A Tale of Jazz, Food, and the Freedom to Blog

Back when I lived in Austin, the live music capital of the world, I was doing some freelance web design. I made a number of sites for musicians. Among them was Mady Kaye, a jazz vocalist.

The Jazz

Mady has a solo career with 3 CDs under her own name. She’s part of a group called The Austin Carolers who wander Austin like minstrels during the Christmas holidays and sing carols. Mady is part of a trio called The Beat Divas, three fantastic singers who love to sing jazz and pop tunes, write original music, and cook.

Several months ago I told Mady I wanted to stop doing the maintenance on her web site, and asked her if she’d be willing to take over doing it herself if I switched her into a blog platform and taught her how to use WordPress. She said yes, and after a few tutoring sessions, she was running the blog like a pro.

The Food

One of the things The Beat Divas have been doing for years is teaching cooking classes at Austin’s Central Market cooking school. But they don’t just teach, they sing while they cook. They write their own songs about food and cooking. The Divas have 2 CDs, one of which is called “Dishin’ with the Divas: Songs of Food, Love & Mayhem.” Here’s one of the songs:

Here’s their first video, several years old and a clear demonstration of how much fun they have cooking and singing.

As you can see, the jazz and the food are whisked together a bit.

The Freedom

Since taking over the site herself, Mady and her various musical endeavors have really shown a burst of creativity. She’s always been creative, don’t misunderstand. But the Internet, social media, Facebook, YouTube, and a blog are types of creativity she’s never explored before. She used to say to me, “I’m a musician, I don’t want to know all that web stuff.” She learned, and she learned magnificently.

Give a woman a blog and just stand back and watch what happens, is what I say. She sings, she cooks, she blogs. It’s inspiring.

Hell, they are even selling Beat Divas aprons now.