Black Olive Jazz features the warm singer Kay Kostopoulos and the veteran Noel Jewkes on tenor, alto, soprano and flute. The group performs a wide range of jazz: swing, standards, blues, latin and originals. Black Olive Jazz brings a Mediterranean feel to jazz, featuring sultry vocals, exotic finger cymbals and serpentine phrases on soprano
saxophone.
Kay and Noel have been featured venues and jazz festivals all around the San Francisco Bay Area, including the Sonoma, Napa, Healdsburg, Vallejo, Sacramento, Palo Alto, and Fillmore Jazz Festivals. Their album, "Exotica", a Mediterranean Jazz Journey, received rave reviews, and was honored by the Stanford Humanities celebration.
Kay is also a Stanford lecturer in Business and Theater, professional actress, singer, dancer and director who has performed in plays and musicals in many regional and Bay
Area theaters, including the Magic Theatre, Marin Theatre Company, San Francisco and California Shakespeare Festivals, Stanford Summer Theater and A.C.T. (American Conservatory Theatre). Her theatrical background lends an emotional sensitivity to her lush and sensuous three-octave vocal range. Kay's bellydancing has roots in an ethnic history rich in tradition, percussive musicality and precise technique.
