Diane Schuur – HuffPost 5.13.11

[Note: Here is some “origin” information that came up during my interview with Diane Schuur.]

Mike Ragogna: When you started, did you play out a lot, and how did you get “discovered?”

Diane Schuur: Well, it depends on which time. I did a lot of professional dates starting from the time I was nine years old and worked at the Holiday Inn in Tacoma, Washington, and different places like that. I auditioned at Lake Tahoe for Bill Harrah’s club when I was 15, and just did a lot in the Pacific Northwest. Then, of course, I did the Monterey Jazz Festival in ’75 with Ed Shaughnessy’s big band, Energy Force. Then, I moved to the Southwest and worked in Tucson, Arizona, for a few years, from ’76 to ’80, then came back to Seattle. As far as the discovery thing, George Shearing heard me when I was 11 years old. The turning point, though, was when Stan Getz heard me at the Monterey Jazz Festival on my second appearance there in ’79. Then, I signed up with GRP Record a couple of years after that, and as you know, the album, Deedles, was created, and so on. So, it’s just really been an intriguing process all of these years.