GABE JOSELOW/Arizona Daily Wildcat Katherine Byrnes stuck it out this year at the UA to make a CD with Park Avenue Records, a student-run label at the university, but she says she doesn't need a degree to do what she loves. The jazz studies junior plans to leave school to pursue a professional performance career in New York City.

Jazz studies junior hopes to make it big in New York City

Most students make a distinction between their college experience and the "real world," worrying about what good their degree will do them once they graduate. But jazz vocalist Katherine Byrnes has been living in between her world as a serious music student and that of a professional jazz singer.

Finding that pursuing her music degree in a straightforward, academic way was unappealing, Byrnes prepared to drop out of school at the UA.

"I don't need the degree I'm getting ," Byrnes said in defense of her decision to leave school, "because the only thing I can do with my degree is perform and I can perform without it."

Byrnes decided instead to stay another year at the UA due mostly to her deal with Park Avenue Records, a student-run, UA-affiliated jazz label. Byrnes auditioned for the deal at the beginning of the year. The record label is a unique enterprise, an uncommon project for a university school of music, and Byrnes is excited to be a part of it.

I could get there, audition for the first thing and have it. It's all chance. - Katherine Byrnes, jazz studies junior

"I like (Park Avenue Records) a lot; everyone's really super cool. They've gotten a lot of interest in the album," she said.

Park Avenue Records plans on releasing Byrnes' CD, entitled "Shook," in the next few weeks, when they finish mixing the album and creating the cover art. The album is a collection of jazz standards and some more offbeat tracks that were produced, engineered and instrumented by UA students, and will be on sale at the UA School of Music. The concept for the album was a collaborative effort between Byrnes and Jeff Haskell, the head of jazz studies.

"It's really nice to have a teacher like Haskell that completely took me under his wing and did everything for me," Byrnes said.

Byrnes has played what little Tucson jazz circuit there is for the past few years, oftentimes as a solo act and other times accompanied by artists such as Haskell and the Hard Bop Quintet. Not professionally managed, Byrnes has worked to get her own gigs.

"I started singing at Hacienda del Sol because the owners heard me sing and asked me to come sing there," she said.

"Sometimes people at the restaurants that hear me sing will ask me to do a wedding."

Despite some local area success, Byrnes will still be leaving the UA, without completing her degree, to pursue fame on a far greater scale in New York.

"Everyone keeps telling me, 'You're going to get kicked in the ass when you go to New York. It's going to suck at first and be horrible,'" she said. "But it could go the other way, too. I could get there, audition for the first thing and have it. It's all chance."

Aside from jazz singing and performance, Byrnes also plans on chasing her musical theater dream.

"I'm going to audition for both Broadway and try to do the jazz thing. I wanted to just concentrate on singing for a while, but I really want to get back into theater, because I love it," she said.

Though optimistic, Byrnes has decided that if New York does not work out as she hopes it will, and if after a year and a half she is not content, she will go back to school and get a language degree.

"I just want to be able to have something to fall back on if I get really shell-shocked in New York," she said.

After her departure, Byrnes will still remain a part of Park Avenue Records. The label is doing much to promote Byrnes, including circulating her demos, and they have even spoken tentatively about flying her back to Tucson to promote her album.

Until the end of June, Byrnes will be performing in the four-person cast of the Hidden Valley Follies, a jazz review, every Monday night at the Hidden Valley Inn, 4825 N. Sabino Canyon Road.