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You can learn a lot about Clairdee by eavesdropping on the master classes she offers for singers studying the craft. "Please, don't just flip through a Fake Book and pick a tune," she says. "Pick a song that means something to you. Do you really understand the lyric? Who wrote the song, and what does the original melody sound like? The more personal meaning it has for you, the more insight you can bring to your own interpretation of it. Put your life into the music."

Born in Tucson and raised in Denver, Clairdee grew up harmonizing and dancing with her sisters and brothers in a show-biz minded family. She took to improvising naturally and formed a four-part vocal group in high school, but didn't start focusing on jazz until after college. She was already listening closely to pioneering jazz vocalists such as Carmen McRae, Sarah Vaughan and Betty Carter when veteran Hammond B3 organist William "Big Daddy" Sailes took her under his wing and taught her a repertoire of standards and how to develop arrangements to suit her voice.

Since moving to the Bay Area in 1986, Clairdee has performed almost every style of music, from R&B and cabaret to country and soul. But by the mid-90s she decided to dedicate herself to jazz, honing a singular sound while working with jazz luminaries such as trumpeter Eddie Henderson, alto saxophonist John Handy and pianists Roland Hanna and Allen Farnham. "From an arranging standpoint," Clairdee says, "the jazz idiom provides an amazing canvas on which I can fully express myself to tell a story."

Part of what makes Clairdee so distinctive is that she's also closely studied male masters like Johnny Hartman, Joe Williams, Billy Eckstine and Nat "King" Cole. Though she draws on those influences, Clairdee stresses that she is not interested in impersonating or imitating other artists. "Listening to a lot of different vocalists and instrumentalists in various styles of music has helped me hone my craft. But learning about who I am outside the music has been just as important, and has helped me find my voice within the music."