Nancy Kelly

With a warm, buttery tone and smooth agility, Nancy Kelly's voice is perfectly suited to the vocalese and sophisticated takes on standards that dominate her repertoire. An all-around entertainer with training in classical piano, voice, drama, and dance, she sometimes plays multiple instruments at club dates and has worked with such legendary jazz artists as Benny Goodman, Nelson Riddle, and Peter Erskine. After debuting with the Billboard-charting concert recording Live Jazz in 1988, she followed up with such typically playful, uplifting releases as the aptly titled Singin' & Swingin' (1997), B That Way (2014), and "Jazz Woman" (2022), which found her backed by a seven-piece combo on a pair of originals. Growing up in Rochester, New York in the 1950s, Kelly began studying music at the age of four, starting on classical piano and eventually adding formal lessons on the clarinet and in drama and dance. She didn't study voice until later, as a college student at the prestigious Eastman School of Music, where she found her calling as a singer. She got her professional start as house singer at Philadelphia jazz club Jewels, where she shared bills with the likes of Betty Carter, Etta Jones, and Joey DeFrancesco. Kelly recorded her debut album, Live Jazz, in Hollywood with pianist Biff Hannon, bassist Tom Warrington, drummer Peter Erskine, and saxophonist Ernie Watts. A set of covers that included such standards as "Over the Rainbow" and "Almost Like Being in Love," it went to number 11 on the Billboard jazz chart. Her next album, Singin' & Swingin', was recorded with a cast of over a dozen collaborators, among them guitarist Steve Brown, drummer Danny D'Imperio, and saxophonist Bobby Militello. With a goal of presenting a different mood on each track, it included a cover of Chaka Kahn's "Through the Fire" along with songs by jazz greats spanning Cole Porter, Fats Waller, and Duke Pearson. The album arrived on Amherst Records in 1997. Her next set found her backed by the rhythm section of pianist Dino Losito, bassist Neil Minor, and drummer Mark Taylor, who were joined by tenor saxophonist Houston Person. Another set of covers, it included a version of Billy Joel's "New York State of Mind" among its animated jazz standards. Well, Alright! followed in 2009, this time on the Saying It with Jazz label. Recorded in Washington State with producer Joan Merrill, it again featured Person, this time with pianist Randy Halberstadt, bassist Jeff Johnson, and drummer Gary Hobbs. In the meantime playing such prestigious New York clubs as the Blue Note, Birdland, and the Rainbow Room in addition to tour stops, festival dates, and appearances with symphony orchestras, Kelly returned to the studio for 2014's B That Way (BlueBay Records). It was tracked with guitarist Peter Bernstein, drummer Carmen Intorre, Jr., tenor saxophonist Jerry Weldon, and Losito on the featured Hammond B-3. The tribute album Remembering Mark Murphy, a mentor whom Kelly calls her favorite singer, followed in 2019 on the Subcat label. Its lineup included Brown, Intorre, and John Di Martino (producer, arranger, piano), among several others. The vocalist reappeared on Subcat with a pair of original songs in 2022, "Jazz Woman" b/w "Move Over." With the promise of more original material to come (thanks to time afforded during the pandemic to revisit accumulated work), they were recorded in New Jersey's Teaneck Sound with Di Martino, Intorre, bassist Ed Howard, saxophonist Harry Allen, trumpeter Freddie Hendrix, guitarist Wesley Amorim, and vibraphonist Jimmy Johns.
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