Nancy LaMott

Nancy LaMott entered the world on December 30, 1951, in Midland, Michigan, a place she wryly described as a suburb of the Dow Chemical Corporation. Displaying clear musical promise from an early age, she acquired her training through public-school programs and first performed publicly in 1966 alongside her father’s large jazz dance band. The trumpeter Jack LaMott led the ensemble, and the fifteen-year-old singer already harbored ambitions of a professional life. While still a teenager she held a job at the local Sears store, yet Crohn’s disease, a severe intestinal condition, emerged in her late teens and repeatedly required hospitalization. At nineteen she felt compelled to leave Michigan; accompanied by her brother Brett, a drummer, she relocated to San Francisco. There she swiftly established herself as a sought-after cabaret performer, although ongoing health crises continually disrupted steady engagements and mounting medical expenses threatened her stability. A devoted supporter eventually purchased an airline ticket that enabled her move to New York City.

The city’s expanding cabaret community embraced LaMott. In 1989 she encountered composer and conductor David Friedman, who undertook production of her first recording, Beautiful Baby. A tight circle of collaborators formed around her, among them pianist and arranger Chris Marlowe. For several years the pattern persisted: she would complete an album and then return to the hospital for intestinal bypass procedures. When the illness grew critical she underwent an ileostomy, an operation that restored her ability to eat freely and supplied the vitality needed for touring. New York songwriter and disc jockey Jonathan Schwartz discovered her, providing crucial airplay and advocacy that extended to national television appearances alongside Regis Philbin and Kathie Lee Gifford. She performed at the White House on two occasions and became a favorite of President Bill Clinton and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton. Among the musicians who supported her were Jay Leonhart, Mike Migliore, Glenn Drewes, Ken Sebesky, Rick Jensen, Bruce Samuels, John Redsecker, and the Angeles Quartet.

In March 1995 LaMott received a diagnosis of uterine cancer and elected hormone therapy rather than immediate surgery. She finished the orchestral album Listen to My Heart under the direction of Peter Matz. Shortly after the diagnosis, while performing at an AIDS benefit in San Francisco, she met actor Peter Zapp; the pair quickly developed a bicoastal romance. That summer, after hormone treatment proved ineffective, she underwent a hysterectomy; physicians determined the cancer had spread modestly and chemotherapy would be required. She continued working, completing a sold-out engagement at Tavern on the Green and fulfilling concert commitments nationwide before each chemotherapy session. The disease ultimately advanced. Days after her final performances and an appearance on Charles Grodin’s nighttime talk show, she was admitted to St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center in New York City. With only hours remaining, she married Peter Zapp in a bedside ceremony and died on December 13, 1995, at the age of forty-three. Ten years later, after family and estate matters were settled, her six albums—including Come Rain or Come Shine—The Songs of Johnny Mercer and What’s Good About Goodbye?—were reissued along with a video documenting live performances and interviews.