NICKi MATHIS:
Texas born, Hartford based Harvard Graduate award winning singer/songwriter NICKi MATHIS moves and grooves in CT, NY, RI and MA. She started this exciting Afrikan Amerikan Jazz (NMAAJazz) performance year on OPEN BronxNet Television show hosted by Rhina Valentin on the Lehman College Campus, Bronx New York – what a blast!  Now, for the first time, makes her way to Leif Nilsson Spring Street Studio & Gallery Music Series with celebrated guitarist, Norman Johnson.
Highlights from last year include Nicki’s Afrikan Am Jazz headlining at Roots Café in Providence with bassist Avery Sharpe, pianist Alex Nakhimovsky and drummist Shirazette Tinnin in FirstWorks, Inc.’s Alvin Ailey 50 year Celebration. Key components of this American Masterpieces project were the four month anchor performance by the renowned Alvin Ailey Dance Theater; a music and dance performance especially for youth by Ailey II; educational programming across Rhode Island together with FirstWorks’ school and after-school program partners – including Mathis’ residency as well as her work in performing the spiritual, blues, and jazz component; and integrated performances by vocal groups highlighting the role of music in Ailey’s work, echoing, affirming Ailey’s strong physical and verbal statements about our African-American experience which included regional blues/jazz ensembles Sweet Honey in the Rock, and Nicki Mathis’ Afrikan Amerikan Jazz:
         It was an incredible night; Great evening w/Nicki; a knockout
         were among the reviews.
 
Mathis SOLD OUT Valentine’s Day’s A Call To Love at Dan Blow’s Café Eiko in Hartford, CT with Jim Argiro, Jonathan Barber, and Jason Schwartz; celebrated National Black History, and Black Music months with the fabulous musical griot and TV Host Emery Austin Smith.  She was special guest at pianist/Music Director Paul Arslanian’s Tuesday Night Jazz Jam in Northampton, MA along with George Kaye, and  Claire Arenius; In Harlem, NY Nicki sang with Dona Summer Carter’s Trio: Dave Gibson, and Larry Roland, and with Dona’s Jazz Chorus; Mathis performed with Lynn Tracey at Center for Progressive Therapies in Manchester; with Bob Paskovitz’ Latin Quarter Jazz Collective: Chris Casey and Ed Peart at the Canoe Club in Middletown, CT; she sang w/Benjamin Gary’s Trio: Paul Brown, Jocelyn Pleasant at Faith Congregational Church where her production The Many Colors of a W*O*M*A*N Jazz Festival found an enthusiastically appreciative audience; her Afrikan Amerikan Jazz duo with guitarist extraordinaire Norman Johnson performed at Windsor Arts Center, and she has taken her Afrikan Amerikan Jazz band to the Greater Hartford Festival of Jazz, The Many Colors of a W*O*M*A*N Jazz Festival; to Japan; she performed in Toronto with David Hardiman/African American Jazz Caucus Dance Band; and has sung with Bill Lowe Andy Jaffe Big Repertory Big Band.
 
Nicki was featured in OWEN MCNALLY’s Special to The Hartford Courant, Nicki Mathis Pays Tribute To Sarah Vaughan, November 11, 2010; in the Greater Hartford Arts Council Joe Standart’s Portrait of America street banners posted throughout Hartford and exhibited at the CT Commission on Culture & Tourism; on a daily basis, more than 160,000 saw her in Joe Standart’s celebration of the people of Hartford portrait on the façade of the Capitol West Building at Asylum Street exit along Highway 84 West; also in Decades magazine Autumn 2010 issue Cover Story, Big Dreams Local celebrities…- what’s  on their bucket list. Pg 12 article by Sarah Wesley Lemire, and is one of the first winner’s of Hartford Magazine’s women of achievement Black History Month award, article by Alexa Pozniak; featured in The Hartford Stage Company’s media campaign for their Motherhood Out Loud production.
 In the beginning, Mathis gained fame with Jerry Sandifer’s Modern Jazz trio in El Paso, TX when they opened the first Pass of the North Jazz Festival featuring Dave Brubeck, Joe Morello, Eugene Wright; Chico Hamilton w/Eric Dolphy; Lambert, Hendricks & Ross; Chris Conner; Maynard Ferguson’s band w/Anne Marie Moss; emceed by Leonard Feather. When a reviewer heralded "Nicki" as the …coolest of them all… Her stage name became Nicki, and the rest is musical history.
 
Because Nicki has created such a unique platform of versatility, not only are her performances engaging and entertaining, she causes reviewers to say she is elegant, passionate, moving, artistic, educating, rapturous & solid; a Soaring Tribute to Women of Jazz; and her music is sublime.
 
Press Quotes:
...If the looking glass were asked, Mirror, mirror on the wall who was the coolest of them all? The answer would be Nicki Mathis...                                        Ken Flynn, El Paso Herald Post
 
Sing Everyday                                                                        Eric Dolphy
 
A silver timbered Texan.                              Owen Mc Nally, Courant Music critic, Hartford, CT
 
The annual Many Colors of a Woman jazz concert is a success in Hartford. Lots of things contribute to the makings of a great female jazz singer, beside just a great singing voice: a stylishly graceful wardrobe, a laid back (but spunky) demeanor, and a connection with the audience. Ella Fitzgerald, Lena Horne, Nina Simone, Dinah Washington and Nancy Wilson all had (have)(sic) it and so, too, does Hartford's own Nicki Mathis.                                           
                                                                                  Robert Cooper, The Hartford Advocate
 
Dear Nikki, you are a Star of Bright Dimension      Citizen Carrie S. Perry (Mayor) Hartford, CT
                                                                            
…I just learned that you will be playing at the upcoming WE CAN event for the CARC! I am thrilled to have you be part of this wonderful program. Thank you so much for signing on....You made our PCSW gala last November a huge success and I'm bragging about you to anyone who will listen. Thanks! Hopefully I'll see you this summer.  
           Teresa C. Younger Executive Director Permanent Commission on the Status of Women
 
...and another new singer- and what a GEM! she counted off such a fast swing- I said to myself HUH? and she meant it! you knew where you wanted it Ms. Nick Mathis! Taught me somethin! Wow! your amazing! they LOVED you! I cant wait to hear more! Thank you for sharing that with us! ...                                                                  LaRe, Jazz Fever Jam, Sugar Bar NYC
 
Thank you for performing at the Festival's Lunch and Evening Concert Series. We appreciated having Nicki Mathis' Afrikan Amerikan Jazz on our stage to engage and entertain audiences in downtown New Haven. We are glad to know that such diverse programming is possible in our region. Thank you again,
                    Melissa Huber, Program Manager, 12th Annual International Arts & Ideas Festival
 
Nick will be cool in hell, and I want to be standing right next to her.                         Doris Turner
 
Hello Queen Nicki Mathis, ...You can sing anything on the planet you want. The song that still has my head is the tribute YOU wrote and Sang to Black women. Like a prayer. I still tell people about that smack. Bad tune.
She is soooo regal, that Nicki Mathis, so regal.                                         Antoinette Montague
 
You are so amazing, go on with your bad self                                                               edquilt
 
Thanks for sharing these page with me!!!!! WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm sitting here writing up feedback and enjoyed watching BE SWEET. … and I love the expression, Come on and testify, that's definitely a keeper for me!! :)) This has to be one of your originals because it's YOU, unique, powerful say and indeed TESTIFYING…                                                    Dr G
 
Awards:
Second Baptist Church Service/127 Yr Anniversary Celebration Certificate of Appreciation for 
  outstanding contribution from Pastor William J. Perkins M. Div., 20 Nov 2011
International Women In Jazz, Inc, a NYC based non-profit organization comprising
  influential and charismatic women and men from all strata of the professional jazz
  music industry, and jazz music enthusiasts from all parts of the globe presented Nick
  Mathis, Producer of The Many Colors of a W*O*M*A*N Jazz Concert with their Impact
  Award, March 25, 2001 at St. Peters Church, NYC
International Women In Jazz Certificate of Appreciation, singing in IWJ Chorus under
  the Musical Direction of Dona Carter, IWJ Women In Jazz Festival 2010
  Antoinette Montague dedication/gift/MCW donation @ MCW 2008
New Boston Fund 2008 Individual Artist Fellowship/Greater Hartford Arts Council Award
  Recipient
The Albert Pertillar Audience Award 28 August 2005
Connecticut Commission on Culture & Tourism Distinguished Advocate for the Arts
  Award 15 June 2004
State of Connecticut General Assembly Official Citation, 7 Sep 2002
Fellowship, Greater Initiatives Hartford Arts Council, Individual Artist 2002
International Women In Jazz Impact Award, 25 March 2001
Urban Artists 5th Biennial Conference Statewide Best Showcase Performance, 2001
  singing originals Sing Afrika, Be Sweet, Itapuã
Connecticut African American Parade Committee Certificate, Medallion, 20 April 2001
City of Hartford, CT Official Citation, 6/25/96
 
Norman Johnson guitarist, composer, recording engineer and educator won the Hartford Advocate “best jazz” in 2000 and in 1998 the Communicator Award for “Otis in China,” a composition he wrote for Otis Elevator. Johnson is the former Dean of the Hartford Conservatory of Music and a teacher at the Artist Collective in Hartford. He is the owner of the recording studio, Manor Recording, and an instructor of recording technology at the Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts. Besides his CD release “ If Time Stood Still,” Johnson has been involved in a project that takes the music from the play “The Real Ambassadors” written by Dave Brubeck and recording those songs with guitar instead of piano with Chris Brubeck (bass and trombone), Dan Brubeck (drums) and his long time vocal partner Dianne Mower.
http://www.normanjohnsonguitar.com/Home.html