Diane Schuur
Diane Schuur, nicknamed Deedles, was born on December 10, 1953 in Tacoma, Washington and grew up in Auburn. This Grammy award-winning American jazz artist despite having a visual impairment grew up to loving and embracing the world of jazz through her father’s piano and her mother’s Duke Ellington and Dinah Washington collection.
Learning to sing her favorite Dinah Washington song “what a Difference a Day Makes” as a toddler, Deedles was indeed a progeny of jazz music as she taught herself piano by ear and developed that culminating gift of vocal prowess. At the age of 10, she had her first live performance at a Holiday Inn in Tacoma. She attended formal piano lessons at the Washington State School for the Blind and in 1971 made her first record entitled “Dear Mommy and Daddy” which was produced by Jimmy Wakely. Then soon after High School graduation she went on and performed around the northwest. An informal audition with trumpeter Doc Severinson in the year 1975 led her to join the Tonight Show drummer Ed Shaughnessy’s group which played at the Monterey Jazz Festival. Her religious jazz rendition of the song “Amazing Grace” led to her discovery by the renowned jazz tenor saxophonist Stan Genz who was amongst the audience. Genz invited her to perform in a talent showcase at the White House in 1982. Her promising return performance scored a record deal with GRP and in 1984, Deedles, her debut album was released.
With 11 released albums over the next 13 years, “Timeless” (1986) and “Diane Schuur and the Count Basie Orchestra” (1987) bagged her two Grammys for Best Female Jazz Vocal Performance and kept her recording with the Basie Orchestra at the number 1 spot on the Billboard Jazz Charts for 33 consecutive weeks. Considered one of the jazz royalties of her time, Deedles’ album “Pure Schuur” (1991) and “Heart to Heart” (1994), collaboration with B.B. King, hit the top spots on the Contemporary Jazz Charts and Billboard Charts, consecutively.
In 1999, she joined the Concord label after an album produced by Ahmet Ertegum on Atlantic records “Music is My Life”. This recording deal released “Friends for Schuur” in 2000 and chart topping collaborations such as “Swinging for Schuur” (2001) with trumpeter Maynard Ferguson, “Midnight” (2003) with own version of 13 songs co-written by Barry Manilow, and “Schuur Fire” (2005) a spicy Latin album that featured the Carribean Jazz Project.
Deedles’ unique passion for jazz that sparked in her earlier years highlighting her regard for the music of her parents’ time was further emphasized in her February 2008 album “Some Other Time”, which included her own interpretation of “September in the Rain” recorded in 1964 at the Holiday Inn in Tacoma when she was only ten. This album features songs by George and Ira Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Sammy Cahn, Rogers and Hammerstein and many more. Furthermore, this served as her tribute to her late mother who died at the tender age of 31 in her 40th death anniversary.
Edited: August 14th, 2011