Dayna Kurtz at Coffee Works 6/27/10

COFFEE WORKS CAFE PRESENTS

Dayna Kurtz

Sunday 6/27 7pm
w/ special guest Patty Blee
Tickets only $10 in advance  $15 Day of show
get them now at www.coffee-works.com/daynakurtz062710

New Jersey native Dayna Kurtz began performing her original compositions in public as a teenager, and subsequently spent the better part of a decade touring solo across the back roads of America, selling CD’s out of her trunk and mesmerizing club and festival crowds with her riveting live performances. Along the way, she opened shows for the likes of Richie Havens (who became a fan and lent guest vocals to her debut studio album, Postcards from Downtown).

The last few years has found Dayna winning over new fans in the New York City music scene.  In the past two years she has been invited to open up for Rufus Wainwright, Antony & the Johnsons, and Keren Ann.  Additionally, Dayna has won over fellow “Living Room” habitué Norah Jones, who sings a duet with Dayna on “I Got It Bad…” (From Beautiful Yesterday).  Outside of her new hometown, the legendary Richard Thompson invited Dayna to open up for a coast-to-coast nationwide tour that found Dayna converting some of his faithful fans.

The fan response and critical attention generated by Kurtz’s grass roots touring efforts inevitably drew interest from the mainstream music industry. Despite her indie status, Dayna has found an enthusiastic audience, winning high-profile guest spots on such radio shows as World Cafe, Mountain Stage and NPR’s Morning Edition. But nowhere has the interest in Dayna’s music been more pronounced than in Holland, where Dayna’s debut studio album soared into the top 20 of the album charts on the strength of the hit single “Love Gets in the Way”.  In the summer of 2003, Dayna went from performing in front of 50 people at the Living Room in New York City’s lower east side, to headlining the fabled Paradiso theatre in Amsterdam in front of 1000 people in what would be her first of many sold out shows in the Netherlands in the months to follow.  Dayna has since then discovered a larger audience in Europe, and this spring alone will find her in Greece, Spain, Germany, Belgium and the UK.

But Dayna Kurtz has worked too hard to allow such adulation to go to her head. “Every step I’ve taken has felt really organic, and like they’ve been made at the right time,” she states, adding, “The records I’ve made feel like honest expressions of where I’m at musically, and the making of them has been joyful and interesting.”

“Besides, every musician should feel like a rock star in at least one country.”

“One of the things that I seem to encounter constantly is that I don’t really quite fit anywhere,” observes Dayna Kurtz.   Asked by a European journalist what her music was ‘made of’, Dayna replied, “If you’re at the flea market, you walk past all the fine old antiques and the cheap designer knockoff clothing from China, past the used German leather jackets, and over in the back is an old man with a battered tweed hat who has some blankets on the ground covered with old toasters and a pair of ladies knickers from the 50′s, a snow globe from the 1992 Olympic games, and a box of old men’s watches and broken reading glasses and teaspoons.  I’ll be picking through there.”

The lack of a ready stylistic tag hasn’t stopped the resourceful performer from building a substantial audience—and a compelling body of recorded work—on her own terms. She maintains an enthusiastic international fan base that’s embraced the poetic passion of her songwriting and the communicative power of her voice, an unforgettable, distinctly husky instrument that’s capable of immense depth and sensitivity.  She has also inspired reams of rapturous acclaim from critics and won admiration from her musical peers.

Coffee Works is a close up, intimate venue for a great night of music! We offer a FULL SERVICE Kitchen and Coffee Bar! We are BYOB FRIENDLY!
Come out for dinner or dessert and bring the family! For more information www.coffee-works.com

Find out more about Dayna at her website www.daynakurtz.com
and check out Patty Blee at www.pattyblee.com