Having played piano since she can remember, Colleen did her first paid gig as a pre-teen accompanying hymns in a little church. She had always sung in choirs as well, believing firmly that the vocal drives all other music. Although she grew up in a jazz-loving household, as a youngster she found the club scene sleazy and disrespectful, especially to women, and pursued "cleaner" musical genres.
Through travels, parenthood, and tragedy Colleen never stopped doing music, picking up and playing anything and everything. She is one heck of a multi-instrumentalist. As they say in Spanish, "a duras penas" she earned her stripes. Her passion for jazz finally won out. She accepted with relish the challenge of being able to "speak" fluently in a difficult musical idiom. She is tough enough to take the club scene. All while simultaneously recovering from a traumatic brain injury.*
Colleen performs regularly as jazz piano/vocalist, and takes full advantage of modern technology. She leads Chuva Boa Latin with a twist, and is sought after to sit in and/or record with other local bands including recently formed Studley Kitchen Blues Gospel & Americana. She has done everything from R & B to Celtic. She has even been known to write an original from time to time. We can get overly comfy and stay home with our high quality digital recordings, but there is nothing like a night out enjoying LIVE music. Request your vintage favorites, get exposed some lesser known treasures, and even a few original pieces.