Cherryl Hayes with Steve Allee Trio at The Jazz Kitchen

Cherryl J. Hayes is an accomplished, vibrant jazz vocalist with a voice and style to die for, especially when it comes to the vocalization of scat. Additionally she is a skilled interpreter of the great jazz singers who preceded her, such as Sarah Vaughn, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald. A commanding presence in any setting, Cherryl often demonstrates her versatility by shifting gears in a heartbeat from the up-tempo scatted bebop of “Don’t Mean a Thing” to beautiful ballads like “The Nearness of You”. She has a phenomenal vocal range of three and a half octaves. For someone who has no formal training in music Cherryl has come a long way. Formerly, she was an accounting specialist at a Telephone Communication Company in Indianapolis. First discovered by a pianist friend who persuaded her to come on stage one evening about 19 years ago she has since netted accolades for her performances in the U.S. and overseas and has sang in musicals and plays such as Ain’t Misbehav’n’ and Nunsense.