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Denise Perrier has spent most of her thirty-plus-year career performing in the San Francisco Bay Area and touring Europe, Latin America and Asia. With her latest CD, “The Second Time Around,” with guest Houston Person, she has moved to a higher level of artistry and popularity.  

Harkening back to the time when a singer told the story and left the rest to the instrumentalists, Denise has a very welcoming straight-ahead style, concentrating on the standards and adding blues and Latin for variety. Her versatility, choice of material and dynamic stage presence make her a very appealing performer.
No matter what the venue or musical configuration, Denise connects with audiences….that’s her forte.  That’s why she has been called “the voice with a heart.”
Blessed with a rich contralto voice and the ability to sing ballads and blues with equal artistry, Denise has performed  in theatrical productions such as One Mo’ Time” and "In the House of the Blues," in which she portrayed Bessie Smith.  

She was featured in the Grammy-nominated CD, "Color Me Blue," with Brother Jack McDuff and has produced four CDs: the most recent, "The Second Time Around" (2009), "I Wanna Be Loved" (1997), also with Houston Person, and "East Meets West" (2001) which includes sides performed in Russia.  In 2004, she came out with "Live at Yoshi's: Blue Monday Party," which received much critical acclaim and reached high on the jazz charts.  

 Denise was born in Louisiana but moved to the East Bay Area with her family at the age of five.  Denise didn't sing extensively in church, but her family had a jukebox, and she heard records by Billie Holiday and the other great early jazz singers.      

She started singing in public when she was in a Haitian and Afro-Cuban dance group, obtaining her first professional engagement with a vocal ensemble called the Intervals. Louis Armstrong saw the group and put them in his entourage for a performance in Las Vegas.
     
Shortly afterwards, Denise was recruited for a three-month gig in Australia, which turned into an extended stay in the Far East.  She performed in Hong Kong, the Philippines, Taiwan, Formosa, Japan, Guam, and other Asian cities, staying for almost five years with Hong Kong her home base. She also spent a year and a half in Vietnam during the war touring military bases. Denise returned to the United States, lived in New York for five years, and then settled in San Francisco, where she has become one of its most popular jazz performers.  

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