Saxophonist, vocalist, and composer Elena Maque was featured with her group in this month's Art of Jazz concert presented by Earshot Jazz at The Seattle Art Museum. Born in St. Petersburg, Russia, she graduated from the Mussorgsky College of Music and played and toured with a jazz big band led by Gennady Golshtein. Those tours took her to several surrounding countries and provided additional musical influences on her music. She relocated to Seattle several years ago and is now established on the Seattle musical scene.
For this concert in the Brotman Forum at Seattle Art Museum, The Elena Maque Quartet includes Tim Kennedy, piano, Farko Dosumov, electric bass and D'Vonne Lewis, drums. The music includes standards, originals by Elena Maque, bossa novas and some funk! As a special intermission feature, veteran actor Dolores Browne, a regular attendee of these concerts, provides a stirring dramatic reading of "Ain't I A Woman", a famous speech by 19th century abolitionist and women's rights activist Sojourner Truth.