Hot news is that this summer keyboard player Gail Jhonson will release her Shanachie debut CD. It will feature her all-star female band, Jazz In Pink, which has forged a unique place in the annals of contemporary jazz with piano, violin, flute and harp at its core. Showcasing the album will be the intoxicating, uplifting and jubilant ‘Joy Joy’ that has just debuted in the Top 30 of the Billboard Contemporary Jazz Chart and which includes two special guest performers, sax-man Kim Waters and guitarist Paul Jackson, Jr.
Jhonson and Waters both hail from the city of Philadelphia and it was there that Gail Denise Johnson (who now records under the name of Gail Jhonson) began playing piano at the age of ten. By age fourteen she had played her first gig and went on to study at Berklee College of Music where she received a BA in composition. In 1985 she left her Germantown PA home and headed west to audition for Morris Day and the Time. Johnson got the gig and made her home in L.A. where she now remains. Currently dividing her time between her staff position at the Musician's Institute in Hollywood, CA, her role as musical director and touring keyboard playing for smooth jazz superstar Norman Brown, and as an integral member of Jazz In Pink 2020 is, for Gail Jhonson, shaping up to be something quite special.