Gretchen Parlato (born February 11, 1976) is an American jazz singer. She has performed and recorded with musicians such as Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Kenny Barron, Esperanza Spalding, Terence Blanchard, Marcus Miller and Lionel Loueke. Parlato's Flor (2021) received a Grammy Award Nomination for Best Jazz Vocal Album, hitting No. 1 upon release in iTunes Jazz and #3 Best of the Year Albums in Jazzwise Critics Poll '21. Live in NYC (2013) received a Grammy Award Nomination for Best Jazz Vocal Album, also receiving 4.5 stars in Downbeat Magazine, with the DVD hitting No. 1 on the iTunes best music video list. The Lost and Found (2011) received over 30 national and international awards, including Jazztimes Expanded Critics Poll No. 1 Vocal Album of 2011 and iTunes Vocal Jazz Album of the Year. Her 2009 sophomore release, In a Dream, was Jazz Critics Poll No. 1 Vocal Album of 2009 and hailed by Billboard as "the most alluring jazz vocal album of 2009." Early years Parlato was born in 1976 in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of Dave Parlato, a bass player for Frank Zappa, Al Jarreau, Don Preston, Barbra Streisand, Henry Mancini, Paul Horn, Gabor Szabo, Buddy Rich, Don Ellis, and recorded for TV and film. Her grandfather was Charlie Parlato, a trumpeter in the Kay Kyser Big Band, and singer and trumpeter for Tennessee Ernie Ford and Lawrence Welk. Growing up in the 1980s, Parlato says she was a Valley girl. As a child, Parlato says she was influenced by Bossa nova; "I was flipping through my mom's record collection and the cover of Stan Getz and João Gilberto’s 1963 "Getz/Gilberto" album struck me. The cover had an image of an abstract painting. I took out the album and put it on and I heard João Gilberto's voice, and the texture and simplicity of the music struck me — even at 13 years old. That was definitely a turning point." Parlato attended Los Angeles County High School for the Arts, then earned a bachelor's degree in Ethnomusicology/Jazz Studies at University of California, Los Angeles. In 2001 she was accepted into the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz Performance by a panel of judges including Herbie Hancock, Terence Blanchard, and Wayne Shorter. Parlato was the first vocalist ever admitted into the program. In 2003, Parlato moved to New York City. A year later, she won first place in the Thelonious