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Not to be confused with R&B great <a href="spotify:artist:0V6zo2mJw9FdwWLClKC9yw">LaVern Baker</a>, LaVerne Butler is a superb but underexposed jazz singer whose main influences include <a href="spotify:artist:2JfVCMa3FlvQRlLT5uH9zb">Nancy Wilson</a> and <a href="spotify:artist:1bgyxtWjZwA5PQlDsvs9b8">Sarah Vaughan</a>. Butler is originally from Shreveport, LA, where she grew up listening to jazz and R&B extensively with a lot of encouragement from her father, saxophonist Scott Butler. After leaving Shreveport, she moved to New Orleans, where she studied music at the University of New Orleans and become a fixture in the city's Dixieland and bebop venues. Butler worked with such distinguished locals as <a href="spotify:artist:64hLoFHeSiExreoq4ASPxg">Alvin Batiste</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:6gMW76a7vmuyUuAivTjFGj">Ellis Marsalis</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:5qpgJEqRgEJ2kRwtxNrkCZ">Henry Butler</a> (no relation), and <a href="spotify:artist:2lffXaYGum1bb21hUmUU3z">James Black</a> before deciding to move to the New York area in 1984. Butler studied with <a href="spotify:artist:2Kn5swSfLmUU2WEJVlQvJY">Jon Hendricks</a> after arriving in New York and later earned her living as an English teacher while tackling the Manhattan club world. The early to mid-'90s found Butler signed to Chesky, for which she provided her bop-oriented debut album, No Looking Back (1992), and her lighter, more relaxed sophomore release, Day Dreamin' (1994). After leaving Chesky, Butler planned to record an album for <a href="spotify:artist:6ycoXr0Ayd89vFUT6BOiWo">Herbie Mann</a>'s Kokopelli label in 1997, but her plans fell through when the company experienced financial problems. 1999 saw the release of her third album, Blues in the City. ~ Alex Henderson, Rovi
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