Trivia

She was named Blossom because her brothers carried pear blossoms into the house when she was born.

As well as a singer, she is jazz pianist of immaculate taste and technique who invariably accompanies her own performances, alone or with her trio/quartet.

In the 1970s she lent her voice to the children's educational program Schoolhouse Rock! (1973) on songs, including "Mother Necessity," "Figure Eight" and "Unpack Your Adjectives".

Owns her own record label, Daffodil Records, which has released all of her music after she left Capitol/EMI Records in the mid-1960s.

She married Belgian jazz woodwind player Bobby Jaspar after meeting him during her time working in Paris in the mid-'50s.

Started the group The Blue Flames of Paris, which later became the legendary The Swingles.

Dearie studied classical music as a child, switched to jazz as a teenager and played with her high school dance band.

She moved to New York in the 1940s to pursue a serious musical career and was hired by Woody Herman to sing with his Blue Flames, a vocal group within his big band. In the early 1950s, she moved to Paris and formed an eight-member vocal group, The Blue Stars.

In the 1970s major record labels were switching to rock-'n'-roll and showed little interest in her work. She started her own label, Daffodil Records, in 1974 and one of her early albums, "My New Celebrity Is You," included eight of her own compositions. The album's title number was written by Johnny Mercer and is believed to be one of his last compositions before his death in 1976. Since she left Capitol Records, Daffodil has released all of her albums.

Name given as Margrete B. Dearie in the Social Security Death Index.

She is buried at National Memorial Park in Falls Church, Virginia.