Sandra Locklear
"Music is a language of the human spirit. I love lifting people up through the power of song!" ~ Sandra
“Sandra Locklear sings and plays with a shimmering sensuality and the voice of experience.” ~ Maggie Larrick, Capitol Hill Times
A FRESH SOUND EMERGES!
Seattle-based performing artist Sandra Locklear is both musician and singer with a natural gift for connecting with her audiences. As a composer and performer Sandra sets a fresh standard full of vitality and soul. 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. Sandra effortlessly crosses over from jazz to blues, to bossa nova to pop and her own compositions, with a technical proficiency honed since she took her first piano lesson at age 7.
PACIFIC NORTHWEST PERFORMANCES INCLUDE ....
VENUES: Bellevue Collection, Seattle Art Museum, Washington Convention Center, Space Needle, Boeing Museum of Flight, Seattle Trade Center, 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 ship, Children's Hospital, Thirteen Coins; Seattle, Overlake, Harbor, Sandpoint country clubs; Sunset Club, Seattle Tennis Club; Hollywood Schoolhouse; Sunset, University and Ranier Clubs; Woodland Park and Point Defiance zoos; NW Folklife Festival, IKEA Renton River Days Festival; Seattle Unity Church.
CLIENTS: Microsoft, Levi-Strauss, Real Networks, IBM, Muzak, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, U.S. Navy, Majestic American Cruises, Puget Sound Access TV, Bellevue Square Merchants Association, Perkins-Coie, Fluke Capital management, Trillium Corporation, Seattle Girls, Jennifer James, Dee Dickinson, Highline School District, Women of Wisdom, B.F. Goodrich, Figi Industrial, ArtsTime, private clients.
EARLY INFLUENCES
Sandra began jazz and classical keyboard training at age 7 with professional musician Margo Beecher. A consummate performing artist with classic tastes in jewelry and furs, Margo played Hammond B-3 organ in Ricky Ricardo’s band and was in demand in LA’s Local 47 with her friends Nat King Cole, Louie Prima and Keely Smith.
Under her mentor’s careful tutelage, Sandra absorbed the music of Ellington, Jobim and J.S. Bach as standard fare for her lessons. By middle school she was performing at weddings, fashion shows and church and went on to win Yamaha’s Young Artists NW Regional Organ Competition in high school. A year studying jazz organ in San Francisco with Jim Rowsey inspired Sandra to enroll in a college music program back in Washington State. Unable to resist the lure of the road she began touring Canada on the organ with a 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!"
STUDIES
Sandra continued performing regionally and touring overseas as a solo artist and single mom. In-between, she studied jazz piano and theory at Cornish College of the Arts and composition and music education at the University of Washington. Juggling family responsibilities with the demands of a musical career, she eventually earned music degrees Phi Beta Kappa and Magna Cum Laude. She is a certified music specialist and arts activist with a passionate belief that the arts deserve a place in the public school curriculum. She worked to set the stage in her local school district for the successful reinstatement of its Fine Arts Director position in 2010.
At Seattle’s Cornish College of the Arts, NPR jazz producer/radio host 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 (Dave Brubeck) guided her composition efforts while Seattle jazz pianist Marc Seales honed her playing. Along the way, Sandra studied with piano virtuoso Jerome Gray and trained with vocal coaches George Peckham (Ann and Nancy Wilson of “Heart” and Judy Collins) and Augusta Palialunga.
RECORDINGS
Eventually Sandra was compelled to break out and do her own thing. She formed a record label, ThunderEye Music, and with her own sure vision, in 2000 recorded an album of original music with her band and 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.
Executive producer Douglas Hughes spotted Sandra in a Seattle dinner club and paved the way for GIRL GONE JAZZ. In this elegant collection Sandra and her quartet return to her jazz roots to present fresh swinging standards, sensual bossa novas, riveting ballads and three more of Sandra's original songs. From playful to relaxing, listeners are treated to clean arrangements that allow Sandra to give standards like “My Baby Just Cares for Me, ” “Here’s To Life” and “Sentimental Journey” a fresh perspective.
SANDRA AS COMPOSER AND PERFORMER
With a healthy disregard for musical boundaries, Sandra’s original music on her albums is a stylistic mix. Writing intuitively from a woman's perspective, she says of her compositions, "... 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." As a songwriter she wraps jazz-like harmony around her tender and forthright melodic observations on life.
The unconventional road this disciplined artist has travelled has made her music more resonant with the times. Her dynamic path includes hundreds of Pacific NW regional performances and overseas and stateside tours. Juggling family responsibilities with the demands of a music career, early on as a single parent Sandra took her son on the road to finance her college education. To satisfy her soul she went to West Africa with her child for six weeks to study the roots of jazz with the Sierra Leone National Dance Troupe, narrowing missing the civil war by a couple of weeks ("Blood Diamonds" starring Leonardo DiCaprio).
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. Her grandmother was a graduate of the Royal Conservatory of England on piano and on the other side many relatives played an instrument. Alongside the indigenous sounds of the planet, many artists soothe her soul and shaped her ears, a list that includes her teachers, Bill Evans and Jimmy Smith, Astrud Gilberto, Shirley Horne, Sarah Vaughn and Laura Nyro. “Our world is a rich and responsive tapestry of sound vibrations and frequencies,” says Sandra. “I’m blessed and grateful for my gifts and just sing and play what I feel. Everything listens.”
CONTACT AND BOOKING: info@sandralocklear.com.
ThunderEye Music / PO Box 286 /Seahurst, WA / 98062 USA