Carla Norris-Hopkins

Carla Norris-Hopkins is an American Jazz singer. Her sultry, raw, earthy voice gives a jazzy feel to all her songs, no matter the genre. She continues the legacy of the Jazz Masters by improvising and scatting – often engaging her audiences as well as the musicians on stage.

Her digital singles and album release include her own and other’s compositions of Straight Ahead, Afro-Cuban, Bebop, Latin, Smooth and rough Jazz - with Blues undertones and some spiritual lyrics.

Her stage is international, including the palace of His Majesty Otumfuo Nana Osei Tutu II, the Asantehene, King of the Asante (Ashantis), in Ghana. She also has recorded and traveled with the Grammy award-winning Bishop T.D. Jakes’ Potters House Choir in Nairobi, Kenya as well as touring nationally with the award-winning Kevin O. Davis and the Friendship Baptist Church Unified Choir.

Carla Norris’s professional singing career began in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois after rave reviews for her performance of Jazz Standards in her sister’s community play. Shortly thereafter she began touring college campuses with Jazz, RnB and Top 40 bands. It was in Chicago that she was asked to open for Bobby Blue Bland. It was also in Chicago, as a young child listening to her mother’s diverse record collection, that she was drawn to the nonconformist, brilliant John Coltrane. And, this sealed her love for Jazz and the freedom she heard in it.

A few years later she briefly studied with renowned Southern University Jazz Studies Director, Dr. Alvin Batiste in Baton Rouge, LA and gained invaluable experience performing with Blues-Jazzmen Jesse “Mule” Thomas and blind pianist Leon “Peaches” Sterling- who accompanied Billie Holiday and worked with Ray Charles.

Carla also is a songwriter, arranger and producer.