Biography
Barbara Paris brings a distinctive spark to jazz singing, infusing even familiar standards with renewed vitality drawn from her lively approach and nuanced inventiveness. Raised amid a household filled with music, she took up violin as a youngster before moving on to piano and later guitar. During her teenage years she performed as a folksinger, an endeavor that soon led her toward jazz, though she set music aside temporarily to work as a hairdresser. The vocalist identifies April 3, 1989, as the date of her first true jazz appearance. Support came from Eddie Shu, the tenor saxophonist who had played with Gene Krupa, along with Claude Tissendier, a saxophonist in Claude Bolling's Orchestra. She performed with Tissendier across Europe and collaborated intermittently for five years with pianist Joe Bonner throughout Colorado. Barbara Paris has issued three strong albums on her own Perea imprint and remains a steady presence on the Colorado jazz circuit while appearing from time to time on the East and West Coasts as well as in Europe.
Albums
