Beecher. The music of Ellington, Jobim and Bach became standard fare for Sandra’s weekly lessons as her teacher passed on her repertoire. By middle school, Sandra was performing at parties, weddings, fashion shows and church, where she secretly got a kick out of playing show tunes like “The Impossible Dream.” In high school, Sandra won Yamaha’s Young Artists regional organ competition in Seattle and was sent on to compete in Carmel, CA.
Afterward, a year studying jazz organ in San Francisco inspired her to enroll in a college music program back in Washington State. Bored and unable to resist the lure of the road, she soon accepted an offer to tour with a dance quartet. “And that’s when I really started singing. The band leader stuck a microphone in front of my mouth and ordered me to sing!” she recounts.
FORMAL STUDIES
Between performing with two bands and then as a solo artist regionally and overseas, Sandra continued jazz studies at Cornish College of the Arts and the University of Washington. She eventually earned music degrees Phi Beta Kappa and Magna Cum Laude in music composition and education.
At Cornish College of the Arts, notables such as NPR jazz producer Jim Wilke, bassist Gary Peacock, horn players Julian Priester and Jim Knapp, pianists Art Lande, Peggy Stern and pianist-singer Joni Metcalf, all influenced Sandra’s distinctive sound and understanding of the art of jazz.
At the University of Washington, clarinetist William O. Smith guided her composition efforts while pianist Marc Seales continued to shape her playing. Along the way, Sandra studied with pianist Jerome Gray and upon hearing that singers Judy Collins and Anne and Nancy Wilson’s vocal coach lived in Seattle, sought training from George Peckham.
INSPIRATIONS
Sandra spent her formative years listening to the British rock invasion and protest music of the 60’s while learning jazz and Latin standards from her mentor. Chick Corea and Bill Evans soothed her soul alongside the indigenous sounds of the planet. She listened to singers, pianists and songwriters Shirley Horne, Nina Simone, Laura Nyro, Carol King, Nat Cole, Sarah Vaughn, Nancy Wilson and the Brazilian recordings of Antonio Jobim and Astrud Gilberto. With her many influences and disregard for musical boundaries, Sandra is one of those musicians who defiantly eludes classification. “I just sing and play what I feel,” she says simply.
In October 2005, Sandra paid homage to Nina Simone, one of her favorite inspirations, in two special shows held at the Oak Room Cabaret in Seattle. Joining her on bass was Portland’s Ken Anoe, an on-call bassist for Shirley Horne in Washington, D.C. " ... The duo came together in an effortless synergy that bolstered Sandra’s fluid interpretations of Simone’s work." - The Capitol Hill Times
CONTACT INFORMATION
Ms. Locklear is available for bookings either as a solo singer-pianist or with her jazz group Inner Circle. For bookings or information contact ThunderEye Music at info@sandralocklear.com.