Urbanbuzzmag.com
By Nigeria Anderson
VOCALIST & ARRANGER
Kristina Koller, jazz vocalist, songwriter, and arranger, is drawn to crafting music that crosses generations while still embracing the history and mood of classic jazz. Kristina Koller’s new release, Walk On By, reimagines the Burt Bacharach songbook with hip, new, genre-bending arrangements. Bacharach, who died in 2023, composed some of the most iconic songs of the past 65 years. Many young people are not familiar with his name. However, Kristina Koller has added her personal touch to reconnect both old and new to his renowned sound of great music, with great lyrics. Walk On By is Koller’s fourth album and title single. Kristina Koller released her first album, Perception, in 2018. Koller’s classical voice training makes her a perfect match for this project. You can hear her talents, skill and abilities in her other projects, like Stranger, and Get Out of Town, a celebration of Cole Porter’s music. Koller’s emotive vocals capture the heartbreak of A House is Not a Home, and the joys of friendship on That’s What Friends Are For, in which she sings a duet with her old friend Rosemary Minkler, an accomplished pianist, composer, and audio engineer. Say a Little Prayer, in which Robbins wrote the arrangement. Koller says, “This song is really burned in my memory because my mom played it so often.”
Kristina Koller pushes the boundaries of vocal jazz. She revamps classical material while retaining its essence, putting her own winning personality and fresh ideas into the music and lyrics she interprets. Many enjoy her youthful freshness in various songs, and she has a building social media following who enjoy it as well. A native New Yorker, she is a mainstay on the city’s jazz scene, performing at such well-known jazz venues as Smalls, Smoke, Minton’s, and Mezzrow. She won a scholarship to The Hartt School, Jackie MacLean Institute of Jazz, a performing arts conservatory at the University of Hartford, and turned her attention full-time to jazz. She then earned a Bachelor of Music in jazz studies at City College of New York. Koller composed much of her own music on her independent releases. Joining Koller on her fourth album Walk On By are longtime bandmates, including Brooklyn-based Ukrainian jazz pianist and Rhodes player Fima Chupakhin (Andromeda Turre, Ukrainian pop singers/songwriters Jamala Svyatoslav Vakarchuk, Serhyi Babkin), bassist James Robbins (Clark Terry, Billy Taylor, George Benson, Sullivan Fortner), and drummer Cory Cox (Dave Brubeck Quartet, Reggie Workman, John Ellis, Marcus Strickland). It was Koller and Robbins that co-arranged the album Walk On By. Welcome our new KeyPlayer Kristina Koller. You can follow her on IG @KKollermusic. PUSH PLAY
