Champian Fulton’s biography, net worth, fact, career, awards and life story

Champian Fulton (born 1985) is an American Jazz pianist, vocalist and recording artist who specializes in interpreting music of the swing and bebop jazz eras. Since being chosen as a “Rookie of the Year” by Village Voice in 2007, she has become a regular on the New York City Jazz scene where she has performed with musical icons including Jimmy Cobb, Lou Donaldson, Frank Wess, Eric Alexander, Buster Williams, and Louis Hayes.

Biography

Fulton was born in Norman, Oklahoma in 1985. She started playing piano as a young child, later taking up singing, drums, and trumpet, and then moving to piano and vocals. Fulton was strongly influenced by her father and his jazz musician friends, who included Clark Terry, Major Holley, Red Holloway, Butch Miles and Snooky Young, and became interested in the sounds of bebop and swing.

At the age of 10 Fulton played her first paid musical engagement with her own jazz band at Clark Terry’s 75th birthday party. As a pre-teen, she participated in summer jazz camp programs where she met other young jazz musicians from her area and formed the Little Jazz Quintet with which she played throughout high school, appearing at regional jazz festivals in the Oklahoma area. For two years she combined school with performing weekends at Maker’s Cigar Piano Bar (closed in 2013) in Oklahoma City. Upon graduating as high school valedictorian in 2003, she left for New York City to study jazz piano and performance at State University of New York at Purchase (SUNY) Music Conservatory where she studied under trumpeter Jon Faddis. After graduation in 2006, Fulton moved to New York City to pursue her career full-time as a jazz pianist and vocalist.

Influences and critical reception

Her style was noticed early in her career when a Village Voice jazz writer remarked, “Fulton’s unforced sense of swing comes in just as handy on the vintage ballads, where her other assets include precise enunciation like you just don’t hear any more in jazz singing…”. Her modern take on bebop jazz piano and vocals was described in the Hartford Courant as, “Her piano playing is authentic, and she swings in a style that celebrates bebop modernism, reflecting her literally lifelong passion for such great modern jazz pianists as Wynton Kelly, Red Garland, Erroll Garner, Sonny Clark and Hampton Hawes, among others.” Her most powerful vocal influence was Dinah Washington, particularly her album “For Those in Love”, which she often played as a young girl. “Dinah was always my favorite singer since I was very young”.

One reviewer noted, “… Champian Fulton positively thrives in the confines of the American Popular Songbook… she has a knack for personalizing lyrics that were written the better part of a century ago.” Fulton has the ability to seamlessly adapt the music of mainstream traditional composers (e.g. Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Cole Porter) to her own swinging vocal and piano stylings. A New York Times reviewer described her as “A charming young steward of the mainstream jazz tradition…”. In an interview, jazz pianist and Sirius radio host Judy Carmichael summed up Fulton’s simple approach as, “… what I like about you is; you just sit down, and play, and sing, and swing.”

Fulton was named “Rising Jazz Star – Female Vocalist” in the Downbeat’s Critics Poll, 2014.

Artistic career

Live performances

Since arriving on the New York jazz scene, Fulton has performed in NYC venues, including: Birdland, the Garage (closed in 2015), Smalls Jazz Club, Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola (Jazz at Lincoln Center), Bemelmans Bar at The Carlyle Hotel, Cleopatra’s Needle, and Shanghai Jazz, New Jersey, USA. At some of those venues she has played with a number of jazz masters, including Jimmy Cobb, Frank Wess, Lou Donaldson, and Louis Hayes, among others.

Fulton has also performed at jazz festivals and events across the U.S.A. including: Rutgers University, Jazz at Lincoln Center, Jazz in June, Detroit Jazz Festival, Litchfield Jazz Festival, Northampton Jazz Festival, Rochester International Jazz Festival, William Paterson University, The Jazz Corner, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, the Chicago Humanities Festival.

Internationally, Fulton has performed at jazz clubs, jazz festivals and other venues including: Ascona Jazz Festival (Switzerland), Edinburgh Jazz and Blues Festival (Scotland),Sunset-Sunside Jazz Club (France), Bansko International Jazz Festival (Bulgaria), Gouvy Jazz & Blues Festival (Belgium), Jamboree Jazz (Spain), Tanjazz (Morocco), Hot Jazz (Israel), Cellar Jazz (Vancouver, Canada – closed in 2014), Yardbird Suite (jazz club) (Edmonton, Canada), JazzTone (Germany), Lockerbie Jazz Festival (Scotland), Islay Jazz Festival (Scotland), Ystad Jazz Festival (Sweden), and WDR Big Band – Cologne (Germany).

In 2015 Fulton created and performed a series of special tribute shows titled “Letters to Dinah Washington”. She presented that show at various venues, in both the U.S.A. and abroad, as a special tribute to her personal jazz vocalist heroine, Dinah Washington.

In 2016, she played the part of a Studio Backup Singer in the pilot episode of the HBO series Vinyl (TV series).

Recording history

Fulton’s debut CD titled “Champian Fulton with David Berger & the Sultans of Swing” was released in 2008. That year she also contributed vocals to the Tobias Gebb & Trio West album “An Upper West Side Story”. That was followed by two more studio albums while she was still in her early twenties; “Sometimes I’m Happy” in 2010 and “The Breeze And I” in 2011. Ms. Fulton’s following release, “Champian Sings and Swings” was chosen by the New York Observer as one of its “Top 10 Jazz Albums of 2013”. Her follow-up 2014 release “Change Partners” was referred to by the Jazz Times reviewer as “… this tight, satisfying hour-long live session”. “Change Partners” was Champian’s first “live” CD; recorded live with her group over two nights at the Yardbird Suite (jazz club) in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.

In February 2016, as a follow-up to her 2015 “Letters to Dinah Washington” tour, Fulton released her “After Dark” album which includes her hand-picked personal favorites from Ms. Washington’s legendary repertoire. As it was described by one jazz reviewer, “… Champian Fulton’s After Dark is a warm and beautiful homage to Dinah Washington.”

Jazz education involvement

Fulton spent her childhood learning from such masters as Clark Terry, Red Holloway, and Jon Faddis. In the past decade she has worked with organizations such as the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, the Litchfield Jazz Camp, and Rutgers University. In late 2015 Champian joined the faculty of the Jazz Arts Academy (in Association with the Count Basie Theatre Education Department) to offer workshops in Jazz Vocals and Jazz Piano over the course of the summer.

Discography

“Champian Fulton with David Berger & the Sultans of Swing” (2008, Such Sweet Thunder).

“An Upper West Side Story”, Tobias Gebb & Trio West with Champian Fulton (2008, Yummyhouse Records).

“Sometimes I’m Happy” (2010, Venus Records).

“The Breeze And I” (2011, Gut String Records).

“Champian Sings & Swings” (2013, Sharp Nine Records).

“Change Partners” (2014, Cellar Live).

“After Dark” (2016, Gut String Records).

“Speechless” (2017, Posi-Tone Records)