Vocalist and guitarist Rebecca Kilgore has specialized in reinterpreting American popular standards from the 1930s and 1940s, bringing those vintage hits to contemporary jazz listeners. She entered the world in Waltham, Massachusetts, in 1949 and moved to Portland, Oregon, upon turning thirty, where she launched her performing career as the featured singer with the regional swing ensemble known as the Wholly Cats; their debut recording, the 1982 album Doggin' Around, captured that partnership. After the band dissolved in 1984, she assembled the Rebecca Kilgore Quintet, which established itself as a fixture on the Northwest jazz circuit, and she documented her work with the cassette-only release I Hear Music in 1989.
Subsequent projects frequently paired her with fellow musicians. A 1990 collaboration with John Miller produced Put on a Happy Face, while 1993 found her joining Portland’s Tall Jazz Trio for Plays Winter Jazz. Her most sustained partnership developed with pianist Dave Frishberg, beginning with the 1993 album Looking at You and continuing with I Saw Stars the following year, Not a Care in the World in 1997, and The Starlit Hour in 2001. During the same period she also led the ’60s-style country group Beck-a-Roo and supplied vocals for the 1994 CBS animated special Tales from the Far Side, drawn from Gary Larson’s comic strip.
The 2004 release For Lovers Only showcased her alongside stride pianists John Sheridan and Jeff Barnhart. She followed it with the Jimmy Van Heusen tribute The Music of Jimmy Van Heusen on Jump Records in 2005 and I Wish You Love on CD Baby in 2007. Her focus on individual songwriters persisted with the 2008 Arbors collection Why Fight the Feeling: Songs by Frank Loesser.
Lovefest at the Pizzarelli Party arrived in 2010, placing her voice at the center of an all-star family ensemble featuring guitarists Bucky and John Pizzarelli, bassist Martin Pizzarelli, tenor saxophonist Harry Allen, pianist Larry Fuller, drummer Tony Tedesco, and violinist Aaron Weinstein; the album earned widespread critical praise. That same year she was inducted into both the Oregon Music Hall of Fame and the Jazz Society of Oregon’s Hall of Fame.
Live at Feinstein’s at Loews Regency appeared in 2011, and in 2013 she served as guest of honor at the Roswell Jazz Festival in New Mexico. Backed by the Harry Allen Quartet, she issued I Like Men in 2014 and joined vocalist Nicki Parrott for the collaborative Two Songbirds of a Feather the next year. In 2016 the San Diego Jazz Party named her a Jazz Legend, after which she recorded This & That with pianist Bernd Lhotzky for Arbors, releasing the album in 2017.
