Tickets are $10 admission at the door (cash or check only). Seating is limited, so please let us know you’re coming! RSVP to 612-238-9941, or CLICK HERE to RSVP online.
Vocalist Lila Ammons, and German pianist Axel Zwingenberger, a top interpreter of the boogie woogie style, will be touring the U.S. in April and have added this Twin Cities event to their calendar! Don’t miss their kickoff performance at Schmitt Music Edina!
Watch Lila & Axel perform “Woman Be Wise” live in Belo Horizonte, Brazil:
[youtube]https://youtu.be/prM3pLYNkeY[/youtube]
Lila Ammons, vocals
Born in Chicago, Lila Ammons is a Minnesota-based vocalist with a wide-range of experience. Ammons started singing publically at age five, studied piano and violin for several years, and performed in school and all-city orchestras and choirs, theater plays, and musical theater, before deciding to attend college and major in music. A New York City based classical singer for several years, Ammons’s strong desire to return to her roots led her back to jazz, blues, and most recently, boogie woogie. Ammons’s musical “roots” are legendary. She is the granddaughter of the great boogie woogie pianist, Albert Ammons, and niece of tenor sax titan Gene (Jug) Ammons.
As a jazz vocalist, Ammons has appeared in several Twin Cities venues, such as Rossi’s Blue Room, The Times Cafe, Sofia’s, The Dakota Jazz Club, and The Dakota County Jazz Club. She has also sung in several festivals, including the Twin Cities Jazz (summer and winter) festivals, Arts and All That Jazz and Freedom Jazz Festivals. In addition, she has performed in the Chicago Blues and Cincinnati Blues and Boogie Woogie Festivals.
In 2008, she began touring Europe with German pianist, Axel Zwingenberger, world renowned for his performances and compositions of boogie woogie and classic blues piano. They are performing to sold out theaters and receiving glowing reviews. With Zwingenberger, she has performed in the Ascona Jazz Festival (Switzerland), The Stars of Boogie Woogie Festival (Vienna, Austria), Duc de Lombard Boogie and Blues Festival (Paris, France), Bansko International Jazz Festival (Bulgaria, Salzburg Jazzherbst, and the Stars of Boogie Woogie Festival (Vienna, Austria). As a solo vocalist, she has sung at the Laroquebrou Boogie and Blues Festival (France), Holland International Boogie Woogie Festival (Netherlands) and festivals in Brussels, Belgium.
Most recently, she has been featured vocalist with the ABC&D of Boogie Woogie Quartet with Zwingenberger and British musicians Charlie Watts, Ben Waters and Dave Green. She was also featured on the BBC 2 Radio program hosted by British musician and radio/Television host Jools Holland, pianist and founding member of “Squeeze,”a popular band during the late 1970s, ’80’s and ’90’s. Holland is host of the very popular British television show, “Later…With Jools Holland”.
Ammons and Zwingenberger recorded a CD early in their partnership (2008) entitled, “Lady Sings The Boogie Woogie,” a collection of lost gems of the boogie woogie and classic blues eras . Ammons is currently in the midst of recording her own debut jazz CD.
Ammons earned a Bachelor of Music in Vocal Performance from the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, MI) and a Masters in Vocal Performance from the Manhattan School of Music (NYC). She has taught voice on the college level (McNally-Smith College of Music) and teaches privately.
Learn more about Lila Ammons at lilaammonsmusic.com.
Axel Zwingenberger, piano
Axel Zwingenberger, one of the most renowned of boogie woogie and blues pianists today, and Lila Ammons, the great interpreter of classic blues and jazz, have won wide acclaim from both critics and audiences for their outstanding renditions of the brilliant but nowadays hardly ever heard masterpieces of the vaudeville blues tradition. Teaming up in 2007, the pair has travelled a dozen countries, performing their artistry to enthralled listeners.
Zwingenberger has more than 30 albums to his credit, many with legends of the genre, such as Lionel Hampton, Big Joe Turner, Jay McShann, Sippie Wallace, Champion Jack Dupree, Charlie Watts and many others. Not the least by these co‐operations, he has shaped his own, individual style, based on the music of the greatest of the blues and boogie woogie pianists, such as Albert Ammons, Meade “Lux” Lewis, Pete Johnson and others. In the more than three decades of his boogie woogie mission, he has gained a large international following of young boogie woogie piano entrepreneurs, particularly through his untiring touring activities, with over 4000 concerts in more than 50 countries on 4 continents performed since the early 1970s.
Learn more about Axel Zwingenberger at boogiewoogie.net.
Please RSVP to Schmitt Music Edina and reserve your seats for “Lila Ammons Meets Axel Zwingenberger” today! Call 612-238-9941 or email us at edkb@schmittmusic.com.
