Karen Oberlin

Based in New York, Karen Oberlin is a flexible singer/actress who has performed vocal jazz as well as cabaret and traditional pre-rock pop. Oberlin, whose influences (direct or indirect) range from Barbra Streisand to Ella Fitzgerald to Doris Day, is capable of singing straight-ahead bop but is far from a jazz purist or a jazz snob. One minute, she might improvise her way through a hard bop standard like Horace Silver's "Doodlin'" and show her appreciation of vocalese icon Annie Ross; the next minute, she might be Streisand-minded and embrace traditional pop or cabaret (althou...