Singer Gretchen Kauffeld (Rotterdam 1939) learned to sing with records of Frank Sinatra and Doris Day. The last they took power over the listener to approach very close to, to soften or move. The Voice she learned phrasing. In 1957 she became a singer of The Skymasters. Her career quickly gained an international character as a result of winning the Festival de Canzone in Venice, together with Mieke
… Telkamp, Christine Spierenburg, Willy Alberti and Johnny Jordaan. It was a welcome guest in German radio, television and record studios, after which she left in 1968 to America. She worked in Los Angeles and Las Vegas and was, along with jazz stars like Ray Brown, Herb Ellis and Oscar Castro-Neves seen in television shows. Back in the Netherlands, in 1969, Gretchen Kauffeld married with producer Joop de Roo, which further stimulated her in her development into a more jazzy repertoire. In 1986 she formed a special trio, consisting only of voice, guitar (Peter Nieuwerf) and saxophone (Ruud Brink, Jan Menu later). During its fortieth anniversary as a professional musician in 1997, she was royally and received the Bird Award.more
