Lori Zuroff
Boston jazz singer Lori Zuroff is very excited about being asked to perform at the next Chick Singer Night event. “This is my second Chick Singer Night, in about six or seven years,” she exclaimed “I’m going to be doing some jazz with a guitarist, Paul Greenspan.”
Chick Singer Night, an organization that showcases area women vocalist, will host their fall event on November 6, 2021 at The Burren in Somerville, Massachusetts.
While Chick Singer Night, helmed by Massachusetts singers Jennifer Truesdale and Marcia Ridings-Marcre, often feature blues, rock, pop, singer-songwriters, they have got Zuroff in their lineup for some jazz.
“I have to make the most if, my 15 minutes of fame,” Zuroff said. She’ll be featured with five other women selected for the show. Truesdale and Macres will also perform with the Chick Singer Night band.
Zuroff, on the music scene about 25 years now, didn’t start singing professionally until she was 39 years old. Why the late start? The same reason why many women delay or postpone their music careers.
“I was busy working and raising a family and wasn’t really thinking about it until a friend asked me” to do a barbershop quartet, she said. Then, there was a community singing event before she eventually moved onto professional vocal work.
“It’s kind of been my dream my whole life,” she said. “My daughter was a year old when I started singing.” Zuroff’s busy band Lola Sweet and the Burbanites affords her the opportunity to set outside of jazz to sing rock, blues, and R&B. It’s a diversion from her other job as a jazz singer, and she maintains a keen interest in the accessible music she has grown up with.
“I just a part of our lives,” she said of the Lola Sweet set lists. “It tells the stories of what we’ve all been through as human beings. I just like to tell a story and I like to put my heart into it.”
Lori Zuroff
Meanwhile, Zuroff has been a jazz fan since childhood, listening to her parents’ record collection.
“I’ve always loved jazz,” she said. “I didn’t know really realize how much I loved it until I started singing it and being able to tell those stories, and also playing together with jazz musicians which can be so cool and magical.”
Jazz is hard to learn on one’s own. Professional training is usually a neccisity.
Zuroff went to a jazz camp in Woodstock, Vermont to begin her schooling, a week’s immersion in jazz. There were classes for vocalists, classes for instrumentalists, theory. Then, the camp held jam sessions into the night.
“It was just a wonderful bonding experience,” Zuroff said. “Before I went there, I didn’t even know what a chart was. It was a challenge for me. Jazz continues to be a challenge for me because there is so much great music out there. I’m just always wanting to learn something new.”
Zuroff’s influences include Ella Fitzgerad, Nancy Wilson and she studied with the late, legendary Rebecca Paris who gave her a year’s scholarship before Zuroff went on to study with Sheila Jordan and others.
Zuroff’s first CD, Ladybug, was released last year. What inspired Zuroff to finally offer the world a part of her soul?
“I just had to do it. I just had to create something that could last that I could show and be proud of,” she said. “It was just a really wonderful process. I did it during Covid which was crazy, after finishing cancer treatment. It’s been a rough couple of years for everyone.”
Zuroff recorded her Ladybug album at PBS Studios in Westwood. The studio, totally prepared for the Covid pandemic, offered separate booths with sliding glass doors with the piano, drums, bass and the engineer in separate cubicles. They all masked up for meetings lead by Ladybug’s producer, Peter Contrinas. Since the recording process and the album’s release were fortuitous events for Zuroff, the album’s title makes perfect sense.
“Ladybug is good luck,” she said. “It’s like a happy insect. It’s the only insect people like, except for butterflies.”
Though Zuroff has established a strong identity for herself under her own name, and though she has drawn a good amount of attention to her Lola Sweet outfit, she has had to sublimate herself to become a backing singer for the large R&B band Midtown Horns. She enjoys the harmonies and she has gotten to sing some lead vocals on some songs. Nostalgic music is what draws her to the Midtown Horns.
“I end up doing a lot of soul music,” she said. “I’m the oldest in the band.”
Getting back to Chick Singer Night: Zuroff reports she has worked with the other singers on a handful of occasions, it’s sort of a home coming.
“I’ve done a couple of things with co-host Marcia Ridings-Macres at the Zorba Room.,” Zuroff said. “There were a bunch of women singers with her band the Jazz Punishers. She’s also designing a website for me.”
Chick Singer co-organizer, Jennifer Truesdale, returned the love.
“We’re really happy to welcome newcomers to our stage as well as Chick Singer Night Boston alumni! Lori Zuroff, who performed with us several years ago,” Truesdale said. “(Lori) will be joining us again in celebration of her album Ladybug as will CSN Boston alumnus Valerie Giglio, Maria Frattura, and Jenn Levy Zaroulis.” who were featured artists during the Chick Singer Night Together/Apart Livestreams in 2020.
“Newcomer Patty Brennan will be joining us for the first time,” Truesdale exclaimed. “So happy to feature and showcase these ladies on our live stage. Also on stage with us will be Chick Singer and guitarist extraordinaire Juli Finn, who was a featured performer at our show at the Chevalier Theatre in 2016.”
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