I had the good fortune to be asked to play bass, at a local Bahai conference back in 2006, with an up and coming singer named, Rachael Price. She was raised in the Bahai’ community and has a fantastic and very strong/powerful voice. The gig went well and she is now a founder/member of her own band, Lake Street Dive!
My good friend, Avrel Seale, is a member of the Bahai’ faith and had been asked to accompany Rachael for her set at a celebration conference they were doing in Round Rock TX. He asked me if I would play bass with them….why, of course, I said.
She was singing and recording jazz standards at the time, a challenge for a couple of rock n roll dudes, and I recall just having a CD that she sent us with some of the songs she was working on and a few charts. We did our best to work up the material and recruited a local drummer from somewhere, whom we had never played with, and just showed up to play.
We rehearsed the day of the show I think, and the gig went really well considering we didn’t know the material. She was only 19 at the time I think but was really nice and patient with us. We both had a feeling she was going places…her voice is amazing and extremely powerful. I remember being blown away!