Alumni Gazette

A Musical Life

Leonhart (Photo: Courtesy Carolyn Leonhart)

Carolyn Leonhart ’93 grew up singing.

She recorded television commercials in grade school, was a soloist in her high school gospel choir, and sat in to sing with her father, jazz bassist Jay Leonhart, at his Sunday brunch gigs at Manhattan’s Blue Note club.

Still at ease in many musical genres, Leonhart’s career has blossomed on both sides of the Atlantic. In the United States last summer, she released her latest CD, New 8th Day, a collection of jazz standards and new compositions, arranged with her husband, tenor saxophonist Wayne Escoffery.

Last fall, her Swiss pop group, Lyn Leon (the last three letters of her first name and the first four letters of her surname), released its latest CD in Europe, Private Pop. Leonhart wrote all the lyrics.

These recordings are among 26 she has appeared on since making her first CD as a college junior. Her credits include two albums with the rock group Steely Dan.

“Most people don’t have two projects at once on two continents,” says Leonhart. “But I have to do what makes me happy. Both projects are very creative for me.”

Leonhart’s emergence as a group leader comes a dozen years after graduating from Rochester, where she majored in comparative religion and found time to perform with jazz ensembles at the Eastman School.

“I knew I wanted to be a singer, but I didn’t want to study music in college,” she says. “I needed to study something else, and in studying religion, I learned I had the courage to write. I gained the confidence to create an idea, put it down on paper, and prove it to people.”

Those skills, she says, have stayed with her as she pens song lyrics.

At a recent Sunday evening at Smoke, a cozy Manhattan jazz club where Leonhart plays regularly, she sings songs that touch on the range of human emotions. Backed by a quartet led by her husband, Leonhart croons songs about the loss of love and alienation in the modern world.

Then she sings “Noneday” about the travails of two lovers who need an extra day in the week to find time to hang out in each other’s arms. Leonhart wrote the song while she and Escoffery were dating.

“It’s hectic with two musicians trying to live a life together,” says Leonhart, who performed with her husband on a September jazz cruise from Montreal to New York. “Careers in music can be 24-hour-a-day jobs, so that week together on the ship together is a joy.”

—David McKay Wilson