With a music career spanning over 20 years, Lisa Michel has developed a “superlative repertoire” of jazz classics from the 20th century. The delightful blonde, who fronted award winning band etype jazz, has left home town Adelaide and re- located to Sydney, an exciting move that has seen Lisa performing with some of Australia’s greatest jazz musicians.
Widely reviewed and acclaimed in both the National and International press, Lisa Michel’s vocal abilities have touched many who have heard her sing. Her finely tuned voice and her ability to interpret classic jazz standards prompted American jazz critic George Carroll to write “her performance warmed the audience from within…with her unbridled expression of deliberate and artistic interpretation”. Lisa’s skill as a singer relies not only on the quality, timbre and richness of her vocal product but on the ability to interpret, capture and mesmerize an audience, to focus their attention and demand their applause for the sheer depth and emotional subtlety of her live performance. With her finely tuned “silken voice” Lisa Michel is renowned for her ability to convey a deep emotional understanding of the songs she performs. Performance highlights include: opening act for the great jazz legend George Benson and soloist with maestro Tommy Tycho and the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. Also fronting for Sir Cliff Richard, Harry Connick Jnr, James Morrison, Grace Knight and Vince Jones and having performed in New York, L.A. and the U.K. she is ensuring she has a developing international profile as well. Lisa Michel began singing and performing as a child. Growing up in the south of Australia, she took any opportunity she could, singing solos at her local Baptist Church, in musicals and with numerous choirs and as lead vocalist in various cover bands. The grueling schedule of touring rural and regional Australia served to hone her talents for performing in front of live audiences. There is no doubt that she could have had a successful career as an R and B or pop artist, however, in 1992, Lisa returned to study jazz at the Conservatorium of Music, University of Adelaide and immediately applied herself to the technical demands of becoming a proficient jazz singer. Later that year she became the vocalist for etypejazz, a band who with Lisa Michel up front, cemented themselves in place as one of Australia’s premier jazz bands, winning Best Live Jazz at both the 2003 and 2004 Australian Jazz Awards. As an experienced recording artist, having released six CD’s nationally, Lisa has recently released her debut solo produced album Shaken and Stirred. A superbly arranged album of jazz standards backed by a selection of Australia’s leading jazz musicians. ”This CD is infused with remarkable jazz substance, it is sweet, subtle, bold, hip-shaking, moody and raunchy” writes jazz critic and performer Di Faith. “One is left with more than a smile on their face.. it gives so much joy. Unashamedly, it is Australian jazz - the light, sun, desert, mystery and anti-authoritarian attitude, all wrapped in one”. Lisa continues to seduce audiences with her “voice that transcends appassionato”, “always apparent is the distinctive Lisa Michel touch that places her high on the list of Australia’s best sisters of swing.”.