CD Release Show! Celebrating this funny Jazz Chicks second CD, In the Key of Comedy. She'll celebrate the launch with a party at The Metropolitan Room on May 8 at 7:30 PM, open to the public. In the Key of Comedy was recorded live at the Metropolitan Room (Best Cabaret 2008, New York Magazine), with Tedd Firth on piano, Jay Leonhart on bass and Matt Wilson on drums. Quirky jazz cat Bob Dorough appears as a special guest, playing and singing two of his own compositions. "I'm on a mission to inject a little humor into the world of jazz," says Ms. Crowe, whose CD features music by Leonhart, Harold Arlen, Dorough and Randy Newman, among others.

Crowe's 2004 studio recording, "Bird On The Wire," was universally praised in the jazz press. Tom Staudter of the New York Times called Joan a "slightly twisted and superbly talented chanteuse." "Joan Crowe gets to the heart of a song's story. And she's funny and she's beautiful," said Michael Bourne of WBGO. "She gets the hat trick." Already recognized as a skilled, versatile performer, Joan opened for saxophonist Joe Lovano in 2002; her jazz chops have since landed her gigs at The Iridium, The Jazz Standard, Sweet Rhythm and Birdland, and led to the 2004 CD.

Crowe is known as a risk taker for her gutsy inclination to combine jazz with other musical genres and comedy. She is the creator and star of the innovative podcast, www.FunnyJazzChick.com. FJC is taped at Birdland every Monday night, and has subscribers in 63 countries. A 2002 MAC Award Winner for her one-woman show The Devil in Miss Joan, Crowe's other solo shows include Women of Note, a tribute to women songwriters including Bessie Smith, Dorothy Fields, Peggy Lee, Joni Mitchell, and Carol King; Jazz In The Key Of Comedy, which features the music by "Jesters of Jazz" Fats Waller, Cab Calloway, Louis Jordan and Dave Frishberg; Shooting Stars, which earned her first MAC Award nomination in 2000, and a Critics Pick nod from Time Out New York. 2002's As the Crowe Flies was dubbed "Fabulous!" by Bloomberg Radio, and "Hilarious!" by the Associated Press and earned her a second MAC Award nomination.