Kat Wright & The Indomitable Soul Band

"The problem with a lot of soul bands is when they get too regimented in their pursuit of pure soul. And there are others who just set themselves up for a fall when incorporating soul into their name. The Burlington-based Kat Wright and the Indomitable Soul Band has neither of those pitfalls to sweat about. The band started up in 2010 and is fronted by the Rochester-born singer Wright, who despite her flexibly gorgeous contralto offers so much more than soul histrionics and window-dressing..." - Rochester City Newspaper

Kat Wright easily caught our attention not too long ago when the band she's a part of, The Indomitable Soul Band, released the video up on YouTube in January of 2013. After falling in love with her voice at first listen we knew we had someone special in our sights and had to dig deeper for the story behind Kat and the band for our readers. Trust us -- one listen and you'll fall in love.
Q: The Indomitable Soul Band.. why that hard-hitting name?
A: Its a funny thing. I guess its really about the meaning of the word -- unstoppable -- unconquerable -- at first someone suggested it, and it just kind of sounded "big". But then after going back to the name, it sounded like it matched our 8-piece band. it was appropriate as we grew. It's not easy to work with eight other artists. everyone has their own life, their own time, and there's a lot of schedule challenges. That word -- indomitable -- has taken on more meaning with our crew as we grow and continue to create art together. We call on that word to give us strength.
Q: You guys started off playing weekly events in the town of Burlington, Vermont. Your band noticed that there was a void with soul music and that's where you guys were inspired to come together to perform. Talk to us a bit about that..
A: Burlington is a really great musical town! For the past two years we've had our musical residency here. There's a lot of blues and jazz, and a lively hip hop scene -- but we wanted to work on something that combined all those genres a bit. A bunch of the guys in the band help out with hip hop projects. Because of that we thought it would be a good idea to have MC's sit in with us as we are playing/recording.

Q:It seems like you were with a band called 'Loveful Heights' before pairing up with 'The Indomitable Soul Band'?
A:that project came out and ended rather naturally. That was my childhood best friend and we parted ways geographically. Before splitting off we did a mini tour. I was living in Burlington - I've always knew I had a very versatile voice. I knew I could do something that had volume and something really big. I liked the acoustic/folk music, harmonies.. but it wasn't really "dance-able". I just wanted to do something that was appealing to all demographics and that's kind of the beauty of soul music. They all dig soul music.. you can be a great indie band and have a following but it's not a universal thing. Shane Hardiman (keys) was the first one who started talking about creating a soul band.




- Thenext2shine.com

In Burlington, Vermont, the name Kat Wright is synonymous with soul. She's built a following in the eclectic town with her soothing vocals backed by a dance-fueled horn band.

But before she became a musical mainstay in Vermont, the songstress refined her sound in upstate New York. And on Thursday evening at 6:30 p.m., the Rochester native returns to New York and takes the stage at the Syracuse Jazz Fest with her band, The Indomitable Soul Band.

It's Wright's first trip to Jazz Fest, and she admits it's probably the biggest stage her band has ever played. Executive director Frank Malfitano is excited about this. Part of the mission of Jazz Fest, he says, is to discover and share new music with the people of Central New York. Wright, then, will be a "perfect fit."

"I love this whole Bruno Mars, retro thing going on with music right now," Malfitano said. "I heard 'It's All About You' on YouTube and I fell in love with them instantly."

While she's far less pop-focused than Mars, Malfitano is spot on with the "retro" comment. Kat Wright & The Indomitable Soul Band combine big band horns with Wright's sweetly powerful vocals for a breezy yet forceful sound.

Though Jazz Fest may be the band's biggest gig to date, they're far from inexperienced. They've earned notoriety in Burlington, catering to a young, enthusiastic crowd.

"I wanted to do something different and use different parts of my voice and do something danceable and big," Wright said of the project's origins.

The Indomitable Soul Band has been winning over Burlington since 2010. They have a weekly gig at a popular cafe, have opened for Soulive and Rubblebucket at Higher Ground and last summer headlined the Burlington Discover Jazz Festival.

After graduating from Alfred University in 2006, Wright hit the road with Loveful Heights -- a folk duo she formed with a childhood friend, Maggie Clifford. The two played upstate towns like Rochester, Ithaca and Alfred along with venues in Burlington, Blacksburg, Va. and New Orleans.
Eventually, the two settled in Burlington, though Clifford soon moved to Florida and the duo dissolved. Wright, however, felt she'd found her home and teamed up with a local pianist named Shane Hardiman.

The two started a band as a chance to seize on a vacant residency at a local music joint.

"We put the group together for the Radio Bean," she said. "There was a coveted Thursday night jazz residency for many years that would bring in a lot of the area's greatest players. Thursdays at this venue always had a reputation for being a killer night to go out and see great live music."

The bass player who had held the Thursday spot for years moved on and Wright wanted his gig. Without even a name, she and Hardiman threw together a rhythm section and got the slot.

They started out playing primarily covers, but gradually ventured into original music. They hope to release their debut EP sometime this fall.

Radio Bean is a notoriously eclectic Burlington cafe frequented by guys like Mike Gordon of Phish and Eugene Hutch of Gogol Bordello. Wright and her band have held the Thursday slot for more than two years now. Their regular performances have earned them a sound reputation in Burlington.

Wright compares Burlington to a slightly larger version of Ithaca -- a town she frequented while touring with Loveful Heights.

"You can't flip over a chair without whacking 5 musicians who are doing great work," she said.

And with a history of producing great musicians, from Phish to Grace Potter to Jennifer Hartswick, Vermont seems a good place for Wright to be. - Syracuse Post Standard

As I chatted with Kat Wright following her performance with her Indomitable Soul Band Thursday evening, conversation turned to the act following hers: Preservation Hall Jazz Band. And without knowing it, she pointed out a way that her three-year-old band is similar to the half-century New Orleans jazz institution.

Wright's Indomitable Soul Band and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band are both about to release their first original album.

Despite more than 50 years together, the Preservation Hall Jazz Band has never released an album of entirely original material. That changes next week when That's It hits the shelves.

Ben Jaffe told me in an interview last week that the band's music is a "living, breathing thing." While their mission is to preserve the cultural legacies of New Orleans, they're also help bring those traditions into the 21st century. Who better, then, to create an original album of traditional New Orleans jazz?

Indomitable Soul's sound is just as classic as that of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band. The Burlington group has a smoky, 20s night club feel, and Kat Wright's Gatsby-esque style only adds to it.

She takes time to let her sultry vocals grow, unafraid to ease into any note. Yet she's never searching for the pitch. She isn't timid -- though between songs she's often aloof.

Either way, her band proved hip in every sense of the word. With an I'm-cooler-than-you retro, hipster style, they grooved along with a crowd much their senior. But everyone seemed to love it. - Syracuse Post Standard

Kat Wright & The Indomitable Soul Band is a Vermont based band that is fronted by singer Kat Wright, who is ably backed by a collection of talented musicians. Born in the Genesee Valley region, Rochester, Kat Wright has been singing since the age of 11. She graduated with a B.A. in Fine Arts, and, having traveled widely, in 2008 she initially formed a folk duo, the Loveful Heights, which saw her touring the U.S. and India, often passing through Burlington, Vermont. Deciding to settle in Burlington, in 2010 she formed the Indomitable Soul Band with the help of keyboardist and New Jersey native Shane Hardiman. The band grew to include bassist Josh Weinstein, drummer Dan Ryan, saxophonist Jake Whitesell and Colin Lenox on guitar, with Shane Hardiman saying that the band was formed in response to the 'need that we saw at that moment in time, there was nobody really playing live soul music on a regular basis'. Here they sing 'All About You', and, below, Kat Wright sings Tony Joe White's 'Did Somebody Make A Fool Out Of You?' with Brett Hughes, courtesy of nakedmusicians.com.

Read more: http://blog.thenext2shine.com/youtube-talent-kat-wright-the-indomitable-soul-band-all-about-you#ixzz2kTVGPWDV - Thenext2shine.com

"When it comes to local music, Burlington’s Kat Wright is this year’s Daysie darling. The frontwoman of Kat Wright & the Indomitable Soul Band handily nabbed the Daysie for best up-and-coming musical performer... And Wright’s group took home best unsigned Vermont band..." - Seven Days Newspaper

"Stopping people in their tracks and drawing the attention of renowned musicians — that’s the sort of thing that happens to singers on the rise, which is exactly what Wright is. Vermont has produced a few exciting, big-voiced young vocalists in the past decade, from Jennifer Hartswick to Grace Potter to Joshua Panda; Wright, who just turned 26, is right there with them..." - Burlington Free Press

Through both visual and aural communication, the I.S.B. navigated the curvaceous material, full of peaks and valleys and stragecially placed breakdowns. Although the horn section and the Rhodes were mixed way too high relative to the vocals, Ms. Wright's stage presence and spirited delivery shone through and embodied the essence of soul: strong, independent, intelligent, and sexy. - FeastofMusic.com

"If the Indomitable Soul Band doesn’t go big — and I mean, really big — within the next few years, there’s probably something wrong with the universe..." - The Stowe Reporter

OK, OK, the secret’s out. Kat Wright & the Indomitable Soul Band have grown from a Thursday night fixture at Burlington’s Radio Bean to one of the hottest bands in Vermont.
And while this columnist (and Burlington area native) is admittedly ashamed of being a little late to the party, he was happy to spend Friday afternoon in Kat Wright’s natural habitat — in the dim confines of Radio Bean, drinking a tall glass of hot coffee across the table from the Queen City songstress herself.
For those who haven’t seen it, “sultry” really is the best word to describe not only Wright’s room-filling vocals, but the whole Indomitable Soul Band experience. Big, loud and oh so danceable, few Burlington acts go so well with a hoppy pint (or two, or three). The band offers a chance to jump around a sweaty dance floor and get lost in walls of syrupy, soulful sound.
I can’t find a better way to say the cliché phrase “dream come true” in any thesaurus, so I’ll just get straight to the point: Kat Wright is exactly where she wants to be in life. And it shows.
The starry-eyed 26-year-old talks about music as if it’s taking her for a trip. Things just sort of happen. People go to her shows. Major-label record companies call her up for a chat. Newspaper reporters ask about her vintage fur coat collection.
A few years ago, Wright, of Penfield, N.Y., near Rochester, was studying visual art at Alfred University in Alfred, N.Y.
“When I finished my undergrad, I felt pressure to get a job, to get an apartment, to try be an adult, to live paycheck to paycheck,” she recalls. “I said, ‘You know what? No. I want to be a singer, and I want to know where that will take me.’”
Wright frequented Burlington in her folk-singer days, traveling around the region with duo Loveful Heights. Radio Bean quickly appealed to her, and she moved to Burlington. The North Winooski Street spot instantly became home — she now works there, plays a gig every Thursday, and even married the owner, Lee Anderson.
Wright exudes the kind of confidence reserved for talented singers, but she’s humble too, and a little overwhelmed with how busy the band has been.
“We’re still kind of chugging along,” she says, mentioning the group’s upcoming and yet-to-be-named EP. “Until the album’s finished, we’re kind of at a standstill for a little bit.”
It all started around two years ago when Wright, by then a Radio Bean regular, was talking to prolific Burlington keyboardist Shane Hardiman about how the venue could fill an open Thursday spot. Not many bands were playing soul, so Hardiman gathered some of Burlington’s best and brightest — bassist Josh Weinstein, drummer Dan Ryan, sax player Jake Whitesell, guitarist Max Bronstein, baritone saxophonist Luke Laplant and trumpet player Dave Purcell — to back Wright’s vocals.
After building a steady following, the group is on the precipice of going huge.
If the Indomitable Soul Band doesn’t go big — and I mean, really big — within the next few years, there’s probably something wrong with the universe. The story of the group’s success is perhaps the story of modern music in the digital age. Build a passionate following, work hard, post a professional-looking video on the Internet and people will notice.
In January, Burlington-based Wondermind Pictures director Matt Day gave the group’s original “All About You” the artsy music video treatment. Today, it has nearly 6,000 views, and the calls keep coming.
“It reached over 3,000 views in the first week and we got a lot of bizarre, random Internet exposure,” Wright recalls. “We got a feature on this blog ‘Next to Shine,’ and they just did a second feature on us. When that happened, I got a call from Columbia Records, and I got a call from Relix magazine. People were just being like, ‘Who are you? What’s up? What’s next?”
Without even an album, Kat Wright & the Indomitable Soul Band are on the verge of breaking through. Catch ’em while you can, and you won’t be disappointed. - The Stowe Reporter

Kat Wright & the Indomitable Soul Band began as the Thursday-night house band at Burlington’s Radio Bean. Over the course of that weekly residency, they honed their fiery R&B chops, quietly emerging as one of the Queen City’s most dynamic live acts. But now the secret is out, and audiences far beyond the Bean’s cozy confines are discovering this soul powerhouse. - Seven Days Newspaper

"Kat Wright & The Indomitable Soul Band began as a weekly Thursday night session at Burlington's coziest of haunts, Radio Bean. Through that always packed residency, the sultry diva and her band of merry soul men steadily evolved into an R&B Juggernaut. They're now among the areas most dynamic live acts, thrilling audiences at clubs all over the region with irresistible classic soul sounds - thought you can (and should) still catch them at the Bean every Thursday." - What's Good? Seven Days Newspaper

"Thanks in part to their always packed Thursday sessions at Radio Bean, Kat Wright & the Indomitable Soul Band have become one of the most electric live acts in town. It may also be because Wright is a flat-out soul dynamo. Friday, the band brings the party from the Bean to the streets — specifically, the top block of Church Street, where BDJF unofficially kicks off its final weekend..." - Seven Days Newspaper