Caroline is an Oakland-based bassist, composer, and bandleader who has spent two decades doing things her own way. The leader of Citizens Jazz, she made her SFJAZZ debut exploring Nina Simone’s Silk & Soul, and released her debut album Sounds of Haejin — a genre-defying collection drawing on jazz, funk, spoken word and Afrocentric rhythms featuring the San Francisco Poet Laureate. On any given week, she might be organizing a Women in Jazz showcase, recording with a poet, or pushing the boundaries of what a bass can do in a live setting.
On other weeks, she’s with the boys of Vintage Noise, laying down bass lines that make the whole room swing harder. Caroline brings a physicality and fearlessness to the bandstand that the band didn’t know it needed until she showed up. Michael and Franz both play differently when she’s there — a little looser, a little more alive. She doesn’t belong here in any conventional sense. That’s exactly why she fits.