"Rita Reys has been more than half a century uninterrupted and undisputed greatest jazz singer of the Netherlands," the Edison Jury concluded when they first Dutch jazz musician the Edison Oeuvre took delivery in 2006. Reys, born in Rotterdam in 1924, won as a teenager all singing competitions in Rotterdam. By marriage to drummer Wessel Ilcken she ended up in the jazz scene. Her first recordings… were for the Dutch LP Jazz Behind The Dikes 1955, which told the then Dutch jazz talent. Her success was based in the Netherlands, but also stared the United States. They made a plate with Art Blakey and she performed with big names like Chico Hamilton, Oscar Pettiford, Zoot Sims and Clark Terry.
In 1957 Ilcken died of a cerebral hemorrhage, and Rita went to work with the trio of pianist Pim Jacobs. It was not just occur. They married on September 30, 1960, which was celebrated with the album Marriage in Modern Jazz. During the International Jazz Festival of Juan Les Pins that year Rita was declared Europe's First Lady of Jazz. In the following years she worked with Rogier van Otterloo an interpretation of the repertoire of Burt Bacharach and Michel Legrand. In 1991, Rita received the Bird Award and was awarded the American Songbook Award from the American ambassador in hands.more