“I have had the chance to live the artist life, to make my living creating,” said Jarreau. “To be given that ability to create something where there was nothing before, empty space, and now there’s a song. That’s an amazing gift.”
Remembering Jazz Legend Al Jarreau
Alwyn Lopez Jarreau was born March 12, 1940 in Milwaukee, and he grew up in a musical household.
“My mother was a piano teacher and church organist. My dad was a minister, and a singer,” Jarreau said in a 2012 invterview with All About Jazz. “My brothers were singing quartet music in the living room when I was four and five years old. They were singing … [scatting]…stuff like that, that’s what I wanted to be like. I wanted to be like my brothers, singing this jazzy music.”
His debut album, released in 1976, made an immediate splash in jazz circles. Mainstream pop success followed in 1981 with the album “Breaking Away,” which hit the Top 10 on the Billboard charts and spawned his biggest hit, the breezy “We’re in This Love Together,” and he was featured on the all-star 1985 song, “We Are the World.”