Pam Ackerman Purvis
Pam is from Louisiana and Texas. She began singing jazz in 1974 in Paterson, NJ at Gulliver’s (now just a fond memory for those who were there). It was a good place to begin because she met and sang with Chuck Wayne, Joe Puma, Gabor Zabo, Joe Morello, Jack Six, and Bob Ackerman. The later of these fine musicians she decided to keep. They were married and working together for 47 years, and have 12 recordings together.
They performed in Europe at the Stockholm Jazz Festival, San Remo Jazz Festival, Asti Jazz
Festival as well as Mexico and all over the US. She has worked with Joe Cohn, Richard Wyands, Dennis Irwin, Earl May, Chip Jackson, Steve Johns, Mike Richmond, Adam Nusbaum, Bill Goodwin, Paul Rostock, and many other great musicians.
She credits her style to “living with a horn player”. She likes to tell a story about meeting and hanging out with the great scat singer Joe Carroll. When she asked him how he learned to sing those improvised type lines he told her “Listen to the horn players, baby, listen to the horn players”.
Her sense of lyrics she credits to the training she received at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. “My approach to lyrics and phrasing is ‘of the moment’. When I sing a song it is always for the first time, and therefore I hope it will always be fresh and always emotional”.
“I want you to see and feel the images in the song. I come from a part of the country that is full of color and energy. I hope you’ll find these things in my singing.”
Although she has taught privately and in colleges, performance is her primary focus.
The first thing you notice when you hear Pam Purvis is the ease with which she sings. Every single note she delivers is beautiful.
Rosalind L. Picou – Jazz Now
… asserts herself as a new revelation of the discipline of song.
Phillippe Bourdin – Jazz Hot Magazine
Purvis moves in and out of scat singing with ease – she has a good range and is never anything but musical.
Richard B. Kamins – Cadence
Watching and listening to Pam is a treat because of both her considerable stage presence and her voice, which moves effortlessly through and around melodies in a manner that reveals a strong singer. Underlying all her numbers is an obvious energy that constantly seduces the listener.
John O. Gunter – Dallas Morning News
“Pam’s caressing of a lyric is as soothing and romantic as a glass of fine wine on a moonlit
night…simply beautiful.”…
Jazz vocalist Grady Tate
