Halcyon Blue

Guitar, Vocal

Chip Carter first picked up a guitar when he was eleven years old, but his musical education began at a much younger age. His Dad’s retreat from the daily grind was to place a stack of LPs on the phonograph — everything from Miles Davis to Kingston Trio to Leontyne Price to The Ventures — and let the music play all evening. His mother was an avid church organist/pianist with an ongoing and deep appreciation for Broadway-based jazz. Largely self-taught through late elementary school and high school, Chip’s early influences were standard for a late baby-boomer guitarist: Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page, Clapton and Larry Carlton. College introduced jazz and music theory through Pat Metheny, the Crusaders, Steely Dan, Return to Forever and other fusion influenced bands of the day. Chip formed his own fusion band (Cathexis) in the early 80’s. He composed much of the music for Cathexis and recorded two albums of original music in the Vermont and NYC areas on the Philo and Rounder labels. In the mid-80s Chip focused on advanced degrees in comparative religious studies and left NYC for the Boston area in 1987. There he co-founded a new band (Talk is Cheap — TIC) with great musical friends sharing Chip’s eclectic musical interests. Chip has been playing in New England with TIC and other bands for two decades, where he co-raises his lovely family, gardens, directs an IBM software engineering team and teaches guitar. About 5 years ago Chip — needing a safe outlet for the mid-life crisis — got very serious about jazz and returned to informal study and lessons with friends at Berklee College of Music. Chip’s current influences are too many/varied to list, but he loves Wes Montgomery, Mike Stern, Joe Pass, Steve Lukather, Bill Evans, Cassandra Wilson and Miles Davis to name a few. In 2006, Chip had the good fortune of meeting and hearing Irene Ros through guitar lessons. Irene quickly became Chip’s favorite vocalist and one of his favorite human beings. In 2007 Chip and Irene formed HalcyonBlue to celebrate the essential elements of great jazz and jazz-inspired compositions. Chip is currently busy performing, writing original compositions and producing Halcyon Blue’s first recording (primarily originals) which will be released in late 2007.

Vocal

Irene Ros has been singing since she was able to make a sound. Irene’s mother played an early musical role in her life as a music teacher and pianist who failed at preventing Irene from sleeping late. As a closet song writer, poet, and vocalist for more than 15 years, Irene has generated stacks of unfinished lyrics that called out for a life beyond just cluttering her living space. Her persistence and talent guaranteed that eventually they would find a voice, and their home is now with HalcyonBlue and bandmate Chip Carter. Like her singing voice, Irene’s lyrics are at once sophisticated and sensitive but very accessible. Irene counts Billie Holiday, Diana Krall, Aretha Franklin and more recently Nickel Creek and Chip as key musical influences. She also plays guitar (better than she admits around Chip) and has (sadly, like Chip) started a small collection of guitars (currently 3). Irene was born in the Ukraine where she spent the first six years of her life, followed by ten more in Israel. She moved to the United States at the age of sixteen and attended the University of Massachusetts at Amherst where she studied Computer Science. She works as a software engineer at IBM to pay the bills when she’s not singing or writing for HalcyonBlue. She is currently co-composing and recording music with Chip for HalcyonBlue’s debut recording, due out in late 2007.