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It's not often you hear someone singing songs by Dizzy Gillespie and John Coltrane. In fact, you might wonder if it's ever been done at all.

Until now, jazz vocalists have kept to the straight-and-narrow, singing songs from the Great American Songbook or trying out new material that never strayed too far from the pop mainstream. Until now, jazz vocalists were more or less content singing the tried, the true, and the time-honored songs that audiences love to hear. That is, until Karrin Allyson.

Karrin Allyson came along at just the right time. In an age of sensory overload, Allyson figured out that the best way to cut through all the noise was to make the music less noisy. And with jazz being one of the most demanding genres in terms of its constant need for attention, well the simpler the better.

Interestingly, it was classical piano that first drew Karrin Allyson to music. Later, with an overwhelming desire to sing, she tried '70s pop, then funk-rock, and finally jazz at a nightclub in downtown Kansas City.

A string of successful albums now finds Allison living and working in New York City, where great studio musicians are readily available. It only makes senses to have the best when improvising jazz by Horace Silver, Nat Adderly, Wayne Shorter and Oscar Brown, Junior.

Listen to Karrin Allyson as she shifts into high gear on "Everybody's Boppin'" from her new album Footprints, featuring guest vocalists Jon Hendricks and Nancy King.