I was born into a working class family in a small town in southern Michigan. In those days, the radio stations played the Ray Coniff Singers, Top 40 or Motown. The only exposure to classical music came to us via cartoons. There was no jazz. My father played the piano at parties, everything in the key of C. My mother sang in the Sweet Adelines. My grandmother had been a singer in a vocal group during World War I. And that was the extent of the family's musical lineage.

I started taking piano lessons at age 10 from one of the local ladies who would come to the house. In grade school, I sang in the Catholic school choir - they took the girls out of science class for practice. In high school, I tried to take guitar lessons, but the only teacher in town was a lonely man who lived above and spent most of his time in the local B&W bar. I taught myself how play chords, and accompany myself singing folksongs. By age nineteen, I had retired from the only 40-hour-a-week job that I ever worked and traveled alone to Africa. On that year and one-half journey, I carried along a flute, which I also taught myself to play.

Upon returning from Africa, I ended up in Isla Vista, CA and became a founding member of an improv comedy group, the Gorilla Theater. Two years later, I moved to Mexico, and studied mime with international clown, Sigfrido Aguilar in San Miguel de Allende. During that time, I also landed my first professional gig, singing seven nights a week with a Mexican rock band. While living in San Miguel, a friend gave me some cassettes of jazz recordings. Hearing that music for the first time was a profoundly illuminating experience. I finally heard what I had been searching for, and decided at that point to dedicate my life to playing jazz.

I went to San Francisco, hungry for the music. To support myself, I worked on the streets as a clown employing the skills I had learned in Mexico, and also played flute duets with a partner at Fisherman's Warf. At night, I worked as a cocktail waitress in jazz clubs, one of which was the legendary Keystone Korner. Night after night, I would listen to live music played by the greatest living jazz artists. I studied voice, piano, and flute with Bobby McFerrin, Mark Levine, Karlton Hester, Laurie Antonioli, and Jane Sharp. I went to jam sessions, gigged in local clubs, and performed with Bay Area giants such as Eddie Henderson, Eddie Moore, Eddie Marshall, Ed Kelley, a 16-yr-old Bennie Green, and a then up and coming Kitty Margolis.

In the 80's I decided to try to make my living as a musician, and moved to San Diego in order to develop a solo act as a singer/pianist. I worked up from dives, to piano bars, to hotels, jazz clubs, and country clubs. From San Diego I moved to LA and enrolled in the Dick Grove School of Music where I completed the Keyboard instrumental program and studied piano and arranging with Dick Grove and jazz vocals with Sue Raney. After leaving Grove, I continued to study piano with Terry Trotter and voice with Cathy Segal-Garcia, two wonderful teachers. I then spent the next ten years playing solo piano/vocal gigs on cruise ships and in 5 star hotels all over the world.

Thinking to expand into teaching, I completed a BM in Jazz Studies from Cal State Northridge in 2000. There I was able to study piano and arranging with Matt Harris, a highly accomplished musician. I worked my way through college playing and singing extended gigs at the LAX Marriott Hotel (two years), the CSUN University Club (6 years), and the Queen Mary in Long Beach (three years).

Sometime during all of this life experience, a passion for Brazilian music developed. While playing in an LA restaurant in 1990, the first question from a handsome stranger was "Do you know any Brazilian songs?" The answer was yes, and within a year the man who would become my husband and I were living in an apartment on the beach in Copacabana. I stayed in Brazil for a year, learned Portuguese, studied piano, composition, Brazilian musical styles with Antonio Adolfo, and helped edit his acclaimed book "The Brazilian Music Workshop." While there, I performed in Rio's clubs and restaurants including Mistura Fina and the Meridian Hotel. The fall of 2005 will find me back in Brazil, exploring the musical horizons of the northeast of that country.

It has been an unconventional journey. The early part involved a search for direction, for a wider cultural experience than my childhood provided. The travels broadened into an artistic, and finally a spiritual quest that has led to many places, many life situations. The common thread throughout all of this has been the music, the singing, and the playing. It is my gift from the world, and my gift to the world.