ABOUT THE CHOIR

The Oakland Jazz Choir (OJC) has been bringing vocal Jazz to the Bay Area since 1992, when it was a much larger choir. We are a community choir, made up of volunteer singers from Oakland and around the Bay Area. We sing all forms of Jazz -- from standards to be-bop to blues to pop-inspired, from ballads to tunes so quick it's hard to keep up.

Now, we are made up of 12 dedicated singers, in addition to our accompanist and director. We rehearse weekly and perform around the Bay Area accompanied by our "tasty trio" at venues such as The Jazzschool in Berkeley, San Jose Jazz's Free Jazz Wednesdays, The White Barn in St. Helena, and the Pacifica Performances Concert Series. We also bring Jazz into the community as often as we can.

We regularly take our music into the Oakland Public schools, where we not only sing, we also teach the students the elements of Jazz and give them a chance to show off their own scatting and improv skills.

We also partner with Bread and Roses, which is dedicated to bringing music to people who live in institutions or are otherwise isolated from society. Through their organization, we've sung at Prisons, Drug Rehab Centers, and Residential Education Centers. This August we will be singing for Crossroads Emergency Housing in East Oakland. 

Our video has more information about what we do and shows us in action. It's not specifically about this project, but it will show you what the Oakland Jazz Choir is all about.

ABOUT THE PROJECT

Now, we'd like to create a demo CD to show off our tunes! We'll be recording 3 songs from our repertoire, all arranged by current or former Oakland Jazz Choir directors, that demonstrate our versatility. The demo will reflect our most current repertoire and will be valuable in securing more performance opportunities. The more visible we are, the more good work we can accomplish!

WHY WE NEED YOUR HELP

Recording a good demo CD is expensive! The Oakland Jazz Choir is a registered 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, dedicated not only to singing but also to education and outreach. 

While the singers are volunteer, we have many expenses: our musicians and director are paid, our rehearsal space charges rent, and equipment such as microphones, speakers and mixers are expensive. We buy or commission many of our arrangements. At the end of the day, there's not much left over for recording.

Remember that funding for Kickstarter projects is all-or-nothing, so we really need everyone's help to make this project a reality. Your Tax-Deductible Pledge (Tax ID #20-3429158) will go a long way towards building a thriving OJC community.

WHAT YOU GET

Any donation would be incredibly appreciated. $15 gets you thanks on our website and a copy of our Demo CD once it's complete. We have some Oakland Jazz Choir Swag to offer, but mostly what we have to offer is... us! A few of us will sing to your sweetie or your mother (or anyone else) on the phone or (if you're local) in person. You can check out our website for an idea of our current repertoire, but if you have something specific in mind -- on that list or not -- send a message and we'll see what we can do. Pledge enough and we'll bring the whole choir to you (in the Bay Area) for a show!

HOW CAN YOU HEAR US SING?

We have some old demos and recordings up on our our website, like this one of us singing Summertime, but these are songs that are no longer in our repertoire and that were sung by our choir many years ago, and we are an ever-changing group.

Our video also features some of our singing -- both recent and from the early days of the Oakland Jazz Choir

If you're in the Bay Area, our next scheduled show is at Jazz at the Chimes (at the Chapel of the Chimes) at 4499 Piedmont Avenue, Oakland CA, on Sunday, July 15 at 2pm. We'd love for you to come hear us sing, and we'd love to meet you!