Fay Claassen

Like Soesja Citroen, widely recognized as one of Holland's leading jazz vocalists, Fay Claassen navigates English with ease as a Dutch singer rooted in jazz. A faint Dutch accent surfaces now and then across her post-bop work, yet it remains minimal, and her command of English-language repertoire—from Tin Pan Alley standards and Burt Bacharach/Hal David compositions to the words Cassandra Wilson supplied for Miles Davis' "Seven Steps to Heaven"—is clearly assured. While English dominates her output, Claassen has also delivered convincing jazz performances in French and Portuguese. Across every language, her approach avoids aggression or forceful drive; instead, she swings with grace, elegance, smoothness, urbanity, and sophistication.

Nijmegen, Holland, is where Claassen entered the world in 1969. Ballet and acting occupied her attention before jazz singing became her central pursuit. Following high school she enrolled at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague, after which she served as featured vocalist with several Dutch jazz ensembles, among them the Amsterdam Jazz Quintet. At age 25 she appeared prominently on German saxophonist Carolyn Breuer's Simply Be, issued in 1995 by Holland's Challenge Records; the credits there list her as Fee Claassen. Adopting the spelling Fay Claassen, she launched her own recordings in the late 1990s with the debut album With a Song in My Heart, supported by the Jazz Impuls Foundation, the Dutch organization that aids jazz artists it deems under-recognized. In the early 2000s she journeyed to the New York City/northern New Jersey region to cut her second release, Rhythms & Rhymes, on which she collaborated with guitarist Mike Stern, pianist Kenny Werner, and vibist/marimba player Joe Locke. Bob Hagen of Jazz Impuls produced the project, which appeared on the organization's Jazz 'n Pulz imprint in Holland and reached the United States through distributor Allegro. Hagen subsequently helmed her third album, Specially Arranged for Fay, a big-band session featuring the Millennium Jazz Orchestra; that recording likewise emerged on Jazz 'n Pulz in Holland and was handled by Allegro for American distribution.