Carolyn Leonhart Biography

Singer

Carolyn Leonhart may be best known as a backup vocalist for Steely Dan; she has toured with the group internationally, and sings backup vocals on two of their albums: Two Against Nature (2001) (which won the Grammy for album of the year) and Everything Must Go (2003). On her own, Leonhart bridges the jazz and pop genres. She's a jazz vocalist on the New York City club circuit, and in 2001 she formed the group Lyn Leon with percussionists Stephan Diethelm and Matthias Eser, former members of the Swiss Percussion Group. The group's unusual specialty is glass instrumentation; their album Glass Lounge was released in Switzerland in 2001. Her own albums include Steal the Moon (2000), Autumn in New York (2002, on the Japanese label King Records), New 8th Day (2005), and If Dreams Come True (2008, with husband Wayne Escoffery).

Extra credit: Leonhart was DownBeat magazine's college jazz vocalist of the year in 1993... She married saxophonist Wayne Escoffery on 17 January 2004... She is the daughter of jazz bassist Jay Leonhart and the vocalist Donna Leonhart; her brother, Michael Leonhart, is a trumpeter who also has toured with Steely Dan... Leonhart was a guest vocalist on the Swiss Percussion Group's 1998 album Glass Songs.

Vocalists of the same general timbre include Björk, Lena Horne, Nico and Norah Jones.