Frost Show, and The Merv Griffin Show. Musicianship Throughout her career, Dearie was considered a "musician's musician". She learned piano from the age of five, initially focusing on classical music, and only began focusing on jazz after moving back to East Durham at around ten years of age. She listened to musicians such as Count Basie, Benny Goodman, and Duke Ellington, likely forming her pianistic style from such instrumentalists. Her technique for learning songs was complex. First, she would sit down and learn the song at the piano. Once she had learned it fluently, she would work on the lyrics. In interviews, she explained that playing the piano and singing weren't separate in her mind. "For me," she said, "it's all just one and the same thing. I don't like to do either one separately." Her skill as both a pianist and vocalist meant she knew "how to complement the singing"; in her opinion, many accompanists played "entirely too much piano for the vocalist". Dearie had remarkable pianistic skill, which was arguably less recognised than her vocal talents. Shortly after Dearie's death, pianist Dave Frishberg recalled asking Bill Evans about his use of fourths in chord voicings. "His immediate answer was that he heard Blossom Dearie play that way and it really knocked him out," wrote Frishberg. "Then he did a little rave review of Blossom, naming her as one of his models of piano playing." She said she considered herself "a jazz musician, learning to be a jazz singer". Vocal style Dearie's vocal style was described by Natalie Weiner in The New Yorker as a "childish treble" singing "postgraduate lyrics". It was light and airy and was part of what made Dearie so distinctive. However, vocal coaches at the time argued that this unique vocal tone was the result of "improper breathing". Professionals encouraged her to "sing from her diaphragm", but she brushed off these criticisms. "I think that would probably make my voice more powerful, but at this age, I don't think I'm going to worry about it," she stated in a 2003 interview. "I have never been a singer who could stand up and sing like a theatrical singer. I sit down, and I've always used a microphone. I have a kind of microphone technique." Weiner passed along a presumably apocryphally descriptive Miles Davis quote about her as, "the only white woman who had soul." Personal life