AMANA MELOME’

American, born in Europe Amana Melome’ grew up exposed to music from around the world. Both grandparents were heavy in the international Jazz scene; her grandfather Jimmy Woode started as the youngest musician in Duke Ellington’s band and toured as one of the golden men of Jazz until his recent passing. “My grandmother was a jazz vocalist and I remember loving listening to her sing while ironing. By the time I was a teenager I knew so many old jazz songs it surprised even her… I enjoyed them so much, they just stuck” she says. Amana moved back to the States to go to college and made the village in New York City her home for some years as she earned her BA degree at NYU.  “I grew up listening to (and being inspired by) everything under the sun… thanks to my mother; everything from Carmen McRae to Angelique Kidjo, from Manu Chao to Vivaldi, from Bob Marley to Lauren Hill, from Zap Mama to Alliance Ethnique, Eminem to Jack Johnson… so when I create music, my ear jumps all over the place and I’ll find myself combining opera with bossa and jazz, but hey, that’s who I am…” Once she completed university, Amana left the east coast to head to Los Angeles, where she joined forces with her producer Saverio ‘Sage’ Principini, with whom she wrote and recorded her debut album ‘Indigo Red’. Recently Amana was ‘discovered’ also in Europe by Irma Records who are preparing to release ‘Indigo Red’ throughout Europe and Japan in 2008. An eclectic combination of Neo-Soul, Jazz, Funk, and world music; her lyrics are vivid and laced with a consciousness and purity that can only add to the music scene today. Keep an eye out for this rising star.