One of the top swing singers to emerge during the past 30 years, Daryl Sherman has a light high voice that is influenced by Mildred Bailey and also by Ella Fitzgerald, Sylvia Syms, Billie Holiday, Blossom Dearie, and Barbara Carroll. She is also a skilled pianist whose playing on standards and obscurities from the Great American Songbook makes one realize that she could have a career as a non-singing instrumentalist if she chose to stop singing. But fortunately she does not have to choose between the two talents. The daughter of trombonist Sammy Sherman, Daryl grew up around jazz and was often taken by her father to jam sessions as a child. When she was six, she began playing piano, learning initially from her father (starting at the age of 12 she occasionally appeared at his gigs) and later on having formal piano lessons during college. She graduated from the University of Rhode Island in 1971 and always planned to be a singer/pianist. After moving to New York in 1974, she was taken under the wing of many veteran instrumentalists and singers, including Dave McKenna, Sylvia Syms, Milt Hinton, Dick Sudhalter, Red Norvo, Ruby Braff, and Dick Hyman. Performing at Jilly's, Michael's Pub, and other New York clubs, she quickly gained a strong reputation for her cheerful and insightful interpretations of classic material. After making her first record, I'm a Dreamer, Aren't We All, she was picked by Artie Shaw to sing with his orchestra (directed by Dick Johnson) in 1983. She has since sung with the WDR Jazz Orchestra in Germany, the American Jazz Orchestra, Wynton Marsalis' Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, and Vince Giordano's Nighthawks (in the show Park Avenue Whirl), but is mostly heard with her own combos, often touring Europe, appearing at classic jazz festivals and parties, and at intimate clubs. Daryl Sherman, who has recorded for Tono, Audiophile (including a tribute to Mildred Bailey and Red Norvo), After 9, Baldwin Street, and Arbors (including A Jazz Original, which features her late father's trombone playing), is a cheerful, delightful, and very musical performer who has revived many superior obscurities from the past, making the older material sound fresh and relevant. ~ Scott Yanow