Catherine Russell with guitarist Matt Munisteri. Russell will be performing at the Faena Theater in Miami Beach on Wednesday Feb. 4. (Photo by Gilberto Tadday courtesy of Jazz at Lincoln Center)
As a backing vocalist, Catherine Russell shared stages with some of the most iconic figures in rock and pop: David Bowie, Steely Dan and Paul Simon, to name a few.
However, the music she records and performs under her own name dates back to the marquees of an earlier era, when jazz and blues singers such as Bessie Smith, Victoria Spivey and Alberta Hunter thrilled audiences with their brassy, bawdy songs and outsize personas.
To kick off the Faena Jazz Festival, Russell will dip into the repertoire of these pioneering performers and others when she brings her four-piece band to the Faena Theater in Miami Beach on Wednesday, Feb. 4.
Russell’s affinity for the songs of the early-to-mid-20th century comes naturally: She’s the daughter of Luis Russell, a bandleader, composer, arranger and pianist, and Carline Ray, a bassist, guitarist and vocalist who played in the all-female big band Sweethearts of Rhythm.
She dedicates "My Ideal," her Grammy-nominated 2024 duet album with pianist Sean Mason, to her late parents, and revives a couple of her dad’s tunes on "Cat & the Hounds," a 2025 release she recorded with Colin Hancock’s Jazz Hounds.
Catherine Russell, performing on stage at the Appel Room at Lincoln Center in New York. (Photo by Gilberto Tadday courtesy of Jazz at Lincoln Center)
Due out in April on the Dot Time Records label, "Live at Jazz at Lincoln Center," captures Russell and her band on stage in the Appel Room of the storied New York venue. Russell curated the musical selections to salute the Hot Club of New York, a group that meets each week in Manhattan to listen to and discuss 78 rpm records which dominated the market before LPs and 45s. She joined the club during the pandemic and has shared records from her own collection, many of which she inherited from her mom and dad.
“I fell in love with the organization,” says Russell, talking by phone from the Lyric Theatre in Stuart. “Every week they focus on a certain artist. So when I was working on this program (for Lincoln Center), I had gotten a few tunes from Hot Club listening that I included, and I said, ‘Why don’t I just make a whole show out of that and dedicate it to the Hot Club, which has really inspired me?’”
Accompanied by her swinging quartet, guest horn players and tap dancer Michela Marino Lerman, Russell blows the dust from the grooves of tunes that raised the roof when grandma and grandpa were jitterbugging to them.
Catherine Russell with, from left, drummer Domo Branch, guitarist Matt Munisteri and tap dancer Michela Marino Lerman. (Photo by Gilberto Tadday courtesy of Jazz at Lincoln Center)
The singer pours plenty of salty attitude into Blanche Calloway’s “You Ain’t Livin’ Right” and Helen Humes’ sexy burner “Keep Your Mind on Me,” on the latter of which she declares “emotion, devotion, they don’t mean a thing to me/As long as there’s some motion, Lord, that’s good enough for me.”
“Helen Humes just makes me smile all the time,” says Russell. “She comes right through the record at’cha. It’s sensual without being lewd in any way.”
She also points to the barely disguised double-entendre of “Never Too Old To Swing,” a Tiny Grimes’ tune she playfully covers, with the lyric, “Let me tell you about Mom and Pop/They do the boogie-woogie ’round the clock/They turn the radio way low down so the neighbors won’t hear them goin’ to town.”
These were not songs Russell was listening to with her parents while growing up in Washington Heights, New York, tuning into the "Make Believe Ballroom" on the kitchen radio or watching Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr. and Judy Garland on television.
A painfully shy child, she says she didn’t like to draw attention to herself. However, when she later discovered powerful women performers like Alberta Hunter, Ruth Brown and Etta James, worlds opened. They provided the template for “how strong women needed to be, and the fact that they loved men, but they’re not going to be a victim,” she explains. “Despite how society might look at women who are self-sufficient, that was very attractive to audiences.”
Catherine Russell with drummer Domo Branch. (Photo by Gilberto Tadday courtesy of Jazz at Lincoln Center)
While she took cues from women performers she reveres, Russell was also shaped by her time singing behind artists such as David Bowie, with whom she completed two lengthy tours.
“He got into his stage persona right before he went on stage,” she says. “He would grow into it. You could see it happen, when he put on his stage suit. And he had a certain walk. He wasn’t like that all day long. I think most of the people I’ve worked with were kind of like that."
She compares his style to that of Cyndi Lauper.
"Cyndi Lauper was more ‘on’ all the time; she doesn’t really shift into something else on stage.”
For Russell, there is no change from behind the scenes to her on-stage persona.
“So I looked at several different models,” she continues. “And what’s most comfortable for me is just being myself on stage and being as relaxed and having as much fun as I can have... I can’t be one thing now and somethin’ else on stage.”
IF YOU GO
WHAT: Faena Jazz Festival 2026 featuring Catherine Russell
WHEN: 8 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 4
WHERE: Faena Theater, 3201 Collins Ave., Miami Beach
TICKETS: $70-$165
INFORMATION: faenatheater.com/concerts, 786-655-5742
