Jasmine Akahlia Tommaso was born in Rome, Italy into a musical family. Her father, jazz bassist Giovanni Tommaso, always found ways to share his passion and love for music with his children.
Jasmine’s first studies in music took place at home, where she started with the piano at a very young age. She continued with voice lessons and was classically trained, studying privately with Catia Di Stefano. Catia was the first to introduce Jasmine to standards and vocal jazz. As she furthered her interest in music, Jasmine graduated class Valedictorian from the South Orange County School of the Arts. She studied with Donna McElroy at the Umbria Jazz Clinics, where she received a scholarship to attend Berklee College of Music’s Summer program in Boston. She graduated with Honors in Theatre Arts from The University of California, Santa Cruz. As she furthered her jazz studies with Tierney Sutton, she was on the President’s Honor Roll when she received her Diploma in Vocal Performance from the Los Angeles College of Music.
Jasmine has performed in jazz festivals worldwide including the Umbria Jazz Festival (Italy), The Lucca Jazz and Selinunte Jazz Festival (Italy), and The Watts Towers Jazz Festival (Los Angeles), to name a few, accompanied by some of the greatest jazz musicians such as Stefano Bollani, Danilo Rea, Giovanni Tommaso, Tia Fuller (Beyoncé), Kim Thompson (Beyoncé), and Fabrizio Bosso. She is also an educator, teaching alongside Berklee Faculty Dennis Montgomery III at the Umbria Jazz Clinics in Perugia in 2015 & 2018.
Since her move to Los Angeles in 2011, she has appeared as a back-up vocalist on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and has made quite an impact on L.A.’s music scene, performing regularly in the city’s greatest jazz venues.
Her latest album “Nelle Mie Corde” has received great praise in Italy and was recently awarded “record of the week” on the Italian jazz station “Rai3 Fahrenheit.”
Inspired by the breathtaking landscape of the California Desert, Jasmine has recently moved to the Joshua Tree area. You can catch her performing at venues and festivals in the High Desert, as well as in Palm Springs and surrounding areas.
She is currently working on new music for her new upcoming project.
Stay tuned for more!