Leena Conquest

When Leena sings, people listen.  She weaves and treads that intimate, revelatory sonic ground that she's known for by merging the familiar with the surprising.

From Johannesburg's Joy of Jazz to Hungary's MediaWave, the Chicago Jazz Festival and Paris' Banlieues Bleues, audiences are captivated. This Texas-born chanteuse has appeared at New York's Vision Festival and Jazz At Lincoln Center.  

An ongoing collaborator with bassist William Parker, Leena sings on  Flower In a Stained Glass Window & the Blinking of the  Ear,  Voices Fall from the  Sky, Cornmeal Dance,  the 2011 Downbeat Critics Poll Top 10 Album I Plan to Stay a Believer,  Raining on the Moon and more.

Like Parker's bass, Conquest's vocals fluctuate between the bold and the yearning, always reaching for the fantastic from a deep-rooted center.  Chris Dahlen, Pitchfork 

Conquest, however, plays a singular role. Even when quiet, she makes Parker's words resonate throughout the mournful and hopeful improvisations that follow.  Nick Ostrum, The Free Jazz Collective

Her contributions, giving voice to Parker's powerfully poetic lyrics, enliven the disc.  John Kenyon, PopMatters

Dave Burrell Plays His Songs featuring Leena Conquest is her duo collaboration with the pianist.  Indeed it is her vocal dexterity paired with an intuitive, world-wise quality that enables her to deliver these songs with a depth of feeling that is nuanced and profound.   

Not a far cry from her earliest beginnings when she penned the club hit Boundaries and later her recording Come Fly Away.  

Conquest's extraordinary voice can tell countless tales in the space of one line.   Billboard

Her upcoming Poetry Sessions offers a lifelong appreciation of musical stories that so often infuse jazz with a nod to Oscar Brown Jr. and Abbey Lincoln. From The Time Before and Ida B, to Dunbar's Death Song, it's about time and space.  

Leena went to Dallas Public Schools, is a graduate of Stanford University, attended NYU's Tisch School of the Arts and trained at the Alvin Ailey Dance Center.

PHOTO:  DONATELLA POLLINI