Concert a gift for charities

She’s one of the first ladies of jazz and one of Omaha’s favorite daughters.

Karrin Allyson, the three-time Grammy-nominated jazz vocalist, returns to Omaha on Friday to present a concert at the Joslyn Art Museum’s Witherspoon Concert Hall.

“I grew up in Omaha and caught the jazz bug there,” Allyson said in a recent phone interview from her home in New York City. “It’s always good to come back.”

Born in Great Bend, Kan., in 1963, Allyson moved to Omaha at age 6.

Her first love was classical piano, which became her concentration at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. She also had a knack for languages and minored in French.

Jazz enabled her to put those two passions together in an original way.

Friends in college introduced her to the records of such jazz greats as Nancy Wilson, Billie Holiday and Thelonious Monk. Those recordings persuaded Allyson to take up jazz improvisation. Allyson’s ear for languages, meanwhile, eventually steered her in the direction of Brazilian jazz.

Her most recent album, “Imagina: Songs of Brasil,” puts the singer to the test. She sings these ditties — including some remarkable Antonio Carlos Jobim songs — in fluent and flawless Portuguese. And she decorates them with rhythmically vital vocalise and scat.

“I lived for a while in Kansas City, which has an incredible Brazilian jazz scene,” Allyson said. “That’s where I first really learned this music.”

Allyson’s performance at 7:30 p.m. Friday is a benefit for two local charities that help families deal with illness and death — Hospice House and Ted E. Bear Hollow.

The concert will also be a Father’s Day gift for her dad, Vic Schoonover, retired pastor of Omaha’s Augustana Lutheran Church.

“I’m going to sing some Brazilian music, but also some of my dad’s favorite ballads and blues tunes,” Allyson said. “Exactly what I’ll sing will remain a Father’s Day secret.”

Contact the writer:

444-1076, john.pitcher@owh.com