Versatile cabaret-jazz vocalist Becky Livas has been a favorite of Virginia music audiences for twenty-five years; she is at home in front of big band audiences or in intimate cabaret settings. Her Great American Songbook covers periods from Tin Pan Alley to the late 20th century. Her official start was with Lynn Summerall’s 1920’s style Hotel Paradise Roof Garden Orchestra in 1992. .
In the early 2000s, Livas paired with guitarist Flip Hoopes, and later with pianist Pamela Hines, at Sterling’s Restaurant in Norfolk; then with Hines at Main Street Jazz in Suffolk, releasing a 2007 CD FOR ALL WE KNOW. She rejoined Hoopes with bassist Eddie Edwards for trio gigs at the Chesapeake Sterling’s through 2009.
A 2011 CD with Hines, IF I HAD YOU (in memory of ODU professor Dr. Leon Francis Bouvier) added well known New Englanders bassist John Lockwood (Berklee) and drummer Les Harris, Jr. Available on CD Baby, it sold at Veneziano Restaurant to benefit St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital. Earlier CDs include The Stars Come Out for St. Jude, produced by “Uncle Pete” Decker and Bye, Bye Blues (Hotel Paradise).
The Becky Livas Trio with pianist Keith Nesbit and saxophonist Joey Placenti enjoyed a 22-month run at Orlando’s Diversion in Norfolk’s Veneziano Restaurant in 2013. The most recent Becky Livas Jazz Trio included Keith Nesbit and guitarist Flip Hoopes. In April, 2016, Livas did a benefit for the Las Vegas Jazz Society, working with the Tom Hall Quartet, top “Strip” musicians from the Las Vegas casinos.
A 1997 Eugene O’Neill Cabaret Symposium Fellow, Livas was mentored by cabaret-Broadway and movie legends Margaret Whiting, Julie Wilson, Max Showalter, Carol Hall, and Julie Halston; by musical directors Paul Trueblood, Tex Arnold, Shelly Markham, and Christopher Denny; and costume designer Fred Voelpel (NO STRINGS).
A native of Philadelphia, Livas was reared mostly in Hampton Roads, VA. A graduate of Hampton University, she was the region’s first African-American female news reporter and later producer/host of daily TV shows at WTAR-TV in the 1970s. After being a“band wife” in Las Vegas in the early 1980s, Livas returned to become the producer/host of WHRO-WHRV-FM Jazz Excursions, a show she created. Livas retired from teaching middle school World History and Geography in 2013.
Soothing voice suitable for overnight jazz program I created.
Articulate enough to be a credible newscaster and radio broadcaster, as well as public speaker on issues related to history.
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