It's with a very heavy heart that I announce the passing last night of my dear friend for 25 years, jazz singer Rebecca Parris. She was 66. Rebecca was a great singer, and I don't use that word lightly. At what she did, I think she was the best: the deepest interpreter, the smartest phrasing, the most swinging, the most musical, the juiciest sound, just spot-on in every way. She conveyed more wisdom about life than any jazz singer I know besides Carmen McRae, who not surprisingly loved her. Aside from her performing, Rebecca was an earth-mother mentor to more singers and people in need than I could possibly count. She understood pain and conflict, and had huge empathy for troubled souls. Ill health had plagued her for fifteen years, and her heart finally gave out. But at her last full concert, in Plymouth, MA on March 31 - I attended it - her artistry was at its peak, in no small part due to the presence of the equally unsurpassable Mike Renzi on piano. Sadly, the album they were planning did not come to be. My heart breaks for Rebecca's longtime partner, Paul McWilliams; for her adopted daughter Marla Kleman, who's a sister to me; and for a broad and loyal circle of true-blue friends whose lives she touched. Listen to Rebecca's definitive version of "My Foolish Heart," with the late George Mesterhazy on piano, and keep her in your hearts. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3727sfjQJA

It's with a very heavy heart that I announce the passing last night of my dear friend for 25 years, jazz singer Rebecca Parris. She was 66. Rebecca was a great singer, and I don't use that word lightly. At what she did, I think she was the best: the deepest interpreter, the smartest phrasing, the most swinging, the most musical, the juiciest sound, just spot-on in every way. She conveyed more wisdom about life than any jazz singer I know besides Carmen McRae, who not surprisingly loved her. Aside from her performing, Rebecca was an earth-mother mentor to more singers and people in need than I could possibly count. She understood pain and conflict, and had huge empathy for troubled souls. Ill health had plagued her for fifteen years, and her heart finally gave out. But at her last full concert, in Plymouth, MA on March 31 - I attended it - her artistry was at its peak, in no small part due to the presence of the equally unsurpassable Mike Renzi on piano. Sadly, the album they were planning did not come to be. My heart breaks for Rebecca's longtime partner, Paul McWilliams; for her adopted daughter Marla Kleman, who's a sister to me; and for a broad and loyal circle of true-blue friends whose lives she touched. Listen to Rebecca's definitive version of "My Foolish Heart," with the late George Mesterhazy on piano, and keep her in your hearts. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3727sfjQJA