Kim Nalley – A joyful Billie Holiday
You and your guests are invited to the Marin Jazz-sponsored events at the Lark Theater.
Join us Sunday, April 26, 2026, at 3 pm for the historic sounds of Kim Nalley’s trip down memory lane, celebrating Billie Holiday’s favorite years.
Kim Nalley developed this tribute after playing the young Holiday in the play “Lady Day in Love.”
“Kim Nalley doesn’t just sell a song. Her body dancing as her remarkably full and flexible voice sails all around and through the melody, Nalley sells the whole room – and then some.” – SF GATE and “Tom Keats and his Tom Kats” and the Jimmy Price Big Band.
San Francisco-based vocalist Kim Nalley has distinguished herself internationally with a beguiling combination of sass, soul, and smarts.
Throughout her notable career, Nalley has convincingly sung songs associated with the legendary jazz singer, doing saucy numbers like “Comes Love” with Johnny Nocturne’s jump-blues band in the 1990s and classics like “God Bless the Child” during her sold-out runs in recent years at Lincoln Center. Order your tickets today as they are going fast!
Kim Nalley is a scholar of history with a B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley.
Dr. Kim Nalley has performed globally, including major jazz festivals such as Monterey, Umbria Jazz, and Lincoln Center, and lived in Europe for several years before returning to San Francisco to reopen the jazz club Jazz at Pearl’s. During her tenure from 2003 to 2008, Nalley raised the club to iconic international acclaim as the owner and artistic director.
She has collaborated with artists such as Rhoda Scott, David “Fathead” Newman, Houston Person, James Williams, Michael Tilson Thomas, and the San Francisco Symphony. She has recorded several tracks on both major and indie labels, including “She Put A Spell On Me,” which was short-listed for a 2006 Grammy Award, and “Million Dollar Secret,” which charted in the Jazz Top 40.
Kim Nalley often combines music and history to create historiographical concerts, including her award-winning “Ladies Sing the Blues*,” “She Put a Spell on Me: Tribute to Nina Simone” for Jazz at Lincoln Center, “Freedom’s Song: Music of the Civil Rights Movement,” musical director and curator for the Martin Luther King Institute’s Commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington and “The Heart of Lady Day,” a Billie Holiday biopic. She has performed with Angela Davis, recreating her seminal book “Blues Legacies and Black Feminism” for SFJAZZ. As a playwright, she has written “Ella: the American Dream,” a bio-musical about Ella Fitzgerald, which premiered in 2008. As an actress, she portrayed Billie Holiday in the dramatic play “Lady Day in Love,” Blues Speak woman in Zora Neale Hurston’s “Spunk,” and has starred in Teatro Zinzanni as Madame Zinzanni, a role subsequently filled by Joan Baez and Sandra Reeves-Phillips.
Dr. Nalley is also a renowned scholar. She specializes in US history and Late Modern Europe, with an emphasis on cultural, transnational, and globalization history, as well as women’s, African American, and African Diasporic history. Professor Nalley completed her dissertation in 2021 under the supervision of renowned scholars Waldo Martin, Tyler Stovall, Daniel Sargent, and Ugo Nwokeji. Titled “GI Jazz: African Americans as Occupiers and Artists in Post-World War II Germany,” it was nominated for the “Outstanding History Dissertation” prize in 2022. Dr. Nalley’s study draws extensively upon oral history and musical/musicological analyses to investigate the differing ideas of freedom and democracy among African American GIs, the military, and German audiences. Nalley’s dissertation reveals a previously unresearched circuit of segregated clubs on and around military bases, and a Black jazz scene comparable to the Black expatriate jazz scene that grew in France after World War I. She has presented her scholarship on US history, jazz, and music history throughout the Bay Area, including at UC Berkeley, UC Santa Cruz, Stanford University, the California Jazz Conservatory, and Google. Her research and teaching strive to be inclusive of underrepresented and submerged voices in history.
Professor Nalley published a guide to thinking about Nina Simone, “The Show Must Go On: Kim Nalley on Nina Simone & Mississippi Goddamn,” in 2020. Her paper “Losing Its Grease: Black Cultural Politics and the Globalization of Jazz” was published in Democracy and Difference, and she delivered a Keynote titled “I, Too, Sing America: Freedom and Democracy in Jazz” at the 21st AISNA Conference in Trento, Italy. She has also written scholarly reviews for the California History journal (UC Press). She is on the Diversity, Inclusion, Equity, and Justice board for the California Conservatory of Jazz.
Dr. Kim Nalley – Singer, Performer, and Historian
Dr. Nalley often combines music and history to create historiographical concerts, including her award-winning “Ladies Sing the Blues*,” “She Put a Spell on Me: Tribute to Nina Simone” for Jazz at Lincoln Center, “Freedom’s Song: Music of the Civil Rights Movement,” musical director and curator for the Martin Luther King Institute’s Commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington and “The Heart of Lady Day,” a Billie Holiday biopic. She has performed with Angela Davis, recreating her seminal book “Blues Legacies and Black Feminism” for SFJAZZ. As a playwright, she has written “Ella: the American Dream,” a bio-musical about Ella Fitzgerald, which premiered in 2008. As an actress, she portrayed Billie Holiday in the dramatic play “Lady Day in Love,” Blues Speak woman in Zora Neale Hurston’s “Spunk,” and has starred in Teatro Zinzanni as Madame Zinzanni, a role subsequently filled by Joan Baez and Sandra Reeves-Phillips.
Jazz Times:
“John R. Burr’s subdued, seamless piano playing casts a wide net, drawing from gospel, blues, pop, folk, and jazz. On a few tracks-including originals like “Ireland,” “Counting the Days,” and “Point of Departure”-woodwinders Paul McCandless and Kim Park turn Burr’s typically articulate but undemanding solo musings into animated discussions that especially catch the ear and the imagination.”
Special Guest John R. Burr gained his incomparable skills through years of touring and recording sessions with such artists as Maria Muldaur, The Alison Brown Quartet, Paul McCandless, Michael Manring, and Kathy Kallick, and recognition, including a feature spot on Windham Hill’s Piano Sampler II, is a testament to his talent. His light touch reminds of Oscar Peterson. John R. Burr is quoted to say:
“I play a sort of jazz piano version of the vocal music that I love to listen to. That’s what influences me. I love to play and study jazz, but I listen to vocal, folk/singer/songwriter music. I’m always searching for that melodic song-like quality when I improvise.”
Cookie from Blue Coast Records believes he is likely inspired by James Taylor or Doctor John, as by Oscar Peterson or the Yellowjackets, although he says it is his love of folk music that has influenced him most.
Ruth Davies, Bass
The list of artists Ruth has toured and recorded with reads like a Who’s Who of blues and jazz, including Charles Brown, Elvin Bishop, Clark Terry, John Lee Hooker, Bonnie Raitt, Jay McShann, Van Morrison, Maria Muldaur, Junior Mance, Linda Tillery, Barbara Dane, Barbara Morrison, Etta Jones, Elvis Costello, Eric Bibb, Keb’ Mo’, Terry Gibbs, Jimmy Witherspoon, and Little Jimmy Scott.
Ruth’s discography includes several Platinum and Grammy-winning recordings, and covers jazz, blues, and movie soundtracks. She has recorded with Charles Brown, Bonnie Raitt, John Lee Hooker, Van Morrison, Sammy Hagar, Clark Terry, Vassar Clements, Toots Thielemans, Ernie Watts, Elvin Bishop, Maria Muldaur, Clairdee, Tammy Hall, Jackie Ryan, Pamela Rose, and Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, among others.
We thank you in advance for your support of Marin Jazz’s effort to hire a new teacher for our expanding Future Stars, Afternoon Arts Performance Program. Your support allows us to sponsor children’s attendance @ $900/year, regardless of their parents’ income.
Sunday, April 26, 2026, from 3:00 pm to 5:30 pm
The Lark Theater
549 Magnolia Ave.
Larkspur, CA 94939
Please join us as we focus in 2026 on keeping American Music, including Jazz and Blues, alive. Learn more about the award-winning lineup of musicians and performers for next year by visiting our website at www.marinjazz.com or buying your tickets here.
Support Future Stars
At Marin Jazz, we’re not only committed to creating a vibrant community of artists and music that feeds the soul, and also to youth education in the arts.
In mid-2024, Marin Jazz was born from Pied Piper Productions, a theater company and afterschool program for the arts. Their flagship afterschool program, Future Stars, directed by Sonia Perozzi, has continually been a popular and favorite across schools in San Rafael and Novato. However, the needs of local Marin families and the lack of resources for scholarships and teacher pay have been growing. Your help has allowed us to add students to the program. Together we can permit ever more students to sign up.
Did you know that over 40% of Marin County residents live in low-income (14%) or very low-income (30%) households? And that 70% of all income in Marin County is earned by the top 20%? As surprising as this may seem, we experience it firsthand when students are unable to participate in our program due to financial constraints. Let’s come together to help these families with children. Many Marin students fall into the lower-income bracket and need our assistance.
Recognizing the need for arts education, longtime producer and director Todd Ghanizandeh began hosting events to raise funds for the program and for families. Together, Todd and Sonia have the goal for Marin Jazz to create a community of artists and audiences who come together to share their love of the performing arts, all while nurturing and providing for future generations to carry on the torch.
We thank all of you who have helped us through your donations and your attendance at our fundraiser shows. In 2025, we were able to sign up nearly twice as many children for our program, with approximately 1/8th of them fully sponsored. You made this happen! Thank you!
With your donations and support, we hope to hire another part-time teacher to continue expanding this valuable performing arts program for Marin County kids.
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