After studying jazz performance at McGill University from 2007-2010, Kate Palumbo continued to live in Montreal, immersed in the local music scene.
After studying jazz performance at McGill University from 2007-2010, Kate Palumbo continued to live in Montreal, immersed in the local music scene. While she was a member of the jazz quintet Atomic 5, the group won the 2010 Jupiter-Vandoren New Talent Contest and signed a recording contract with Canadian label Effendi Records. That same year, Palumbo released a full-length album with Takk, an all-female jazz quartet. Both groups had featured performances at the Montreal International Jazz Festival.
For several years, Palumbo performed with Montreal klezmer-punk band The Youjsh, a local favourite at festivals such as Pop Montreal, L›OFF Festival de Jazz, and Innovations en concert. An in-demand bassist in jazz, pop, folk, and world music, Palumbo was regularly hired for various gigs throughout Ontario, Quebec, and Atlantic Canada.
As a result of dealing with record companies, promoters, and club owners in Canada and abroad, Palumbo came to appreciate the significant power imbalance that can exist between artists and those they often rely upon to give public expression to their works, so she applied to law school. Through volunteering with Artists’ Legal Advice Services and in her role as legal summer student with Live Nation Entertainment, Palumbo experienced the many legal issues facing artists from the other side of the negotiating table. Through these activities, in second-year law, she hopes to build on her experience in the music industry to position herself as a strong advocate for artists’ interests.
Meanwhile she has continued to perform, currently playing bass for Toronto-based singer-songwriter Charlotte Cornfield.
