Kristin Korb
Biography Kristin Korb
Kristin Korb
There are few bassists who can sing and there are even fewer who can do it well. Kristin Korb is one of those artists who make you forget that she is playing the bass when you hear her crystalline voice. Inspired by the days when music was romantic and made you want to dance, Kristin and her trio embody that spirit and carry their audiences along for the ride. Love eventually brought the American bassist and vocalist to Denmark in 2011.
In November 2016, Korb released her eighth CD, Beyond the Moon. Inspired by the storytelling of one of America’s greatest lyricists, Johnny Mercer, Kristin includes several of his biggest hits and then takes a voyage of discovery into unpublished texts that Mercer never made into songs.
Kristin’s performances of all eleven songs thrive on elements that she and Mercer have in common; reverence for melody; phrasing and inflection influenced by the blues; understanding of the relationship of harmonies to tunes and words. In making songs of orphan texts from the Mercer archive, Kristin and Magnus Hjorth, the pianist in her trio, evoke Mercer’s powers of rhythm and rhyme. They and drummer Snorre Kirk comprise a working group in high demand in Europe, where they live, and in their US tours.
Additional background information: Korb earned her Music Education degree at Eastern Montana College and her masters in Classical Bass Performance the University of California, San Diego. It was while she was a student at UCSD that her professor, Bertram Turetzky inspired her to sing and play bass at the same time. She also studied with Ray Brown, with whom she made her recording debut, Introducing Kristin Korb with the Ray Brown Trio released in 1996.
She has taught at the University of Southern California where she was coordinator of vocal jazz studies, Azuza Pacific University, Grossmont Community College and was Director of Jazz Studies at Central Washington University. Korb is still very involved in educational outreach and teaches at universities, jazz camps and festivals with young students.
As President of the International Society of Bassists, Korb was artistic director for the 2013 ISB Convention in Rochester, NY (Eastman School of Music).
Kristin tours across the world and has performed with jazz artists such as Llew Matthews, Kim Richmond, Pete Christlieb, Jeff Hamilton, Alex Riel and Jan Lundgren.
She now lives in Denmark with her Danish husband. When she’s not playing music, Kristin enjoys going to the gym, maintaining her position as family salad ninja, and exploring the world of wine tasting through travel.
