Biography
Kitty Margolis emerged in the 1990s as one of the most compelling women in jazz, recognized for her bold improvisational style and skillful scat singing. She earned widespread praise from critics despite issuing every release on the independent label she founded herself. Born November 7, 1955, in San Mateo, CA, she absorbed a broad range of sounds while growing up in the Bay Area and took up guitar at age 12 under the influence of Joni Mitchell along with folk, country, and blues traditions. She also pursued studies in world music, an interest that would later shape her recorded work, and attended Harvard for several years, performing there in a Western swing ensemble. Her enduring commitment to jazz crystallized after she heard Rahsaan Roland Kirk at New York’s Village Vanguard. She then moved to San Francisco State University, where instructors John Handy and Hal Stein guided her jazz studies while she also trained in studio engineering; over the ensuing years she refined both her vocal precision and improvisational command.
Public performances began for her in 1978, and she collaborated extensively with guitarist/vocalist Joyce Cooling through much of the early 1980s. In 1986 she established her own trio, became a steady fixture at Bay Area jazz venues, and launched the Mad Kat label alongside fellow vocalist Madeline Eastman. Mad Kat released her debut album, Live at the Jazz Workshop, in 1989—the same year she delivered a warmly received first appearance at the Monterey Jazz Festival. Her initial studio effort, Evolution, arrived in 1994 and solidified her standing within jazz circles; the recording included contributions from Joe Henderson and Joe Louis Walker and earned her the Down Beat critics’ poll accolade for Talent Deserving Wider Recognition, an honor repeated in 1995 and 1997. Her next project, Straight Up With a Twist, appeared in 1997 and proved her most varied collection to date, offering unconventional readings of standards alongside guest spots by Roy Hargrove and Charles Brown. After a deliberate interval between projects, she issued her fourth album, Left Coast Life, in 2001 and again drew strongly favorable notices.
Public performances began for her in 1978, and she collaborated extensively with guitarist/vocalist Joyce Cooling through much of the early 1980s. In 1986 she established her own trio, became a steady fixture at Bay Area jazz venues, and launched the Mad Kat label alongside fellow vocalist Madeline Eastman. Mad Kat released her debut album, Live at the Jazz Workshop, in 1989—the same year she delivered a warmly received first appearance at the Monterey Jazz Festival. Her initial studio effort, Evolution, arrived in 1994 and solidified her standing within jazz circles; the recording included contributions from Joe Henderson and Joe Louis Walker and earned her the Down Beat critics’ poll accolade for Talent Deserving Wider Recognition, an honor repeated in 1995 and 1997. Her next project, Straight Up With a Twist, appeared in 1997 and proved her most varied collection to date, offering unconventional readings of standards alongside guest spots by Roy Hargrove and Charles Brown. After a deliberate interval between projects, she issued her fourth album, Left Coast Life, in 2001 and again drew strongly favorable notices.
Live