Stella Heath Sextet - "Unsung Standards: Lesser-Known Gems of the Great American Songbook"

Singing since the age of eight, Stella feels wholly blessed to be able to express herself through music and song, and to carry forth the torch of Jazz Music that she loves so dearly. She grew up in the North San Francisco Bay Area, steeped in her mother’s eclectic music collection; some of her early musical influences were Louis Armstrong, Edith Piaf, Buena Vista Social Club, Billie Holiday, Tom Waits, Bod Dylan and Ella Fitzgerald. Her education was primarily in Acting at Interlochen Arts Academy and Syracuse University, where she received a degree in classical acting and cultural geography. She spent many years as a Shakespearian actress based out of New York City, where she began to sing Jazz again with the incredible Marjorie Eliot in Harlem. 

She moved to her home state of California in 2014, and began playing music full time, starting the Bay Area based band Bandjango Collectif, a wild around the edges band that mixes French Jazz Manouche, New Orleans Hot Swing, and Eclectic Global Folk, allowing Stella to explore and play in vocal improvisation, different languages, and song interpretation. In 2019 she debuted The Billie Holiday Project, a historically centered musical tribute to the great Lady Day; The show was met with great success and quickly moved into some of the Bay Area's most reputable listening venues. The pandemic brought fruitful new musical connections and collaborations with musicians such as Marcus Shelby, Gunhild Carling, and Ben Levin in Cincinnati. Stella has a passion for uncovering old gems from the library and music archives. She has a deep love for Jazz and its history, and believes it should be an integral part of American childhood curriculum. Stella took on the role of Education Coordinator for Healdsburg Jazz in 2023. She is also a new mother of twins!