Erin Bode

Erin Bode—whose surname is pronounced with two long-voweled syllables—moves comfortably among jazz standards, familiar pop songs, and Great American Songbook material during any given set. Raised in a musically active home in Minnesota’s Twin Cities as the daughter of a Lutheran minister, she performed with a church choir throughout her teenage years. While attending high school in St. Louis she first encountered jazz and big-band repertoire, took up trumpet, and joined theatrical productions, all of which prompted her to seek a formal music education. She began coursework at the University of Minnesota before transferring to the smaller environment of Webster University in St. Louis, where jazz pianist and singer Christine Hitt became her mentor. Bode participated in Webster’s jazz vocal ensemble and, at Hitt’s invitation, joined her on local club dates. After completing degrees in music and foreign languages she stayed in St. Louis to perform regionally. A self-released 2001 album titled Requests featured a version of Cyndi Lauper’s “Time After Time” that gained strong local attention and launched her wider career. The resulting radio exposure led to a contract with the St. Louis-based Maxjazz imprint, which issued Don’t Take Your Time in 2004; that collection contained a fresh treatment of the same Lauper song, this one modeled on the approach of the late Eva Cassidy, and brought Bode national visibility. Reviewers and jazz broadcasters have often linked her to both Cassidy and the young jazz star Norah Jones because of her readiness to reinterpret an eclectic body of songs with subtlety and originality.