Her story reads something like a fairy tale: Young scholar becomes overnight international jazz star. It even includes the element of the unknown singer championed by the dean of the British Jazz Community—Humphrey Lyttelton. She has built a solid career that includes award-winning and hugely successful recordings, sold-out extended engagements at the most prestigious venues her own program on BBC radio, and receiving the National Order of Arts and Letters from the French government.
Not bad for a gal from New Jersey whose first interest was in literature. Music was also important to her as she saw its connection to storytelling, communication and language. Studying French and Latin in high school proved “thrilling,” so she added German and Italian in college. Then off to Germany to continue her studies, but, as she told me, on a visit to England to see some friends, “I kind of got bumped off my path.”
