Year: 2007
Time: 43:34
File: MP3 @ 320K/s
Size: 100,7 MB
Art: Front
(3:25) 1. I Love A Ukulele
(3:09) 2. Charade
(3:19) 3. Aren't You Glad You're You
(3:10) 4. That Old Gang of Mine
(4:42) 5. Give Me The Simple Life
(4:18) 6. I Ain't Got Nothin' but The Blues
(2:47) 7. I Cried for You
(3:50) 8. Sway
(2:02) 9. Runnin' Wild
(3:40) 10. I Wish You Love
(3:09) 11. Surrey with The Fringe on Top
(3:02) 12. Reaching for The Moon
(3:00) 13. Then I'll Be Happy
Rebecca Kilgore, Vocalist, Curator, Sophisticated Lady, Dies at 76
Rebecca Kilgore, the effortlessly elegant vocalist, whose primary goal was to bring swing and the classics and rarities of the Great American Songbook into the 21st century, passed away on January 7 in her longtime homebase of Portland, Oregon. She was 76 years old. The cause of death of Lewy body dementia.
Recording primarily on small independent labels since her start around the age of 30 — first as part of a local Portland area swing ensemble the Wholly Cats, then on her own as the leader of the Rebecca Kilgore Quintet — the velvet-dipped-in-honey singer’s mission was that of purity, a clear-as-a-bell, clarion vocal tone familiar to fans of, say, Shirley Horn or Chris Connor, but by way of the music of the 1920s, ’30s and ’40s.
Along with being a canny vocalist, Kilgore was keen on finding rare gems within the Songbook’s deep catalog and revving them with verve and invention. And though she stayed under the radar with early band releases such as the Wholly Cats’ 1982 album Doggin’ Around and her cassette-only release I Hear Music, it was through the auspices of coyly clever composer and pianist Dave Frishberg that Kilgore got her first taste of fame beyond the Pacific Northwest jazz scene.
With Frishberg’s witty accompaniment and her stirring vocal qualities as a breath of fresh air to the traditions of popular jazz song, the pair recorded highly acclaimed albums such as Looking at You, I Saw Stars, Not a Care in the World and The Starlit Hour (the latter three for Arbors Records). Frishberg even told JazzTimes in 2011 that Kilgore was his “favorite singer to play for” and a “flawless,” original vocal talent. Other name-above-the-title band leaders that Kilgore teamed with on more than a few recordings were saxophonist Harry Allen, trombonist Dan Barrett, guitarist Bucky Pizzarelli and pianist John Sheridan.
Still, it is Kilgore’s long catalog of solo/leader recordings throughout the 2000s such as A Remembrance of Maxine Sullivan: Harlem Butterfly (Audiophile, 2001), Why Fight the Feeling? (Arbors, 2008), Yes, Indeed! (Blue Swing, 2010), I Like Men (Arbors, 2014), The Rebecca Kilgore Trio Vol. 1 (Heavywood, 2021) and A Little Taste: A Tribute to Dave Frishberg (Cherry Pie, 2024) that are most entrancing, rewarding and worth the crate-digging. Kilgore was always possessed of a stately, graceful voice and a curiously inventive sense of curation and orchestration, whether you heard her at age 30 or 70.
https://www.jazztimes.com/blog/rebecca-kilgore-vocalist-curator-sophisticated-lady-dies-at-76/
Birth: sept. 24th, 1949
Waltham, Massachusetts, EUA
Death: jan. 7th, 2026
Portland, Oregon, EUA
I Wish You Love