Karrin Allyson (pronounced ''KAR-in''; born Karrin Allyson Schoonover on July 27, 1963) is an American

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...

vocalist. She has been nominated for five

Grammy Awards The Grammy Awards (stylized as GRAMMY), or simply known as the Grammys, are awards presented by the Recording Academy of the United States to recognize "outstanding" achievements in the music industry. They are regarded by many as the most pres ...

and has received positive reviews from several prominent sources, including the ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'', which has called her a "singer with a feline touch and impeccable intonation."

Early life and education

Karrin Allyson was born in Great Bend, Kansas; her father was a

Lutheran Lutheranism is one of the largest branches of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Catholic Church launched th ...

minister and her mother was a

psychotherapist Psychotherapy (also psychological therapy, talk therapy, or talking therapy) is the use of psychological methods, particularly when based on regular personal interaction, to help a person change behavior, increase happiness, and overcome pro ...

, teacher, and classical pianist.McNally, Owe
"Karrin Allyson Performs Feb. 20 at West Hartford Town Hall."
''

Hartford Courant The ''Hartford Courant'' is the largest daily newspaper in the U.S. state of Connecticut, and is considered to be the oldest continuously published newspaper in the United States. A morning newspaper serving most of the state north of New Haven ...

''. February 16, 2010. She grew up in

Omaha Omaha ( ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Nebraska and the county seat of Douglas County. Omaha is in the Midwestern United States on the Missouri River, about north of the mouth of the Platte River. The nation's 39th-largest city ...

Nebraska Nebraska () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by South Dakota to the north; Iowa to the east and Missouri to the southeast, both across the Missouri River; Kansas to the south; Colorado to the southwe ...

, and spent her last year of high school in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

. In her youth, she studied classical piano, sang at her local church and in musical theatre, and also began songwriting. Allyson attended the

University of Nebraska at Omaha The University of Nebraska Omaha (Omaha or UNO) is a public research university in Omaha, Nebraska. Founded in 1908 by faculty from the Omaha Presbyterian Theological Seminary as a private non-sectarian college, the university was originally kno ...

on a classical piano scholarship; she majored in classical piano and minored in French. She was lead singer for an all-female rock band called Tomboy. She also developed an avid interest in jazz, performing both in a jazz swing choir in college and in her own jazz ensemble, which had gigs at venues in Omaha.

Career

After graduating from college in 1986, Allyson moved to

Minneapolis Minneapolis () is the largest city in Minnesota, United States, and the county seat of Hennepin County. The city is abundant in water, with thirteen lakes, wetlands, the Mississippi River, creeks and waterfalls. Minneapolis has its origins ...

and concentrated on her jazz career. In 1990, she moved to

Kansas City The Kansas City metropolitan area is a bi-state metropolitan area anchored by Kansas City, Missouri. Its 14 counties straddle the border between the U.S. states of Missouri (9 counties) and Kansas (5 counties). With and a population of more ...

, where her career took off. In 1992 she recorded her debut album, ''I Didn't Know About You'', which was so well received it was re-released on

Concord Records Concord Records is an American record label owned by Concord and based in Los Angeles, California. Concord Records was launched in 1995 as an imprint designed to reach beyond the company's foundational Concord Jazz label. The label's artists have ...

in 1993. She subsequently recorded eight more Concord-released albums in Kansas City. In 1998, she moved to

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

with her longtime partner, classical music radio host

Bill McGlaughlin William McGlaughlin (born October 3, 1943) is an American composer, conductor, music educator, and Peabody Award-winning classical music radio host. He is the host and music director of the public radio programs ''Exploring Music'' and ''Saint P ...

, whom she met in Kansas City in the early 1990s. Allyson sings in English, French, Portuguese, Italian, and Spanish. The songs she performs are drawn from a variety of genres, including

bossa nova Bossa nova () is a style of samba developed in the late 1950s and early 1960s in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It is mainly characterized by a "different beat" that altered the harmonies with the introduction of unconventional chords and an innovativ ...

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...

bebop Bebop or bop is a style of jazz developed in the early-to-mid-1940s in the United States. The style features compositions characterized by a fast tempo, complex chord progressions with rapid chord changes and numerous changes of key, instrumen ...

samba Samba (), also known as samba urbano carioca (''urban Carioca samba'') or simply samba carioca (''Carioca samba''), is a Brazilian music genre that originated in the Afro-Brazilian communities of Rio de Janeiro in the early 20th century. Havin ...

jazz standard Jazz standards are musical compositions that are an important part of the musical repertoire of jazz musicians, in that they are widely known, performed, and recorded by jazz musicians, and widely known by listeners. There is no definitive lis ...

s, and other jazz modalities, and also

ballad A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads derive from the medieval French ''chanson balladée'' or ''ballade'', which were originally "dance songs". Ballads were particularly characteristic of the popular poetry and ...

pop standards Traditional pop (also known as classic pop and pre-rock and roll pop) is Western pop music that generally pre-dates the advent of rock and roll in the mid-1950s. The most popular and enduring songs from this era of music are known as pop standards ...

, the

Great American Songbook The Great American Songbook is the loosely defined canon of significant early-20th-century American jazz standards, popular songs, and show tunes. Definition According to the Great American Songbook Foundation: The "Great American Songbook" is ...

soft rock Soft rock is a form of rock music that originated in the late 1960s in Southern California and the United Kingdom which smoothed over the edges of singer-songwriter and pop rock, relying on simple, melodic songs with big, lush productions. S ...

, and

folk rock Folk rock is a hybrid music genre that combines the elements of folk and rock music, which arose in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom in the mid-1960s. In the U.S., folk rock emerged from the folk music revival. Performers suc ...

. She has also recorded vocal performances of several instrumental jazz compositions, using both scat and

vocalese Vocalese is a style of jazz singing in which words are added to an instrumental soloist's improvisation. Definition Vocalese uses recognizable lyrics that are sung to pre-existing instrumental solos, as opposed to scat singing, which uses nonsen ...

techniques. She has recorded 12 original studio albums for the

Concord Jazz Concord Jazz is a record company and label founded in 1973 by Carl Jefferson, the former owner of Jefferson Motors Lincoln Mercury dealership in Concord, California. The label was named after the city in the East San Francisco Bay area, and the j ...

label, and in 2009 she released a career-spanning "best of" collection. Her first all-original record, ''Some of That Sunshine'', was released in August 2018 to rave reviews, with Jazz Times writing that "Allyson unleashes her equally impressive dexterity as a songwriter." Five of Allyson's albums have received

Grammy The Grammy Awards (stylized as GRAMMY), or simply known as the Grammys, are awards presented by the Recording Academy of the United States to recognize "outstanding" achievements in the music industry. They are regarded by many as the most pre ...

nominations for

Best Jazz Vocal Album The Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Album is an award presented at the Grammy Awards, a ceremony that was established in 1958 and originally called the Gramophone Awards, to recording artists for quality works (songs or albums) in the vocal jazz ...

: ''Ballads: Remembering John Coltrane'' (2001), ''Footprints'' (2006), ''Imagina: Songs of Brasil'' (2008), '' 'Round Midnight'' (2011), and '' Many a New Day: Karrin Allyson Sings Rodgers & Hammerstein'' (2015)

Discography

* ''

I Didn't Know About You "I Didn't Know About You" is a song composed by Duke Ellington, with lyrics written by Bob Russell. Recorded in 1944 with vocal by Joya Sherrill, it was based on an instrumental first recorded by Ellington in 1942 under the title " Sentimental Lad ...

'' (

, 1993) * ''

Sweet Home Cookin' ''Sweet Home Cookin is the second studio album by American jazz singer Karrin Allyson. The album was recorded at Sage & Sound Recording, Hollywood, California on June 9–10, 1993, and at Soundtrek, Kansas City, Missouri, on September 9, 1993. The ...

'' (Concord Jazz, 1994) * ''

Azure-Té ''Azure-Té'' is the third studio album by American jazz singer Karrin Allyson. The album was recorded in the Soundtrek Studios of Kansas City, Missouri and was released on March 21, 1995 by Concord Jazz label. Reception Chuck Berg writing for ...

'' (Concord Jazz, 1995) * ''

Collage Collage (, from the french: coller, "to glue" or "to stick together";) is a technique of art creation, primarily used in the visual arts, but in music too, by which art results from an assemblage of different forms, thus creating a new whole. ...

'' (Concord Jazz, 1996) * ''

Daydream Daydreaming is the stream of consciousness that detaches from current, external tasks when attention drifts to a more personal and internal direction. This phenomenon is common in people's daily life shown by a large-scale study in which partici ...

'' (Concord Jazz, 1997) * ''From Paris to Rio'' (Concord, 1999) * ''Ballads: Remembering John Coltrane'' (Concord Jazz, 2001) * ''Yuletide Hideaway'' (Kas, 2001) * ''In Blue'' (Concord Jazz, 2002) * ''Wild for You'' (Concord, 2004) * ''Footprints'' (Concord Jazz, 2006) * ''Imagina: Songs of Brasil'' (Concord Jazz, 2008) * '' 'Round Midnight'' (Concord Jazz, 2011) * '' Many a New Day: Karrin Allyson Sings Rodgers & Hammerstein'' ( Motema, 2015) * ''Some of That Sunshine'' (Kas, 2018) * ''Shoulder to Shoulder: A Centennial Tribute to Women's Suffrage'', as The Karrin Allyson Sextet (

eOne Music MNRK Music Group (pronounced "monarch", formerly known as Koch Records and eOne Music) is a New York City-based independent record label and music management company. It was formed in 2009 from the music assets of Koch Entertainment, which had b ...

, 2019)

References

External links

Official Website
*

Karrin Allyson Karrin Allyson (pronounced ''KAR-in''; born Karrin Allyson Schoonover on July 27, 1963) is an American jazz vocalist. She has been nominated for five Grammy Awards and has received positive reviews from several prominent sources, including the ' ...

at AllMusic.com {{DEFAULTSORT:Allyson, Karrin American jazz singers American jazz pianists American women jazz singers People from Great Bend, Kansas University of Nebraska Omaha alumni Living people 1963 births Concord Records artists 20th-century American women pianists 20th-century American pianists 21st-century American women pianists 21st-century American pianists 20th-century American women singers 21st-century American women singers Singers from Kansas 20th-century American singers 21st-century American singers Motéma Music artists