Daryl Sherman

A sparkling mainstay of Manhattan nightlife, Daryl Sherman has been a fixture playing and singing for savvy New Yorkers and international visitors at the Waldorf Astoria’s famed Cole Porter Steinway. The 2009 MAC Award winner for Best Jazz Singer/Instrumentalist, Sherman is equally at home in the worlds of jazz and cabaret. Her many recordings have received critical praise, airplay internationally and are in regular rotation on Cable TV’s Music Choice plus Sirius/XM Radio. From her arrival in the mid-70s, with trio stints at Sinatra hang-outs like Jilly’s, Jimmy Weston’s or Eddie Condon’s, there’s hardly a jazz joint, supper club or hotel Daryl has missed. She’s recently lauded for shows at the Algonquin’s Oak Room, Dizzy’s Coca Cola, Iridium Jazz Club and Feinstein’s At The Regency. Appearances with Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra also included workshops for their Essentially Ellington program. Joining forces with Vince Giordano and The Nighthawks, their Park Avenue Whirl had a run at 59E59 Theater and later Feinstein’s. European tours include annual engagements at London’s Pizza On The Park, Pizza Express Soho, concerts in Wales, Leeds, Scotland, the Cork Jazz Festival in Ireland, Holland and Malaga, Spain. A stunning return appearance in Berlin was hailed by Jazz Radio 101.9 “a magical night.” Her latest CD, Johnny Mercer: Centennial Tribute is hailed as one of the best of the year and she will appear at the 92nd St Y’s Mercer birthday in November. A previous tribute to Richard Rodgers, A Hundred Million Miracles (Arbors) with Ruby Braff received four stars in Downbeat. Guess Who’s In Town is included in The New Yorker ‘10 Best of 2006’ and her salute to the Crescent City, New O’Leans has been cited by BBC Radio as “superlative, one of this delightful singer’s best.” Other notables Daryl has performed and recorded with include Dick Hyman, Dave McKenna, Bucky & John Pizzarelli, Bob Dorough, Kenny Davern, Houston Person, Harry Allen, Tommy Flanagan, Mike Renzi, Dick Sudhalter, Ken Peplowski, Warren Vache, Joe Cohn, Howard Alden, Jay Leonhart, Wycliffe Gordon, James Chirillo, and Boots Maleson. Jazz festival appearances include JVC in New York and Newport, March of Jazz in Clearwater, and aboard the QE2. She has headlined clubs including the Colony Palm Beach, Le Chat Noir in New Orleans, Jazz Corner in Hilton Head, Piccolo Spoleto in Charleston, Blues Alley in Washington, DC, the Jazz Bakery in LA, Jazztown in Cleveland, Top of the Senator in Toronto and arts centers across the continent from Winnipeg to Fort Lauderdale. She is a favorite at both New York’s Highlights In Jazz and St. Peter’s Midday Jazz series, plus the Mabel Mercer Foundation Cabaret Conventions where she was presented the “Cabaret Classic Award” and she’s also received the Back Stage Bistro Award. Daryl’s voice is heard regularly in “Maya The Bee”, an acclaimed puppet show produced by The Culture Project. She has also been a frequent guest on Fresh Air with Terry Gross and Marian McPartland’s Piano Jazz all broadcast nationally. As McPartland says of Sherman, “She’s sophisticated, she’s straightforward and she can swing!” At age five, Daryl began to pick out tunes at the piano and sing along when her dad, a popular bandleader in her native Woonsocket, R.I. brought out his trombone to jam with friends. Soon Sammy Sherman was featuring his daughter on gigs and by her teens she was already a seasoned pro. In later years Daryl’s annual home-coming concerts at local jazz mecca Chan’s featured Sammy’s unique trombone, fiddle and repartee and his CD from those sessions A Jazz Original is available on Arbors. Daryl headed for New York after college, and sat in with home-town idol, Dave McKenna, at Michael’s Pub. That led to jams with such notables as Red Norvo, George Duvivier John Bunch and Milt Hinton. When Artie Shaw formed a new band after his retirement, Daryl Sherman was his singer of choice and still appears occasionally with Dick Johnson. She has also sung with Germany’s WDR Jazz Orchestra, American Jazz Orchestra and the Spokane Jazz Orchestra in tributes to Mildred Bailey and Paul Whiteman.