These twelve tracks of Original Music and Lyrics from Vocalist-Composer JOANIE PALLATTO and pianist-composer BRADLEY PARKER-SPARROW create a mood of intimacy, improvisation and reflection. Their personal songs of Harmonizing Energy are presented as the first duet recording released from Chicago’s renowned couple, featuring gentle songs, swinging grooves, scat singing and expansive piano solos.
JOANIE PALLATTO & BRADLEY PARKER-SPARROW:
Vocalist and songwriter Joanie Pallatto and pianist-composer Bradley Parker-Sparrow claim Chicago as their home — their life in music has blossomed over the decades, along with their marriage. As co-owners of Southport Records and producers and engineers at Sparrow Sound Design Recording Studio, together they have released hundreds of recordings since 1977 — mostly of jazz artists (notably The Freeman Family: Von, George and Chico, Willie Pickens and Fred Anderson) along with cabaret performers and contemporary classical composers. Together, they have performed in Chicago at The Jazz Showcase, The Green Mill, City Winery, Davenport’s, Chicago Jazz Festival, Chicago Cultural Center, and in New York City at the Iridium Jazz Club, Pangea, and Birdland. They received the “Chicago Heroes Award” in 2016, given by the Jazz Journalists Association. It is one of the highlights of their combined careers.
FROM JOANIE PALLATTO:
I write this with gratitude and love for Sparrow, my inspirational partner in life and music. As we began this recording, we realized that we had never released a complete album of DUETS, even though several songs were featured on each other’s albums. Our opening track is our gentle creation, “Song”, which became the title (Sparrow always has the best CD Titles!) Tunes we have performed over the years, that I like to refer to as “Sparrow Classics” — “Monk is Drunk” and “Cottage Grove”, are swinging tracks that feature improvisation and scat singing. I wrote “Jim De Jong” as a poem to honor the passing of our friend, “The Man in Black” in 2023, and Sparrow and I completed the piece as a musical tribute. “Jobim” is a song that we wrote together as our remembrance of the great composer from Brazil, Antonio Carlos Jobim. “Tico’s Lust”, with my lyrics to Sparrow’s expansive composition became a musical fable that is re-imagined from my high school days with my classmate Tico (Lee Alden Warren.) “Epilogue” is a piece that was recorded on Sparrow’s “The Desert Rat Suite” back in 1991 where our late friend Ron Rolland “the voice” handled the narration, and our new version gave me the opportunity to interpret the text and sing the chorus section. Sparrow is featured on two gorgeous piano solo offerings to round out the album.
FROM BRADLEY PARKER-SPARROW:
Since I am self taught as a song writer and lyric writer I have always been jealous of others, that had all of the education and school and use this for creation. I never had a time when I “read” music or played that which existed. I could hear music and words in my head, and the piano is the perfect slide rule for creation.
Collaborations with Joanie are special.
She understands how I create music and how we created music together and that bond is like waterproof cement… we go back and forth and then take a break for a glass of champagne.
I guess notes are not written, they are played. Solo/Sparrow
ABOUT JOANIE PALLATTO
“a stirring and special voice” — Rick Kogan, Chicago Tribune
Joanie Pallatto, born in Xenia, Ohio comes from a musical family. Her father and brother played violin, and her mother sang and composed songs. She discovered her passion for singing by performing with her school’s choir. She graduated from the Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music and in the 1970s went on tour with the Glenn Miller Orchestra.
After moving to Chicago in 1979, she married pianist and composer Bradley Parker-Sparrow in 1982 and became his partner at Sparrow Sound Design Recording Studio and co-founded the label Southport Records in 1984.
She has a history of 46 years as one of Chicago’s leading studio voices, singing jingles and recording voiceovers for hundreds of national radio and television commercials (Sears, United Airlines, Hamburger Helper…) She was a featured soloist with Daniel Barenboim in ‘Ellington Among Friends’ at Symphony Center. Pallatto received a Lifetime Achievement Award for Extra-Ordinary Contributions to the Music Industry from the Chicago Music Awards (2021). Several of her Music Videos are available to view on YouTube.
Along with her expertise in all aspects of musical production, she is an independent artist with over 19 albums as a leader/co-leader on Southport Records. April & Joanie Sing! (2024) is a compilation of songs recorded with her good friend and vocalist April Aloisio. Four Southport albums showcase her all original music and lyrics with guitarist Fareed Haque, Accidental Melody (2023), My Original Plan (2021), As You Spend Your Life ( 2011), and It’s Not Easy (2008). Other recordings are Float Out to Sea with Sparrow (2017), Days with Joanie & Sparrow (2013), Two Again with pianist-arranger Marshall Vente (2015), The King and I with pianist/composer King Fleming (2000), Words & Music (1999), Two with pianist Marshall Vente (1997), FIRE with Von Freeman (1996), Passing Tones (1995), Who Wrote This Song? (1993), and her debut recording, Whisper Not (LP 1986.) Pallatto is also featured on 15 of Sparrow’s releases.
From writer Christopher Loudon’s review in the May 2011 issue of Jazz Times: “Trying to channel Pallatto is like attempting to bottle a cyclone. It’s best to just let her run wild…”
