I was very fortunate to see Blossom Dearie a couple of times live in person at the now defunct Danny's Skylight Room in Midtown Manhattan. I simply couldn't believe that, although well into her 70s, she still had this unusually enchanting high-pitched voice and that she could swing like hell. Thanks to her longtime friend and manager Donald Schaeffer I was also lucky to be among the chosen few who would get a rare interview with her during that time. Onstage and off, she had this charming dry humor and wit that captures you from the very first minute.

Blossom Dearie died at her Greenwich Village home last Saturday. She was 82. The singer with the girlish voice was actually born with that name in East Durham in New York and very early on she was part of a singing group with Woddy Herman and Alvino Rey. In 1952 she moved to Paris and arranged for the Blue Stars. They were singing at a club down the Champs-Elysées when Norman Granz heard her and asked her to join his newly started record company called Verve records. Her six albums for that label she recorded from 1956 to 1960 remain vocal jazz classics up to this day. The artists she recorded with like Ray Brown, Mundell Lowe, Kenny Burrell etc. all hailed her as a bona fide jazz musician.

After he stay with Verve, she took a break and recorded just one album for Capitol in 1964 (the wonderful May I Come In?) and in 1974, she founded her own label called Daffodil Records. Her witty lyrics and dry sense of humor veering sometimes towards the sarcastic and ironic, became her trademark in her recordings and live appearances and although she mainly performed in New York, she also had a cult following in London as well (just listen to her live album recorded at Ronnie Scott's).

The liner notes of her 1958 album says: The uncommon, the unusual, in short, the un-un, become increasingly rare and when discovered should be cherished.

MK, 11.02.09