Echoes: An Evening of Music with KEA

Performers

KEA — vocals
Gary Kalinoski — guitar
Kai Ballard — percussion

About KEA

Raised in Pittsburgh to a singer/guitarist father and a violinist mother, KEA has had an intimate relationship with music all her life. With her love for literature, her first writings were in the realm of poetry. KEA's love for singing blossomed following vocal training from Elayne Kitay and the local Jazz Workshop. KEA was always sensitive and deeply affected by the ebb and flow of personal relationships — the sweet beginnings, the steamy evolutions, the work put in to sustain them, and all too often, the endings.

Her insights became poems and later songs, each helping her shape her unique outlet of soul with a touch of jazz. A debut single, "iLove You," came to her one inspirational night in 2015 when she sat down to write a poem-like lullaby for one of her daughters. She later turned that poem into a song about an older daughter battling kidney hydro-nephrosis since birth. When the opportunity presented itself, KEA recorded "iLove You" and independently released it to the world on July 28, 2017, where it garnered profound international support on the BBC and Radiovolna and peaked at #1 on four U.K. Soul charts. smoothjazz.com even chose it as 'Song of the Month' by influential music site SoulTracks.

To keep up the momentum, KEA had a beautiful video shot in high definition 4K. From the pages of her life struggles, the storyline was the years that KEA placed romance on the backburner to focus on her daughter's health. The “iLove You” video was directed and edited by Deon Smalley (Smalley Films), and KEA, who also cast the clip and handled the production and costume design.

It was vital to KEA for the key locations around Pittsburgh to serve as backdrops, in-cluding Andrew Carnegie Free Library and Music Hall, Airbnb Historic Day House, and Dorsey’s Records shop. Most poignantly, the video starred KEA and her children Au-hneyah (6) and Alyssa (16) (playing one child over ten years), solidifying the intimate single-parent family portrait of unshakable love between a mother and daughter.

KEA returned with her second single. “Not My Friend,” a smooth, engaging groove with a pretty melody about a woman disconnecting from an unhealthy relationship. This song addressed a man who was verbally and emotionally abusive, controlling, non-communicative and self-centered. As a holiday treat for her increasing number of fans, KEA showcased her unique interpretive skills with a haunting rendition of Motown legend William “Smokey” Robinson’s winter of 1980 classic, “Being with You.” Where Robinson's rendition took a deceptively breezy musical approach about a man desper-ate to keep a lover, KEA dug into the darker psychological impact of the words.

KEA’s version of "Being with You" is known on the charts of America and the U.K. and she has achieved success on Digital Radio Tracker, Top 30 on the Urban Influencer urban chart, coveted streams on I-Heart radio, and supportive U.S. stations such as WFSK in Nashville, KCCB in Corning, Arkansas, and Top 10 status at Buffalo, New York's WUFO.

Promising more provocative songs with intriguing titles such as “Black Man,” “Black Beauty”, and “Pieces of a Man,” KEA’s goals are for mainstream and international suc-cess. She has performed at hometown Pittsburgh events and venues such as the Channel 11 News Holiday Parade, Stars at Riverview Jazz Series, The Birthright of Pittsburgh, the Explore East Liberty 2018 Wine Festival, the Harambe Black Arts Festi-val, the Christine Fréchard Gallery, and the Carnegie Arts Initiative (Jazz On 3rd).

The Black Lives Matter movement inspired "Holla if You Hear Me” and it quickly be-came one of Amazon’s hottest new releases. KEA also achieved success on the UK Soul chart and the ‘National Indie Soul Chart’ platforms ranking in the top #30. She was even invited to perform for their BMMAC (Black Music Month Award Ceremony in Buffalo, New York. During the ceremony, she met Gary Hines, Music Director and Pro-ducer of the 3-time Grammy Award-Winning Sounds of Blackness. In the words of Gary Hines, he said about her performance, "She killed tonight; she is amazing." He told KEA, "You are a phenomenal woman."

Her success continued with “We made it thru” and “Turn it Around” — two releases that continued to show her ever-expanded range of lyric skills and ability to get to the heart of issues that really matter. But there is more to KEA than writing and recording. She is an artist who knows what it means to connect in-person with real people.

Always close to her community, she has been something of a staple in Pittsburgh's en-tertainment scene. The Downtown Pittsburgh Partnership and Walnut Capital and opening the Picklesburgh three-day festival held at the iconic Andy Warhol Bridge are all on her list of achievements. She even performed at “The Biggest Party of the Year”, Pittsburgh's Light Up Night festival.

KEA has been booked throughout the year and is always excited to connect with a new crowd with lyrics and sounds that are always raw, real, and straight from the heart.

About Kai Ballard

Kai is a trained drummer who mastered his craft while studying at Florissant Valley Community College followed by a stint at Indiana University School of Music, Bloomington, IN. It was at I.U. where his passion fully took hold and he played in a plethora of bands, operas, symphonies and musicals. Notable productions include Barber of Seville, Cabaret, Working, Meet Me In St. Louis and Phantom of the Opera.

He has also toured with Krystol who had a top ten billboard hit with “Passion for a Woman” writ-ten by Randy Jackson and opened for Morris Day, ConFunkShun and the Jetts. A year later and he toured with Hank Ballard and the Midnighters, followed by performances with Miki Howard and Jean Carne across a range of LA venues.

A notable career highlight was having the opportunity to rehearse with Stevie Wonder for sev-eral months in his Wonderland studio. Big things continued when Kai toured with L.L. Cool J on the Budweiser Tour alongside Whitney Houston, Keith Sweat, Digital Underground and many more. This was all before his passion for music took him to Japan with members of Earth, Wind & Fire, as well as several other groups of that era.

Jump forward to 1994 and you may remember seeing him perform on Saturday Night Live with the one and only Snoop Doggy Dogg. Hot off the back of that he received a full cymbal, stick and merchandise endorsement from Zildjian and continued to do his thing like no one else.

Along the way he took instruction at UCLA where Randy Jackson (then A&R VP at A&M Rec-ords) and Barry Squire (then A&R manager at Columbia Records) taught him like only they can. He soon headed over to Capitol Records where he would work on the iconic Paul McCartney’s “Back in the U.S.” tour in 2001.

Check in with Kai back in 2009 and you’ll have found him recording 8 tracks on Bone Thugs-N-Harmony’s “The World’s Enemy” CD. He was based in LA during this part of his career and worked on everything from heavy metal to country, before making the move to Pittsburgh 4 years ago.

Since arriving in the City of Bridges, Kai has played with Mike Sheer, Craig King, Eric Johnson (jazz), Tony Campbell, and others at Backstage Bar, Thunderbird, R Bar, and James Street. You’ll find him teaching drumming at Nstuff Music where he continues to share his passion with the next generation.