a nonprofit presenter of jazz artistic and education programs

Mary Stallings

Each fall, SFJAZZ honors a member of our community who has played a vital role in preserving the traditions and fostering the growth of jazz in the Bay Area. Our 2006 honoree, San Francisco native Mary Stallings, is an exemplar of everything the Beacon award stands for.

Stallings’ career got off to an early start, with the young singer sharing Bay Area stages with the likes of Ben Webster, Wes Montgomery, and, most notably, a brief tenure with Dizzy Gillespie. Soon she was touring with Billy Eckstine and Count Basie, but with the birth of her daughter (R&B singer Adriana Evans), Stallings decided to scale back her jazz career in favor of family time. Though she recorded intermittently throughout the ’70s and ’80s, it wasn’t until the ’90s, with her daughter grown, that Stallings returned full-time to singing. She quickly reeled off a series of accomplished recordings including Live at the Village Vanguard, the document of her storied run at New York City’s famed jazz venue, which prompted The New York Times to call her “perhaps the best jazz singer alive today.”

Befitting a vocalist of her stature, Stallings will perform in two unique settings tonight: with a piano trio; and backed by the stellar jazz orchestra of bassist and educator Marcus Shelby, named one of the 10 most influential African-Americans in the Bay Area for 2005. Joining the orchestra tonight is Geri Allen, who arranged and played piano on Stalling’s Remember Love, and whom the BBC called an “outstanding” pianist “with a positive, vibrant touch, and great delicacy of phrasing.”

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Beacon Award Concert


Mary Stallings with the Marcus Shelby Orchestra featuring Geri Allen

Friday, November 10 • 8pm
Herbst Theatre