Mother-daughter singing duos

As a child, Amanda Brecker loved attending all-night sessions at the studio where her mother, New York–based Brazilian singer and jazz pianist Eliane Elias, would make up a little bed for her. At six, the girl made her first recordings, singing “Ponte de Areia” on her mom’s album Fantasia. Now 24 and trying to build a career of her own, Brecker notes that the tables have turned, as Elias appears as a guest on her first solo outing, Here I Am (slated for release in July). “She’s an incredible musician and the hardest-working person I’ve ever met,” says Brecker of her mother. “She has so much energy and love to give through her music.”

Catherine Russell has also honored the musical talent of her mom, Carline Ray, with her decision to record the 83-year-old former member of the 1940s all-girl swing band the Sweethearts of Rhythm. Growing up in New York, Russell attended Leonard Bernstein’s New York Philharmonic Concerts for Young People in Central Park and hung out at Louis Armstrong’s home in Corona, Queens (now a museum); that rarefied education led her to follow in her mom’s footsteps as a musician. But her most recent project, also Ray’s first solo album, may be the greatest tribute a daughter could offer her musical mother. Yet Russell doesn’t seem to think of it that way. Mom, after all, can still show her a thing or two. “I just sit there and listen to her,” Russell marvels, “and she keeps getting better and better.”

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