Sheryl Bailey
Born May 20, 1966
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Genres Jazz
Occupation(s) Musician
Instruments Guitar
Sheryl Bailey (born May 20, 1966) is an American jazz guitarist and educator based in New York City. She has released six albums. She is the associate professor at the guitar department in Berklee College of Music.
Bailey grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania as part of a musical family. She started playing the guitar at 13. At first she was primarily interested in rock music but after a few years she heard Wes Montgomery play on the radio and discovered jazz. She attended Berklee College of Music in Boston. After college, she taught music at Towson State University in Baltimore before moving to New York City in 1998 to further her career as a performer. She released her first album, Little Misunderstood in 1995. It featured musicians George Colligan, Vince Loving, and Chris Battistone.
In 2001, Bailey released Reunion of Souls with guitarist Chris Bergson, featuring Ashley Turner and Sunny Jain. Stewart Mason of Allmusic called one of the tracks “charming” and one “perfectly sweet” but said that the album was “nothing groundbreaking”. This was followed by The Power Of 3 in 2002 which contained eight tracks all written by Bailey. Allmusic’s Rick Anderson said that each track was “a gem” and “more complex than you’d guess at first listen”. Overall he said the album was “highly recommended”. Her next album was 2004’s Bull’s Eye!. In 2006, Bailey released her fifth album Live @ The Fat Cat and was a headline act at the Pittsburgh Jazz Festival. Her sixth album, A New Promise, was released by MCG Jazz on February 2, 2010[5] and was a tribute to jazz guitarist Emily Remler.
In the August 10 edition of Down Beat, reviewer Phillip Booth calls Sheryl”one of the new greats of her chosen instrument”. She also is a Professor at Berklee, Stanford University’s summer workshops, and the Collective School of Music in New York City. She was featured in the August 2014 edition of Guitar Player magazine for her album A Meeting of Minds.
Sheryl Bailey released three guitar video courses on truefire.com in 2013 and 2015.
Discography
Little Misunderstood (Oasis, 1995)
Reunion Of Souls (Pure Music/Orchard, 2000)
The Power Of 3 (Pure Music, 2002)
Bull’s Eye! (Pure Music, 2004)
Live @ The Fat Cat (Pure Music, 2005)
A New Promise (MCG Jazz, 2009)
For All Those Living (Pure Music, 2011)
A Meeting Of Minds (Cellar Live, 2013)
Plucky Strum (Whaling City Sound, 2015) – with Harvie S