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All Music Guide:
Diane Schuur, who has sometimes been on the periphery of jazz, balances her importance as a dedicated jazz singer with the inclusion of a large dose of pop tunes in her repertoire. Early in her career she had the tendency to screech in her upper register, but with maturity that flaw has largely disappeared and she has become a very impressive singer. Blinded at birth due to a hospital accident, Schuur (who would later be nicknamed "Deedles") imitated singers as a child. She had her first gig at a Holiday Inn when just ten years old and originally sang country music. The turning point in her career occurred when she sang "Amazing Grace" at the 1979 Monterey Jazz Festival, greatly impressing Stan Getz. After Getz featured her singing at a televised concert from the White House in 1982, Schuur was signed to GRP and began recording regularly.
Her 1986 release Timeless and 1987's Diane Schuur with the Count Basie Orchestra both won Grammys for best Female Jazz Performance. She has been nominated three more times in the ensuing years. Schuur has had staying power as an artist; she's released no less than 18 albums (not including compilations) for a number of labels, including GRP, Concord, Telarc, and Vanguard, and continues to tour internationally. While her recordings tend to walk the line between contemporary and mainstream jazz, she is critically regarded as a quintessential jazz singer who is celebrated by critics and music fans across the spectrum. Her 2011 album, The Gathering (Schuur's debut for Vanguard), features thoroughly soulful modern jazz interpretations of ten classic country songs (as a not so subtle tribute to Ray Charles' own groundbreaking Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music). Her piano and backing band are augmented by guest appearances from Alison Krauss, Vince Gill, Mark Knopfler, Kirk Whalum, and Larry Carlton.
Wikipedia:
Diane Schuur (b. December 10, 1953 in Tacoma, Washington) is an American jazz singer and pianist. Nicknamed "Deedles", she has won two Grammy Awards, headlined many of the world's most prestigious music venues, including Carnegie Hall and The White House and has toured the world performing with such greats as Quincy Jones, Stan Getz, B. B. King, Dizzy Gillespie, Maynard Ferguson, Ray Charles, Joe Williams and Stevie Wonder. Like Stevie Wonder, Schuur was blinded at birth due to retinopathy of prematurity.
Biography
Diane Schuur grew up in suburban Seattle, Washington and was encouraged by both her parents to sing. She started singing when she was a two-and-a-half, and by age nine was getting professional gigs. She has said that as a small child she would often retreat to the closet to be alone with herself and sing.Her early childhood music heroines were Sarah Vaughan and Dinah Washington. Schuur had her first gig at Tacoma's Holiday Inn at age ten in which she sang country music. Attending the Washington State School for the Blind, she began performing original material, and starting at the young age of sixteen, revealed a distinctive voice and began performing. Her big break came when Stan Getz became positive about her work on hearing her sing "Amazing Grace" at legendary Monterey Jazz Festival in 1979, returning once again in '88 and '91. In 1982, Getz asked her to join him at a performance at the White House. Nancy Reagan invited her to perform again as a vocalist with the Count Basie Orchestra in 1987. Stan Getz later played on Schuur's first three albums, Deedles (1984), Schuur Thing (1985) and Timeless (1988).
Schuur's debut album, Deedles, was released in 1984, the first of several recordings to showcase her vocal abilities. In 1985, while on tour in the Far East, Schuur met B.B. King when the two of them played a music festival in Tokyo. Schurr and King eventually made an album together, Heart to Heart released May 1994, which top the Billboard charts to number one. Twelve of Schuur's albums have reached the Top 10 Jazz Albums on Billboard history charts, including her latest Diane Schuur: Live In London (2006) She received her first Grammy for the album Timeless (1986), and the following year received another, for Diane Schuur & the Count Basie Orchestra (1987).
Schuur proved her staying power through the 1990s and into the 2000s, first with her 1991 follow up to Talkin' 'Bout You, Pure Schuur, and then with nearly an album a year from then on, including In Tribute (1992]), Love Songs (1993), Heart to Heart (1994), Love Walked In (1995), Blues for Schuur (1997), Music Is My Life (1999), Friends for Schuur (2000), and Swingin' for Schuur (2001). Late in 2003, Schuur released Midnight, featuring original songs written for the album by Barry Manilow. Manilow also performs alongside Schuur on the album, along with Alan Broadbent on piano, Chuck Berghofer on bass, and the drummers Harvey Mason and Peter Erskine.
Her second live album, Diane Schuur: Live In London, was released in June 2006. It is her first release on the GR2 Classics label, the 20th album of her career and was recorded at Ronnie Scott's in Soho, London.
In 2008 she released a new studio collection entitled Some Other Time.
