Libby York

Although York has been performing since 1980, her recording career did not come about overnight. Her early influences include singer/guitarist Frank D’Rone and the great June Christy’s Something Cool album. She left Chicago in the early 70s to major in political science at American University in Washington, DC and opened a restaurant, The Back Porch Cafe in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware in 1974, which is still thriving. She spent most of the 80s and early 90s in New York where she was featured vocalist with Swing Street, an eight-piece big band, and was coached by the great Abbey Lincoln. She currently spends her time in Chicago, New York, Paris, and Key West.
In 1999, her debut album Blue Gardenia was released on the Southport label. This was followed in 2004 by her breakthrough recording Sunday in New York, a Blujazz release that boasted Renee Rosnes on piano and Count Basie alumni Frank Wess on tenor sax. The album received an abundance of rave reviews including 4 stars in DownBeat magazine. In JazzTimes, Christopher Loudon described Sunday in New York as “a delectable all-standards program” and praised York’s “tremendous Anita O’Day appeal” as well as her “bravura dexterity.” Jazz Review‘s John Gilbert called York “a master vocalist with a deep well of talent at her disposal,” and in All About Jazz, Dr. Judith Schlesinger asserted: “York is relaxed, subtle, and infinitely tender, especially on the ballads… you can hear the smile in her voice.” Sunday in New York's liner notes were by the renowned Chicago-based jazz critic and radio personality, Neil Tesser, who wrote: “York finds the complicated emotional center of a lyric and sets it out with disarming simplicity.” Libby’s recording career demonstrates that she is a storyteller, singer, bandleader, record producer and label owner. “Sometimes,” York asserts, “being both the producer and the vocalist is very challenging, to say the least, but I like overseeing the sound, how we present these classic American Songbook gems. The music, and the audience, deserve no less.”