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Kat Parra
Biography
The San Jose, CA-based Kat Parra is a flexible and broad-minded jazz vocalist who has very strong Latin leanings but has also been affected by Middle Eastern, Arabic, and North African music. In many cases, the term Latin jazz has been used to describe Afro-Cuban jazz -- and Afro-Cuban music has, in fact, been a major influence on Parra, who has cited the late Cuban salsa queen Celia Cruz as one of her idols. But Afro-Cuban music is not the only type of Latin music that has influenced Parra, who has also combined jazz with everything from Brazilian samba to Afro-Peruvian music. Another big influence on Parra (who plays flute, guitar, and piano) has been the traditional music of Spain's Sephardic Jews; Parra, who has recorded jazz arrangements of some traditional Sephardic songs (including "Por la Tu Puerta" and "Esta Montanya d'Enfrente"), is Jewish herself and has said that her heritage is about 75 percent Russian Jew and 25 percent Sephardic Jew. Parra has performed in several different languages, including English, Spanish (which she speaks fluently), Portuguese, French, and Ladino (which is the language of Sephardic Jews and is considered one of the romance languages).
Selected Discography