After honing his art and craft for many years with discipline and singular imagination, Bay Area-based vocalist Nicolas Bearde is due for broader recognition, and soon. A supremely gifted singer/entertainer who is fluent in soul, jazz and R&B stylings, Bearde has been compared to vocal icons like Lou Rawls, Marvin Gaye, Donny Hathaway, and Jon Lucien. But such comparisons fail to capture his vocal artistry or do justice to his musical accomplishments on record or in performance. "He´s a breath of fresh air amidst a mass of polluted ozone-unfriendly pop," declared Blues and Soul magazine in the U.K., where Bearde´s music has been accorded an especially enthusiastic reception and where he placed high on the list of Best Male Newcomers in the publication´s 1998 poll.

Photo by Kimberly Peterson

In addition to his high-profile role with Bobby McFerrin´s Voicestra – the innovative a cappella group of which Nicolas was a founding member – and SoVoSó, the artistic offshoot of Voicestra, with whom he´s toured and recorded since the mid-1990s, Bearde has worked steadily with an array of artists from Patti Austin, Michael Bolton and Janis Siegel to McFerrin, John Handy, Chris Camozzi, and his own outstanding group, the Right Groove.

He´s cut two albums for Right Groove Records, his own imprint. The first, 1998's Crossing the Line, and the 2005 follow-up All About Love. Bearde also maintains a busy sideline as an actor for stage, screen, and television and as a voice-over artist.

Nicolas and his brother Tony

His somewhat circuitous path to a career as a singer began in Nashville, Tennessee, where he was born the second of seven children. "We lived in a rural part of the city with no sidewalks, streetlights or running water. But we had each other and-we had radio", Nicolas recalls. "I listened to a lot of radio, and took in everything from the Temptations, Dionne Warwick, Johnny Mathis, and Roy Orbison to Etta James, Lou Rawls and Arthur Prysock." He began singing in church choirs, or with his brother and cousins whenever he could, pretending that they were "The Temptations" or the "Dells" or some other popular group. What he couldn't explain at that early age was how that music, that beautiful harmony made him feel. Sometimes a passage brought him near to tears. How do you explain that to anyone?

Nicolas´s father, was stricken with Polio when Nicolas was about 7 years old. When he died a few years later, Nicolas' whole world changed. Music took on a different meaning for him entirely. It became refuge and sanctuary.

During his first year in high school, his cousin Hazel insisted that Nicolas meet her in the music room one day after school. When he arrived there was a small, buxom woman sitting at the piano who said to him, " Sing this", and she played a line, Bearde remembers. "Sing this", and she played another line. "Be back here at 3pm tomorrow", she says. Turns out she was Mrs. Dawson, the school choir director. "That was my introduction to formal, choral music. It was my first contact with big vocal scores, collegiate choral pieces, and bass-tenor-alto-soprano parts. I stayed with that group throughout high school-I loved it. It was another world of sound. The complexity and lushness of choral music continues to inspire and move me".

At 16, Nicolas had his first studio experience as a member of a trio dubbed the Von Dells, by a producer that wanted to sign them. It was an exciting opportunity. Though it ultimately did not work out, it gave him a taste of the possibilities that lay ahead. Then, fate stepped in and right after high school graduation and a brief period of study at Tennessee State University – he joined the Air Force.

Bearde was initially stationed in Biloxi, Mississippi, "getting my ´blues dues´ in – it was not a very happening place for a black man at that time," he notes. After his tour in Mississippi, fortune sent him to Tachikawa Air Base, near Tokyo, Japan, which proved to be an invaluable musical training ground. There he joined Jimmy King and the V-Kings – "the first real band I had ever fronted. Jimmy was a great bandleader. He would oftentimes whisper to me while I was singing and give me suggestions on how to move on stage and how to make my delivery stronger. After gaining experience fronting this group, Bearde was asked to join the very popular, Sensations, a dynamic ten-piece funk and soul band, with which he toured all over Japan and with whom he did his first recording.

In the 1970's, after his service in the military and several years in Los Angeles, Nicolas relocated to the Bay Area, where he has lived ever since. " I was doing music, writing and singing occasionally, but wasn't really confident enough to step out on my own, because I didn't really know what I was about musically," Bearde explains. He would go out to clubs and concerts but would usually stay in the background, watching and researching. It was during this period that he worked as a computer technician and commercial photographer.

Around 1981, however, he found his focus and joined a high-energy top 40 band. " I knew I needed some hard time in front of an audience", says Nicolas, " and that gig was valuable stage training". After working that scene for almost three years he then decided that it was time to start expanding his musical palette. He began developing his jazz chops, and devising a more intimate approach to performing.

Bearde had the opportunity to do just that when he became a regular at Pasand's nightclub on Union Street in San Francisco. "There was a hierarchical system there," he says. "You had to work your way up through the ranks and show the managers that you could entertain and really put on a show". In addition to his solo work as a jazz vocalist there, he became one of the "Night Shift", which consisted of four of the club's most popular male singers. "It was a tight, well-rehearsed and choreographed unit," says Bearde, and I loved doing that Temptations-like thing that we put together, sort of going back to my roots. Each vocalist was a lead singer in his own right, so we covered all kinds of music. The shows would sell out in advance, and we'd have lines out the door. It became the ´place to be´ and to be seen".

Around 1985 he was asked to be part of "Jukebox", a play that Berkeley radio station KPFA was producing. "It was a live radio broadcast that brought together film and theatre people, and musicians from all over the Bay Area, as well as live sound effects specialists." Danny Glover had the starring role in the show. Says Bearde. "It was fascinating to work with him, and to also see all these different disciplines come together.

That was when acting came into his life, and it took another creative direction. At Glover's recommendation, Bearde began studying with renowned acting teacher, Jean Shelton, and a year later, he went out for his first audition and was cast in the Athol Fugard play Master Harold…and the boys. His portrayal was so convincing, that his South African cast mate, during the auditions, asked what part of Africa he was from. He went on to do 4 plays that first year, and knew he was on a new path. Even as Bearde concentrated on acting – primarily theatre-though he later expanded into film and television, with parts in the TV series Wolf, and John Schlesinger's film Pacific Heights and others, he continued to sing. He hooked up with singer Molly Holm and her vocal group "Jazzmouth" around 1984. "Jazzmouth" was known for scatting over changes and innovative, close harmony jazz pieces. "Through that relationship with Molly, I got connected with Bobby McFerrin. In 1986, when the call went out from Bobby for singers, he chose 15 Bay Area based singers from all sorts of backgrounds. We recorded at San Francisco´s legendary Different Fur recording studio and improvised for hours. It was an amazing, spiritual experience that, I think, surprised everyone. I don´t think even Bobby had a clear idea of what it was heading toward. Importantly for me, it re-connected me to that love of choral music that has always been in my heart."

Nic portrays Willie Malopo in Master Harold....and the boys in 1987

During that first year, McFerrin and the singers worked around the Bay Area without a name for the group, playing concerts for a couple of hours at a time, with the audience surrounding us," Bearde recounts. "It had such a positive impact on Bobby, he decided to commit to making it a real project".

Voicestra on European tour 2002

A brief hiatus was followed by an arduous series of auditions and performances before the group jelled, in 1989, with Bearde on board. Today that entity is known around the world as "Voicestra" – a ground-breaking a cappella group, with which Nicolas continues to tour yearly at major concerts throughout the world, depending on McFerrin's schedule.

When Bobby decided to take a break from the group in the mid-90's, Bearde and other members of Voicestra branched off into a smaller unit called SoVoSò. "We followed in the improvisational tradition of Voicestra, but added more gospel, Latin and R & B elements," he says. SoVoSò went on to win numerous awards and honors, among them 1st-place at the renowned a cappella summit CASA awards, and nominations for "Best Group", "Best Album" and Nicolas as "Best lead vocalist".

Throughout the 1990's, while developing his acting skills and sideline, and participating in the a cappella adventures of Voicestra and SoVoSò, Bearde continued to do his solo thing. As mentioned earlier, Nicolas started Right Groove Records in 1997 in order to launch his solo projects, starting with Crossing the Line. The album was a superb showcase for Nicolas' songwriting skills as well as his masterful singing, and it landed in the Top 10 on British Soul charts, garnering glowing reviews on both sides of the Atlantic.

It would be a few more years before Bearde produced the follow-up, All About Love, with a more unabashedly romantic repertoire, which was added to, both smooth jazz radio formats nationally, and Beach Music play lists in the Carolinas. His original tune "Summer Sunday" hit #1 on the Beach Music charts for 8 weeks running in the summer of 2005.

Besides maintaining this busy sideline as an actor and voice-over artist, he continues to write music and perform concerts at clubs and Jazz festivals around the country. Bearde has compiled an impressive list of credits that includes film roles in True Crimes with Clint Eastwood, Final Analysis with Richard Gere and Kim Basinger, roles on the television series Nash Bridges and Monk, plus television and radio commercials for GMC, E-Loan and Traveler´s Insurance.

Looking ahead, Nicolas is working on his next recording. "In general I'm doing more jazz these days, but I can't seem to step away from R & B completely". The new album will be an outgrowth of a "Tribute to Lou Rawls" live show that he has been presenting, but the concept will be broadened to include other great male vocalist such as Joe Williams, Nat Cole and Ray Charles. "There are very few of them around now," says Bearde. "The tribute has to be done respectfully and authentically; I am not trying to imitate anyone. I want to honor their music." Nicolas Bearde is already honoring these great male vocalists and their music every time he steps on stage. His forthcoming CD will enable a wider audience to appreciate his musical vision and savor his exceptional skills.

Photo by Nancy Jane Reid Jazz at Newport- Sept. 2006