Blossom Dearie, who has died aged 82, was one of the unique jazz voices of the second half of the 20th century. She was a cult, a musicians' musician, but her fame spread wider through television and radio, and, moving up generations, Kylie Minogue was citing Dearie as a primary influence in 2007. Many people who had only a passing acquaintance with her songs did not realise that the exquisitely shaded piano "accompaniment" was hers. Dearie's piano-playing was as unique as her singing. Teddy Wilson, one of the great style-setters of jazz piano, singled her out as one of his favourites.
The name was 100% genuine. Dearie, in various spellings, can be traced back in Britain to the 13th century and Dearie's father was of Irish and Scottish descent. Her mother was from Scandinavia. Blossom was what they called her. She was born in East Durham, New York state, roughly 150 miles from New York city, in the foothills of the Catskill mountains. Explaining why she took the Rodgers and Hammerstein song The Surrey with the Fringe on Top at a more relaxed tempo, Dearie pointed out that she was brought up in the country and remembered seeing horses and buggies: "I slowed the song down and made it real."
Dearie started to learn the piano at five. At 10, while living in Washington DC, she was embarking on Chopin and Bach. There her teacher suggested that she should enrol at Baltimore's Peabody Institute. Instead she went back to East Durham and turned to jazz. It was the big band era, and she was drawn to the likes of Count Basie, Benny Goodman and Duke Ellington. Dearie once said: "I'm definitely a jazz musician, learning to be a jazz singer." Yet she worked in vocal groups from the start of her career. In the mid-1940s, with school over, she moved to New York city. She was one of the Blue Flames with Woody Herman's band, and then the Blue Reys with Alvino Rey. She played cocktail piano and contributed an eight-bar vocal to a record by the jazz singer King Pleasure.
Early in the 1950s, at the invitation of the French label Barclay Records, she moved from New York to Paris. There she shared an apartment with the Scots jazz singer Annie Ross, and formed her eight-piece vocal group the Blue Stars, for whom Michel Legrand arranged George Shearing's Lullaby of Birdland in 1954, sung in French. She worked with Ross, both as a singer and pianist, and met the Belgian tenor saxophonist and flute-player Bobby Jaspar, whom she subsequently married. The Blue Stars later turned into the Swingle Sisters.
Dearie remained in Paris for five years. When the impresario Norman Granz, who had met her in France, started Verve Records in 1956, Dearie returned to New York, and settled in Greenwich Village. She began her solo career with Blossom Dearie (1957) and made a half-dozen Verve albums concluding with My Gentleman Friend (1961). She performed at jazz clubs in Manhattan - sometimes working with Miles Davis - and Los Angeles and her television work included NBC's Today show with David Garroway, who was a big fan, and the Tonight Show with Jack Paar. She was regularly supported by a trio of guitar, bass (usually Ray Brown) and drums. A song for a root beer grew into the Blossom Dearie Sings Rootin' Songs (1963) album and in 1964 the notable Capitol LP, May I Come In? featured a full orchestra.
Dearie was known in Britain by the early 1960s, playing Annie's (Ross) Room and then Ronnie Scott's. During her residencies she used to stay with Richard Rodney Bennett in his house in Islington. She made four Fontana albums in London, a city that she loved, the first being Blossom Time at Ronnie Scott's (1966).
The last was That's Just the Way I Want To Be (1970) and it suggested a slightly diluted singer bidding for a new audience, not always too convincingly. Among other things the album also featured Dearie's homages to fellow musicians, Hey John (John Lennon), Sweet Georgie Fame and Dusty Springfield. Dearie also became a British television regular, particularly with Peter Cook and Dudley Moore. Whatever the failings of That's Just the Way I Want To Be, Dearie bucked the trend after she set up her own label, Daffodil Records, in 1974. Fifteen albums followed, the last, in 2000, was Dearie's Planet, three years later came a single, It's Alright to be Afraid. Other artists she recorded with included the singer-songwriter Lyle Lovett and the jazz pianist and singer Bob Dorough.
In between the records and the live shows there were TV shows, notably on the Schoolhouse Rock children's series. She toured in Europe and to Australia. There were movie soundtracks appearances too, including on The Squid and the Whale (2005).
Cigarettes lessened her appearances in Soho, for Dearie's tender vocal cords could not stand smoke. When she appeared at the Pizza on the Park in the 1980s and 90s, diners were asked to stop smoking 10 minutes before each of her sets. She would still sometimes lose her voice. And what a precious instrument it was - intimate and breathy, with a fragile silvery quality floated on very little breath support. Her tiny, little-girl-lost tones just tickled the microphone, but they were only part of a subtle range of colours which could evoke the instrumental timbres of a flute or wa-wa muted trumpet.
Dearie's piano-playing was equally special; a flickering keyboard style of great restraint. It has been described as "muscular", though, that muscularity was more evident when you saw Dearie, because her fingers' precisely placed accents seemed just to prick the placid surface of her personality. It was this imperturbable aspect which set off the wit of Dave Frishberg's songs so effectively. There was Peel Me a Grape, My Attorney Bernie (When Bernie says we sue, we sue/When Bernie says we sign, we sign) and above all, I'm Hip. In these Dearie would wear no more than the hint of a smile.
For seven years, Dearie often performed at Danny's Skylight Room on West 46th Street - Restaurant Row - in Manhattan. And that was where, in 2006, she fulfilled her last engagement.
Jaspar died in 1963. She is survived by her half-brother, Walter.