Jazz sisters perform together at Union

The Reed Sisters, who will perform Friday, Oct. 26, in Memorial Union’s Rathskeller from 4-6 p.m., feature junior Brittany Reed.

Protégés of the late jazz great Betty Carter, Milwaukee natives Brittany, Tanya and Brandi Reed will sing together for the first time since their mentor’s death in 1998. They play a mixture of jazz/soul and original compositions.

“We don’t get to perform together very much these days, which is why we’re so excited,” says Brittany, 20. “We haven’t performed as a group since Betty passed away, which was a pivotal point for us. So we’re just getting back into the swing of things.”

Brandi, 24, attends UW-Whitewater while Tanya, 22, is the performing arts coordinator at Columbia College in Chicago, where she continues to sing solo. The sisters had just begun performing together in public in 1992 when they met Betty Carter accidentally.

“We were singing at Wyndham Hotel in Milwaukee, and she had just walked in from her performance at the Pabst Theater,” says Brittany.

Carter liked what she heard. “She just took us under her wing from that point on. We were her girls. She flew us to her program in New York called “Jazz Ahead,’ which selects a group of young jazz musicians, who work on new pieces then perform,” Brittany says. “After a week, we performed at the Brooklyn Majestic Theater. From 1992 to 1998 we sang in places like the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., the Jazz Showcase in Chicago and the Apollo Theater in Harlem.”

The Reed Sisters have performed with other notable jazz musicians such as Billy Taylor, Lou Rawls, George Benson and more. In 1998, they recorded a television special with Carter. Another highlight was being featured in Spoleto, Italy’s classical music Festival of Two Worlds.

“It was amazing. We were there for three weeks,” Brittany says. “We found out that we were the first jazz act ever at this classical festival that had been going on annually for more than 50 years.”

Nowadays, Brittany doesn’t get much chance to perform on her own, much less with her sisters. “With my performing arts position [with Wisconsin Union Directorate] and school, there just isn’t much time. It will be my first time singing in a while, so I’m really looking forward to it.”

The upcoming performance is part of the “Behind the Beat” series, which features live blues and jazz every Friday in the Rathskeller or on the Union Terrace while the university is in session. Backing up the Reed Sisters will be a music group familiar to the Wisconsin Union: Erica Mather Trio. Mather is a local jazz artist and former UW–Madison student who was the Behind the Beat coordinator in 1996-97.