Motema

With a voice praised as "a deep contralto as smooth and dark as the richest espresso" (Jazz Times, November 2007,) award-winning jazz vocalist Alexis Cole has made an impressive impact on audiences ever since she first took the stage as a teenager. Yet it is impossible to understand Alexis' power to touch listeners with her music without recognizing the influence that her devotion to a full spiritual life has played throughout her career. This holiday season, Alexis' spiritual and musical interests once again coincide to miraculous effect as she offers The Greatest Gift - songs of the season to the world.

A touching Christmas album with a jazzy twist that benefits a terrific cause, The Greatest Gift was inspired, says Alexis, "by Jesus' love for humankind" as well as by her father, composer/arranger Mark Finkin. Sales of the CD will benefit World Bicycle Relief, an organization which provides sustainable access to healthcare, education, and economic opportunities in developing nations through The Power of Bicycles.

Raised in Florida, Alexis came from a musical family, so it was only natural that she had begun to perform at the Ritz Hotel in South Beach when still in high school, rapidly earning a reputation as one of the most talented young singers in town. She went on to enroll in the University of Miami's Jazz Studies program with the help of a Young Arts Scholarship, and finished her undergraduate studies at William Paterson University in NJ, and her graduate studies at Queens College in NY. All the while, she integrated her musical studies with work that satisfied a spiritual calling at churches in New Jersey and North Carolina. Eventually, she relocated to New York City, where she worked as the music minister at the Jan Hus Presbyterian Church, leading the congregation with a blend of historic hymns and popular songs, music from the Taize tradition and Christian folk.

Alexis released her first CD in 1999, a duet project with pianist Harry Pickens, titled Very Early. In 2005, she earned her Masters degree in music, and began to perform frequently at clubs throughout New York City, including The Oak Room, Dizzy's Club, The 55 Bar, The Zinc Bar, Smoke, Smalls and Sweet Rhythm. That same year, she released a second CD. Nearer the Sun (Canopy Jazz 2005) which renowned jazz critic Scott Yanow lauded as "a particularly strong effort from a jazz singer well worth discovering."

As her performing career took wing, Alexis traveled across Europe, Asia and South America. She taught at the Berklee College of Music in Quito, Ecuador, and was a resident performer at the Tableaux Lounge in Tokyo. Despite her penchant for globetrotting, Alexis managed to release a third CD, Zingaro, (Canopy Jazz 2007), which Time Out New York praised as a "disc that will please purists and more adventurous listeners alike." And in 2009 she released her fifth CD, Someday My Prince Will Come, (Venus Records Japan) which features the amazing work of Fred Hersch and Matt Wilson among others.

True to Alexis' eclectic nature, the tracks on The Greatest Gift span genres. Selections include jazz and classical instrumentals, children's chorale arrangements, Indian classical and overtone singing, straight ahead jazz, and bluesy pop. Alexis reinvents the Christmas favorites "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing," and "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," and she contributes a heart-warming new song, "The Call," to the lineup of Christmas standards.

Mark Finkin, Alexis' father, pens an uplifting, catchy, and sure-to-become holiday classic for the album, "Jesus Is the Best Part of Christmas," and also delivers perhaps the most bluesy version of "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" ever on record. Born into fascinating circumstances as a child of two deaf parents determined to give their child what they couldn't have, Mark was introduced early on to the piano, and remains a passionate and prolific composer and performer.

Finkin's unique story, in part, inspired Alexis to record The Greatest Gift. In 2007, as Alexis sat in the audience of her father's long-awaited college graduation recital, where he performed original compositions and unique arrangements of hymns, she reached a musical and personal epiphany. She decided to collaborate with her father on a Christmas benefit album, reinvesting herself in their relationship, and in her relationship to the church.

Winner of the 2007 Jazzmobile competition and an award recipient of the Montreux Jazz Vocal Competition, Alexis was cited as "a rising star in the jazz world" by Hot House Magazine. She continues to perform regularly at jazz clubs in her home base of New York City, as well as throughout the world. A dedicated educator, Alexis has taught privately and at the 92nd St. Y in New York City, and served on the faculty of Berklee College of Music in Quito. Most recently, she's added the position of lead vocalist for the West Point Jazz Knights, the U.S. Military Academy big band, to her eclectic resume.