Gretchen Parlato changed the sound of modern vocal jazz in the post-millennial era. With albums like In a Dream and The Lost and Found, she carved out a curious and fiercely individual sound – open to R&B, Brazilian music, and contemporary grooves without losing the nerve of improvisation. “The first truly original vocal jazz cd in many years,” Jazz Radio Berlin declared of In a Dream in 2009.
On the new The Wise Ones (June 2026), Parlato returns to the circle of musicians who shaped her early sound: Robert Glasper, Gerald Clayton, and Mark Guiliana are back in the picture, alongside long-time collaborator Alan Hampton. The music moves fluidly between jazz, soul, folk, and Brazilian textures. Relationships, renewal, and two decades of musical interplay with Alan Hampton form the backbone of the album – new songs woven together with ideas carried for nearly twenty years.
There is a quiet self-assurance to Gretchen Parlato. It is through restraint and rhythmic precision that she has become one of the most influential vocalists of our time. With The Wise Ones, she gathers decades of expression and growth into a single work, while looking ahead: “This album is a culmination,” she says, “and also just the beginning of my next chapter.”
