Sometimes, all it takes is one incredible song for a renowned local performer to become an overnight national sensation. Bay Area jazz fans had known and loved Joyce Cooling as one of the region's most dynamic and popular guitarists for years when her San Francisco inspired hit "South of Market" -- and her Heads Up debut Playing It Cool (HUCD 3040)-- took the smooth jazz world by storm in 1997. Both soared immediately to #1 on the Gavin and Radio & Records smooth jazz charts and remained there for five consecutive weeks as the accolades came streaming in. Cooling was a nominee for Gavin's Smooth Jazz Artist of the Year, was named Best New (Smooth Jazz) Talent in the Jazziz Readers' Poll and was an easy choice for Jazz Trax Artist of the Year by the nationally syndicated radio show.

Her follow-up, Keeping Cool (HUCD 3053), has been titled to continue the clever wordplay, but she does anything but stick to the status quo. As with her eclectic debut, she and keyboardist/partner Jay Wagner surround the album's in-the-pocket smooth jazz gems with spirited excursions into many of Cooling's other longtime musical inspirations -- bossa nova and samba, funky blues, house music, film scores and even a sparse, jazzy/folksy acoustic number ("Gliding By").

"While I've always dedicated myself to becoming a better guitar player, the true artistic love of my life continues to be songwriting, and I’m always searching for new and unique ways to grow in this area,” Cooling says. “Jay and I are constantly composing new tunes, and we wanted the new project to be a true reflection of where we are right now, what we like, without any fear of some playful experimentation. The challenge is to find a way to push on the parameters of what we've done before and figure out a way to be unique, creative and true to ourselves without alienating the listener."

In its review of Playing It Cool, Jazziz magazine made mention of the guitarist's ability to “venture off, intensifying even the most middle of the road ballad and turning light funk into a heavy experience -- but never so far that we lose sight of the melody.” Cooling insists that she and Wagner accomplish this by borrowing rhythmic and melodic ideas from different genres and incorporating them into pop-oriented tunes. “We do this on Keeping Cool a few times, for example with ‘Before Dawn,’ which has a subtle bossa vibe behind a modern groove and simple melody, and on ‘Little Five Points,’ which was inspired by our visit to Atlanta’s music clubs and features a slight straight ahead jazz feeling within a pop framework.”

Cooling also makes note of the true working ensemble nature of her live performances. She’s been working with Wagner for fifteen years, and her rhythm section of bassist Gary Calvin and drummer Billy Johnson haven’t missed a gig in over two years. “It’s hard keeping guys together for a long time and building that sort of consistency, but we’re all into doing this as a band,” she says. “It’s so great when your bandmates know instinctively what’s coming next and play from the soul rather than from charts. Jay, Gary and Billy and I have an incredible rapport both personally and musically, and it makes for some great experiences on the bandstand."

While Cooling and the various incarnations of her band have played clubs and festivals in and around the Bay Area for over a decade, the amazing success of Playing It Cool led to numerous opportunities to tour all around the country and play for new, enthusiastic fans who weren’t familiar with her rich and varied history. “It’s really the people that make what I do possible, and it was such an amazing thing to experience the different flavors of each city and get to meet folks everywhere we went,” she says. I’ve always considered the musician-listener connection to be symbiotic in a sense, because each audience will bring different things out of us. The people become part of the show and, while it sounds a bit corny to say, it’s almost like they join the band for that one performance.”

Hailing from the New York City area, Cooling grew up in a large family that exposed her to all of the music that would eventually shape her artistry. Devouring jazz, pop, folk, funk, Brazilian, rock and blues, she amassed a record collection that made interesting bed fellows of Bill Evans and Jimi Hendrix, Miles Davis and Wes Montgomery, and João Gilberto. Of her family, she says, “My mother’s a classical buff, one brother was a hard rocker, a cousin was into funk and pop…it was a rich exposure. I dabbled in keyboards and percussion before moving to the guitar. I thought I might be a percussionist until I heard Wes Montgomery’s solo on ‘If You Could See Me Now.’ From then on, it was as if guitar had chosen me.”

Music had long been the most passionate part of her life, but an actual career as a musician began taking shape only after she moved to California and began hanging around an African drumming class taught by C.K. Ladzekpo, a renowned Ghanaian percussionist. Meeting Jay Wagner, a keyboardist on San Francisco’s Brazilian music circuit, gave her the energy and encouragement her developing chops needed, and before long she and Wagner had a thriving partnership which continues to this day.

Long before all the Playing It Cool - related travels and acclaim, Cooling had expanded her reach beyond the Bay by playing in numerous exotic cities like Manila, Guadalajara and Cartagena, Colombia, and she gained further credibility as a jazz player by appearing with giants like Stan Getz, Joe Henderson, Airto and Charlie Byrd.

Of her popularity in the Northern California region -- which has included gigs at many San Francisco and Oakland clubs past and present since the late '80s, the acclaimed independent CD release Cameo, and appearances at venues such as the Monterey Jazz Festival and the JVC Jazz Festival -- Cooling says, “San Francisco is an untraditional place, an artistic and very eclectic city which perfectly suits my personality as a musician and as a person. I love its rich, cutting edge diversity and the people’s open-mindedness to the kind of eclectic gigs I like to play. It’s the perfect place to find one’s voice as a performer because it embraces music that is noncommercial as well as experimental. San Francisco and I are made of the same stuff musically as well as in spirit.”

The success of Playing It Cool -- which included the Top 15 single “After Hours” as a follow-up to “South of Market” -- ensured that the music and spirit of Joyce Cooling would never again be confined to one specific region. Keeping Cool finds her poised to take her growing legacy even further. But as always, her goal is not stardom, but rather making her mark as a composer of music which stands the test of time. "The goal is to touch people emotionally with the music that Jay and I write,” she says. “We strive to create songs that will sound as good twenty years from now as they do today. The goal is to communicate with the listener, to make them part of our band experience, so to speak, whether they are seeing us live in concert or listening in on the radio."