Photograph courtesy of Howard Gitelson

Her performance at the old Dakota last spring was highlighted by two renditions of “The Nearness of You,” a popular standard that in less artful hands could easily be mundane or cloying. A standout track on her 2001 TCB release, “Inspiration,” her performance on the first night was indeed inspired, more slowly paced than on the recording and truly “singing” without need for vocalization. Yet the same tune on the second night went even further, stretching every note as if it was the last on Earth. Part of me never wants to hear that tune again so that I forever hold onto that last note.

Adopted as an infant, Lynne Arriale grew up in Milwaukee. She discovered the keyboard at age 3 on a plastic toy piano and “never stopped.” Earning a masters’ degree in classical music from the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music, she was well into her 20s before turning to jazz. Later she learned that her biological mother was a jazz vocalist—and perhaps there is something to heredity here as Arriale is as songful a pianist as one could imagine.