Champian Fulton

Pianist and vocalist Champian Fulton encountered music constantly during childhood, thanks to the household environment shaped by her parents. Her father, jazz trumpeter and educator Stephen Fulton, along with her mother, noticed her budding curiosity toward the art form very early. Frequent visits from her father’s colleagues, among them Clark Terry and Major Holley, further deepened that engagement. At five she commenced piano lessons under her grandmother’s guidance; singing, drums, and trumpet followed before she concentrated on piano and vocals. In 1994 the family relocated to Lemars, IA, once Stephen Fulton assumed the directorship of the Clark Terry Institute for Jazz Studies. There Champian joined the summer camp jazz program, encountered other aspiring players from the region, and helped establish the Little Jazz Quintet. The ensemble convened several times each year for performances devoted solely to Terry’s compositions, among them his 75th birthday celebration.

Dinah Washington ranked among Fulton’s initial vocal inspirations, particularly the album For Those in Love, which she replayed often, soon followed by admiration for Sarah Vaughan. She also respected Nat King Cole for balancing piano and vocal prowess and absorbed the work of Art Tatum, attempting transcriptions of select recordings, alongside Red Garland, Wynton Kelly, Bud Powell, Hampton Hawes, Sonny Clark, and Thelonious Monk. After the family’s 1998 move to New York, they shifted again in 1999 to Norman, OK, where Champian formed a new band and appeared at several regional jazz festivals while completing high school. Beginning in 2001 she held a two-year weekend engagement at Maker’s Cigar Piano Bar in Oklahoma City. Upon graduating as valedictorian in 2003 she returned to New York to enroll in jazz piano and performance studies at SUNY Purchase Music Conservatory, drawn by its one hundred Steinway grand pianos available around the clock. Trumpeter Jon Faddis stood out among her instructors for conveying insights drawn from decades of professional recording and touring, adapting lessons to individual student goals.

Fulton completed her degree in 2006 and settled in New York City. Since then she has appeared at Birdland, the Garage, Smalls, Cleopatra’s Needle, and Shanghai Jazz in New Jersey, sharing stages with such masters as Jimmy Cobb, Frank Wess, Lou Donaldson, and Louis Hayes. Her debut CD, recorded in 2007 and released the following year, arose from an introduction to David Berger & the Sultans of Swing during one of Berger’s Birdland engagements. The 2009 Venus release Sometimes I’m Happy presented Fulton fronting her trio with bassist Neal Miner and drummer Fukushi Tainaka. A third recording, made in late 2009, includes her father and the regular trio. Fulton maintains her dual identity as pianist and vocalist while envisioning future expansion to a quintet featuring two horns.