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Crossing over for a singer whose foundation resounds jazz was a relatively rare phenomenon back in 1994 when Jackie Allen recorded her debut album, Never Let Me Go. However, that didn't dissuade her from finding common ground between the jazz and pop music worlds. Twelve years later, with Tangled, her Blue Note Records debut and eighth CD overall. Allen continues to explore soundscapes that pay homage to both standby and contemporary standards while crafting originals that richly complement the covers. With Blue Note, Allen joins a stable of pioneering female vocalists Cassandra Wilson, Norah Jones, Patricia Barber, Dianne Reeves.

"My tastes in music now are not that much different than when I began to record", says Allen, who lives in Indiana and has a strong base in Chicago, although I wasn't quite as adventurous then as I am now.

Writing in Jazz Times of her two earlier albums (2003's The Men in My Life and 2004's Love Is Blue, both on the now-defunct A440 label and that have been purchased by Blue Note), Christopher Loudon remarked, "As hybrids go, Allen is a rare breed. Her firm roots are clearly folk-rockbut they are wedded to a keen jazz sensibility." His assessment of Love Is Blue, which ranges from a tune associated with Frank Sinatra to a number by Annie Lennox? "Dazzling."

Jackie's extraordinary talent has taken her across the globe. She has toured Morocco as part of a cultural goodwill tour, Brazil with her voice/bass duo, and China where she was the only jazz artist to headline at the Beijing Music Festival. She performs frequently in Europe having appeared twice at the North Sea Jazz Festival, the Mittenwald and Reutlingen Festivals in Germany, and the Edinburgh Fringe and Scottish Double Bass Festivals. Nationally she has toured throughout the midwest and the west coast, appearing numerous times in Los Angeles. She has performed at the International Association of Jazz Educators Conference in New Orleans, with the Muncie Symphony Orchestra in an Evening of Cole Porter and at the Ravinia, Detroit, and Chicago Jazz Festivals.

Jackie Allen, one of Chicago's most influential and respected jazz educators, joined the faculty of Chicago Center for the Performing Arts (Roosevelt University) to teach jazz voice in Fall 2005. She has taught many successful Chicago vocalists at Elmhurst College and at The Old Town School of Folk Music and is frequently featured with university jazz ensembles as a guest performer and clinician including Roosevelt University, DePaul University, the University of Wisconsin, the University of Iowa, and Ball State University. She co-produced and starred in the sold-out "America 1941" with actor John Mahoney (Martin Crane on TV's "Frasier") to benefit The National Academy For Local Schools and served as a Governor of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS) for two terms. Jackie is a Wisconsin native who grew up surrounded by music. A Wisconsin native, Allen was introduced to music by her father, Louis (Gene) Allen, a Dixieland tuba player who taught each of his five children to play a brass instrument (young Jackie's first instrument was the French horn). She attended the University of Wisconsin, Madison as music major, studying under the venerated Professor of Bass and Jazz History Richard Davis, himself a prominent artist on 1960's Blue Note recordings.