Callie Cardamon

Callie Cardamon is a West-Coast standards singer whose distinctive interpretations of jazz and pop standards have earned her the respect of song-lovers everywhere.  Raised in the Midwest, Callie first attracted major-label attention when she was completing an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop and recording songs on the side.  At the suggestion of Jovan Mrvos, then A&R at Arista Records, she moved to Nashville to hone her songwriting skills, working with her co-writer and producer (and husband) Eric Rawson.

Although eventually signed to Sony CBS-New York, Callie never released her major-label debut.  Instead, she landed in Los Angeles, where she and Eric started Primavera Records and released “Time and the Weather,” a serious CD of all-original material, in 1997, to excellent reviews. After a musical hiatus of several years, Callie returned with “Easy Street” (2010), a collection of jazz standards, including her timeless original “Love Jazz.”

Currently, Callie is at work on her third CD of jazz standards, Why Try to Change Me Now. “The standards are archetypal songs,” she says, “and thus they have the power to speak to a broad range of listeners.  That’s what interests me.  I love inhabiting a song that has been alive for decades.  It ensconces me in Time itself in a way no other experience has the power to do.  I love that the songs have enchanted listeners for so long.  It’s a privilege to sing them.”

Callie lives in Pasadena, California.