Catch her when you can, Kendra Shank performs for one night with Frank Kimbrough - piano, Dean Johnson - bass, Tony Moreno - drums on June 10th at the Dakota in Minneapolis and also on June 22nd at Sweet Rhythms in New York. If you enjoy the music of Sheila Jordan, Edith Piaf and Shirley Horn, my guess is that you will like Kendra Shank. Not that she sounds like any of them but like Jordan, Piaf and Horn, she has a way of owning the song she is singing. With a unique sound and voice, Shank is a jazz singer with an emotional connection to the music. She was a traveling folk singer in France when a friend turned her on to Billie Holiday, she decided to become a jazz singer right then and there and began sitting in at Paris jazz clubs. Realizing that she needed to learn more about this American art form, she returned to the US and studied with jazz vocalist Jay Clayton in Seattle.

In 1991 Shank was hired by Bob Dorough as vocalist/guitarist/percussionist for a west coast tour. She soon caught the attention of jazz legend Shirley Horn who co-produced Kendra's critically-acclaimed debut album, Afterglow (Mapleshade, 1994), featuring pianist Larry Willis and saxophonist Gary Bartz, and invited Kendra to perform as her guest at the Village Vanguard in New York City. Ms. Shank relocated to New York in 1997 and went on to record two albums for Jazz Focus Records, Wish (1998) and Reflections (2000), both of which garnered critical acclaim, and admiration from fellow artists like Abbey Lincoln who says, "Kendra Shank is an original. A singer with a sound.”