Biography
Since the mid-1970s, Barbara Reed has called Los Angeles home. An expressive, soulful jazz singer and pianist, she also produces fiction. Her vocal approach reflects the influence of Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, and Nancy Wilson, among others, yet Reed has never regarded herself as a jazz elitist. While she places jazz at the center of her identity, she maintains an active interest in rock and R&B, citing an eclectic range that stretches from Carmen McRae to Steve Winwood, Bonnie Raitt, Stevie Wonder, and the Doobie Brothers. This breadth allows her to recast rock and R&B material in jazz settings whenever she chooses. Reed did not originate in Tinseltown. She entered the world in Oak Park, Illinois, a Chicago suburb, and remained in the Chicago region until age ten, when her family relocated to Rhode Island. She lived there until her acceptance at the Berklee College of Music in nearby Boston. After completing her studies at Berklee, she weighed a move to New York but ultimately selected Los Angeles, drawn by proximity to the film industry and a desire to avoid Northeastern winters. In 1975 she departed Boston for Southern California, where she immersed herself in the local jazz community as a vocalist, acoustic pianist, and electric keyboardist. Her first recording, This Was Meant to Be, appeared only in 1984. During those sessions Reed consulted Los Angeles bassist Valerie Clemente, who introduced her to John Anello Jr., a jazz guitarist and president of the independent, jazz-focused Cexton label. Son of saxophonist and bandleader Doc Anello, John Anello Jr. responded favorably to Reed’s singing and released the album. Subsequent recordings came infrequently; after This Was Meant to Be she issued no further album until the early 2000s. That project accompanied her debut novel, High Notes Are Murder, a murder mystery distributed by Rare Sound Press. The book’s protagonist, Liz Hanlon, mirrors Reed as a singer and musician, and its narrative reflects Reed’s engagement with film noir and classic pulp fiction. Her prose suggests familiarity with the hard-boiled tradition of Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, and James Cain. High Notes Are Murder unfolds in Los Angeles, the same city that hosted much of the era’s landmark film noir and pulp writing from the 1940s and 1950s. Throughout the early 2000s Reed balanced dual pursuits as a fiction author and a jazz singer-pianist.
Albums
Singles
