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| Halie Loren Wins Just Plain Folks 2009 “Best Vocal Jazz Album” Award Halie Loren has made her mark in Indie music over the years with several highly acclaimed releases. Most recently the jazz singer and songwriter was awarded for her excellence in both vocals and recording at the Just Plain Folks Music Awards 2009. Halie walked away with the coveted Best Vocal Jazz Album for the superb 2008 release, They Oughta Write a Song. A collection of standards, jazzified classics, and three of her own original co-writes, the album has garnered excellent critical reviews and continues to be played on stations around the globe. Loren said, "I give much credit for the album's cohesive and solid sound to the amazing talents of the musicians who played on this album: Matt Treder (Piano), who was my co-producer and also arranged much of the music, Mark Schneider (Bass), Brian West (Drums), and Tim McLaughlin (Trumpet)." Just Plain Folks organization's 50, 000 membership is made up of an array of independent artists at every level of recognition, including Grammy, European Music and Academy Award winners. After receiving a record setting 42, 000 albums and over a half million songs from 163 countries around the world, the organization's staff and a team of judges from the industry filtered the music down to song and album nominees in 95 genres of music. The largest independent music awards event on the planet, the ceremonies were held August 29 in Nashville, Tennessee. This year's nominees came from over 80 countries, giving the organization an amazing cross section of diversity and culture. Halie made it in the top 10 Vocal Jazz Album nominees and in the top song nominees in both the New Folk Song and Contemporary Song categories, where her songs competed with those by the likes of Janis Ian and Gretchen Peters, both multi-award-winning singer/songwriters. Loren began singing professionally at 15 and is earning a reputation as one of today's top singers and songwriters in a variety of genres, all with a pop/jazz-leaning focus. Having already released three albums, she continues gathering awards and recognition, and finding herself among some very select company in the music industry. At present she is planning a recording project that will fuse her unique songwriting with her deep roots in jazz, and which Loren says will be something altogether different from any of her previous albums as she continues to explore new avenues of creativity. write your comments about the article :: © 2009 Jazz News :: home page |