Toni Jannotta

TONI JANNOTTA is a jazz lover as well as a jazz singer and a composer. She is a native of Los Angeles and has been performing locally and abroad for the past 18 years. She has three vocal jazz CD's to her credit, "Just Jazz", "Jazz at the Ranch" and most recently, "Is It Magic?" which were produced and recorded under her label, Aerie Records (the first two projects distributed by TCB Music, The Montreux Jazz Label, in Montreux, Switzerland).

Until recently, Toni was a purist and her repertoire of Theloneous Monk, Bill Evans, and Horace Silver, along with the lyrics of Jon Hendricks and her idol Annie Ross showed it. "Forever in Love" with the vocalese tradition and the desire to make her voice an instrument, she was and is a self-proclaimed Bobby McFerrin ?wanna be.? For the first several years Toni was safely living in the Land of the Straight Ahead, but now, on her new CD, Is it Magic? and with the help of arranger, co-producer, Greg Gordon Smith, Toni has entered the Land of Contemporary Jazz with an eclectic mix of her own originals and a smattering of covers.
Toni's attraction to the performing arts came early. She was dancing at age 4, scratching out sounds on her violin at age 9, and performing in musical theater by the age of 15. Her first acting role came at age 18 on the soap opera drama, ?Days of Our Lives.? Toni has studied music theory at Los Angeles Valley Jr. College, private voice lessons with Lee and Sally Sweetland, drama with Gordon Hunt, and has attended every known ballet and jazz school in Los Angeles. For most of her life, Toni has either been acting, singing or dancing in television, theater or jazz clubs. She has taught both ballet and jazz dance, has conducted vocal improvisation workshops overseas at jazz festivals, and currently teaches private voice lessons at home.
As a producer, Toni presented the Back to Blues & Jazz Festival in the Santa Monica Mountains as a benefit for the environment, as well as continuing to produce and record via her label, Aerie Records. As a singer, has also appeared vocally on the soundtrack of small films using her improvisational skills.
Toni has been seen in L.A. nightclubs such as the Baked Potato, Le Caf?, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, throughout Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, and in our National Parks at the Peter Strauss Ranch in Malibu. Internationally, Toni has played the Wigan Jazz Festival and Feast of Jazz in Preston, Northern England, the Ocho Rios Jazz Festival in Jamaica, and has toured the Netherlands, Southern Germany, Switzerland and Italy.