- Active: 2000s
- Genres: Vocal Music
- Instrument: Producer, Vocals
Biography
When New Orleans born Christina Machado decided to cut her first CD, she turned to musical colleague and friend, Nicholas Payton to help her. Together, they produced Gone With the Wind, released in 2002. The recording gives the listener a good opportunity to hear what the fresh and breezy voice of Christina Machado can do. It lights up the room. Her clear and warm delivery are especially suited to the jazz standards she favors on the recording, as well as on stage.The vivacious singer can often be found performing at venues such as The Red Room and Le Chat Noir Cabaret in New Orleans. With the release of her new CD, her audience is bound to grow. She has already opened for Payton, as well as for Los Hombres Calientes and Jose Feliciano. She shares with them a love of Latin music. Born in New Orleans, she is the child of Cuban parents. A student of music all her life, her childhood was filled with the rhythms of her hometown and Latin heritage.
Early on, she became interested in the music of Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn, as well as Thelonious Monk. She lists as singing influences some of the great divas of jazz, including Ella Fitzgerald, Shirley Horn, and Carmen McRae.
Machado broadened her horizons when she attended American University, from which she received a degree in Communications in 1995. She has branched out into making videos, doing commercials,and working in theater and dance.
But singing continues to be her first love. The listener can feel that passion on her album, when she sings the Kern/Mercer tune, "I'm Old Fashioned", as well as the title cut, from the pen of Irving Berlin. Machado and Payton wrote one tune together, the delightful, "Free Yourself". Machado shows she has a feel for Ellington's elegant era, when she sings "I Didn't Know About You".
Machado has an obvious rapport with her musicians, who include Adonis Rose on drums; Peter Martin on piano; Brice Winston on flute and soprano saxophone; Kenyatta Simon, percussion; Roland Guerin on bass; and the industrious Nicolas Payton on trumpet, trombone, and flugelhorn. The singer has mastered the art of phrasing. Her well timed delivery and pauses give her stellar cast of musicians a chance to shine. Everyone goes away happy. When she closes out her album with "What Are You Doing For the Rest of Your Life?", one can imagine that the answer for Machado will be: singing. ~ Rose of Sharon Witmer, All Music Guide
