Henry. her professional music career started with dance music recordings

Fast-rising jazz vocalist Nicole Henry comes to Jamaica for the Independence weekend in a series of concert performances staged jointly by the Jamaica Inn and Royal Plantation hotels and dubbed "Jazz on the Riviera".

Ms Henry will be performing largely on the strength of her debut album, The Nearness Of You, which features her stirringly sultry interpretations of jazz and pop standards, including That Old Black Magic, Fly Me To The Moon, John Lennon's Imagine, Brenda Russell's Get Here and the title track.
The album has shot up to the number 10 spot on Billboard's Jazz Albums charts, having debuted at #36, giving a Henry national profile in the US commensurate with her talents. Ms Henry was also recently named "Best Local Jazz Artist - 2004" and "Best Local Solo Musician - 2002" by the Miami New Times.

Writing in Billboard magazine, renowned jazz guitarist, Al di Meola, says: "Henry has provoked quite a buzz in the South Florida club scene, and The Nearness Of You may put her on a national footing. She has a potent voice, and her interpretive sense is sharp and distinctive. She seems to have a natural feel for how to shape a lyric, and her intonation is effortlessly bluesy. You'll hear an artiste who knows how to make a song her own just as surely as she knows how to make a tune swing. At the album's close one comes away believing that Henry is a jazz vocalist poised on the cusp of bigger things."

Similar endorsement comes from music website jazzreview.com, whose reviewer Craig Hurst wrote: "Nicole Henry is an extremely talented young singer with a unique and stirring voice. The Nearness Of You is a highly recommended addition to a jazz CD collection and from evidence of what one hears on this

CD, there will hopefully be many great things that the world will yet hear from Nicole Henry."
Having listened to The Nearness Of You, this writer can easily concur with the critical assessment of Henry's talent. Alternately breathy and robust, her voice is well suited to the creative, yet swinging reconceptualisations of the standards on the album, particularly Billy Troup's You're Looking At Me (the same writer composed Nat King Cole's classic Route 66) and Cole Porter's You'd Be So Nice To Come Home To.

Nicole's professional music career started ironically with dance music recordings that placed her on Billboard's Dance Music Charts for eight weeks in 1998. Committing to a full-time entertainment career in 2000, the singer/songwriter began producing her original material and took the opportunity to tour the US as a background vocalist with RCA band, Robert Bradley's Blackwater Surprise. A full-scholarship recipient, Nicole changed from Architecture to a double major in Advertising and Theatre Performance and received her Bachelor Degree from UM in 2000.
In addition to her singing gigs, Nicole Henry has scored acting roles in national television commercial campaigns for Verizon Wireless, Amtrak, McDonald's with Venus & Serena Williams, Air Jamaica, Rite Aid Pharmacies, Hershey's Swoops, Sears Optical and others.

Henry was a lead actress in the feature-length, independent films, In Plain Sight and Chapter and Verse, and in a four-part pilot of a children's television series, The Lemonade Stand, aired on select US stations. She also starred in the independent short film Miami Chronicles sponsored by the Independent Film Channel. All three of these films feature original songs done by her.
Henry will perform a total of four shows from Thursday, August 5 through Sunday, August 8. The series will commence with an evening concert at the Royal Plantation, move to the Plantation Inn the following evening and back to Royal Plantation on Saturday.
Sunday's closing performance at Jamaica Inn will be a special lunch-hour outing, from 11:00 am to 1:00 pm.

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