Grace Kelly
When Grace Kelly steps onto a stage, saxophone in hand, she brings with her not only her dazzling musical talent but also the soul of a prodigy who blossomed in the heart of Massachusetts. Born in Wellesley on May 15, 1992 and raised in Brookline, her musical journey is a testament to the vibrancy of New England’s jazz scene and the enduring impact of community support on world-class artistry.
Born Grace Chung, Kelly’s early life was shaped by music, family and change. In 1997, her mother got remarried to Robert Kelly, who legally adopted Grace a few years later, giving her the surname that would soon appear on club marquees and jazz festival lineups across New England, the greater US and the world at large. She began writing songs almost as soon as she could form sentences and at age seven she penned her first composition, “On My Way Home,” signaling a deep and early affinity for storytelling through music.
MUSICAL BEGINNINGS, EARLY RECORDINGS
Long before she was headlining major venues, festivals and collaborating with musical legends, Kelly was improvising melodies on a piano in her family home. Her parents, recognizing her natural artistic spark, nurtured her creativity and by age six she was studying classical piano. She fell under the spell of the alto saxophone at age 10, particularly inspired by the smooth tones of Stan Getz and Paul Desmond, and recorded her first album, Dreaming, on the Pazz Productions label at age 12.
And that debut disc was no novelty; it was the confident statement of a preteen musician whose grasp of jazz phrasing and melodic composition already hinted at greatness. In 2005, Pazz issued her sophomore studio outing, Times Too, which was an ambitious double album that blended jazz standards like “‘Round Midnight” with her original compositions. After Pazz released her third LP, Every Road I Walked (in 2006, when Kelly was 14), she won ASCAP’s Young Jazz Composer Award and local audiences began to take notice. So did the wider jazz community.
EDUCATION, SCULLERS JAZZ CLUB, FRED TAYLOR MENTORSHIP
Kelly’s talents found fertile ground in New England’s musically rich soil. She studied in the Jazz Department of New England Conservatory of Music’s School of Preperatory Education before enrolling at Berklee College of Music, graduating in December 2011 with a Bachelor of Arts in professional music at just 19. Along the way, she left Brookline High School at age 16, opting to earn her GED in order to pursue her musical ambitions more fully. Her saxophone education reads like a who’s who of jazz greats since she studied with Jeremy Udden, James Merenda, George Garzone, Lee Konitz, Greg Osby, Jerry Bergonzi and Allan Chase, each of whom added a layer of refinement and stylistic depth to her ever-evolving voice on the horn.
One of the most pivotal events in Kelly’s early career came in 2004 at Boston’s Scullers Jazz Club. While sitting in with vocalist Ann Hampton Callaway on the classic ballad “Over the Rainbow,” she caught the ear of Fred Taylor, a towering figure in Boston’s jazz history who was the club’s entertainment director at the time. In a moment Kelly remembers as a major breakthrough, Taylor approached her after the set and went on to become one of her main advocates and mentors. Unsurprisingly, Scullers is one of the foundational venues in her performance story. Additional gigs followed at other well-known Massachusetts venues including Shalin Liu Performance Center in Rockport, Spire Center for the Arts in Plymouth and Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, but the performances weren’t just concerts; they were homecomings. While she has a truly global reach, Kelly has never lost her love for the region in which she was raised.
COLLABORATIONS, MULTIGENRED APPROACH, RECENT RECORDINGS
As the young sax master’s discography grew, so did her collaborations with other artists. In 2008, she teamed with saxophone great Lee Konitz on GRACEfulLEE, which DownBeat magazine named one of its Best CDs of the Year. Three years later, she worked with Phil Woods on Man with the Hat, a title nodding to Woods’s trademark cap. Their bond was personal, not just professional, as Woods became a mentor and vocal supporter, even dubbing her his “musical granddaughter.”
But it was Kelly’s genre fluidity that made her so compelling. On Trying to Figure It Out (2016), she blended jazz, R&B, funk and cinematic elements with compositions like “Blues for Harry Bosch,” written for the Amazon Prime series Bosch. A favorite among fans and critics alike, the album was voted the #2 Jazz Album of the Year by DownBeat readers. By the time she recorded GO Time: Brooklyn (2018) and GO Time: Live in LA (2019), her live performances had evolved into immersive experiences, incorporating tap dancers, visual art and audience interaction.
One recent and particularly striking project is the 2024 Pazz release Grace Kelly with Strings: At the Movies, an album that marries jazz with lush orchestration. In fall 2024, she brought the cinematic show to Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, performing with a jazz quartet, a 15-piece string section and a youth ensemble from Pittsfield’s Kids 4 Harmony program. It was a fitting tribute to two threads that run throughout Kelly’s career: jazz tradition and musical mentorship.
EDUCATIONAL INITIATIVES, ACCOLADES, NOTABLE APPEARANCES
Beyond the stage and studio, Kelly has channeled her passion into education. In 2017, she established the Fred Taylor Scholarship Fund at Berklee, named after the late Boston impresario who helped launch her career. She also co-founded Saxy School, an online education platform aimed at making saxophone instruction accessible to learners worldwide.
Kelly has received an impressive assortment of accolades over the years including multiple ASCAP Young Jazz Composer Awards, several International Songwriting Competition wins, a Billboard Smooth Jazz hit with “Sweet Sweet Baby” and the distinction of being the youngest artist ever named “Rising Star Alto Saxophonist” in a DownBeat critics poll. She’s also made a number of very high-profile appearances, among them performing at President Obama’s inaugural ball, sitting in with Jon Batiste’s band on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and playing alongside Wynton Marsalis, Lin-Manuel Miranda and Esperanza Spalding. Despite her wide range of accomplishments and her early rise to fame, however, Kelly remains remarkably grounded. She frequently returns to the Boston area for performances and her concerts often feel like reunions – an embracing of her roots. Whether playing at Rockport’s famous oceanside hall or headlining at some iconic club in downtown Boston, she connects with audiences not as a star descending from above, but as one of the area’s own who “made good.”
Musically speaking, Kelly is not – and has never been – easily categorized. She’s a jazz musician, yes, but also a vocalist, a composer, a pop experimenter, an educator and an ambassador for the arts who defies boundaries while embracing tradition. As likely to evoke the ghost of Charlie Parker with her material as she is to borrow from Broadway and infuse funk grooves, she tells the story of someone rooted in New England who went on to bloom on stages around the world, a daughter of Brookline, a steward of jazz tradition and a voice for a new generation. And for those who recall her early gigs in the clubs of Boston and Cambridge, watching her rise has been like hearing a favorite tune return with unexpected brilliance. One thing is certain as she continues to tour and record: Grace Kelly is not just shaping the future of jazz; she’s reminding us of where it comes from. And for lots of New Englanders, that story hits close to home.
(by Karl Sharicz)
