Mary Stallings Born August 16 1939 In San Francisco Is An American Jazz Vocalist. One Of The Gifted Swinging Vocalists In Jazz Spent Decades As A Local San Francisco Legend Before Reestablishing Her National Profile In The Mid-1990s. Her Voice Sturdy And Nonvirtuosic Has A Rich Low End Its Clearest Template Is Dinah Washington. And Above All It's A Jazz Voice Not An R&B Voice She's For Real. Perhaps The Best Jazz Singer Singing Today. -- New York Times