Lillian Boutté born 6 August 1949

 Lillian Boutté (August 6, 1949 – May 23, 2025) was a versatile American jazz and gospel singer who was capable of singing both New Orleans Dixieland standards and New Orleans R&B, as well as swing-era tunes and contemporary originals. 

Lillian Theresa Boutte’s career and influence stretched far beyond her hometown New Orleans. She started young, winning a vocal contest when she was 11, then joining the Golden Voices Choir, and went on to study opera performance at the Xavier University of Louisiana,  where she received a bachelor's degree in music therapy, meanwhile she was singing in clubs at the same time. During the 1970’s she worked as a session musician in New Orleans, performing and touring as a backup singer with Allen Toussaint, James Booker, Patti LaBelle, The Pointer Sisters, Neville Brothers, and Dr. John. 

What brought her first to national, and then international, fame was in 1979 playing multiple roles in the second New Orleans cast of the groundbreaking musical One Mo Time. After lengthy seasons in New Orleans, and then New York City, she toured with the production to Sweden and Brazil.  She became good friends with James Booker during her tenure in the cast. She recorded a gospel album with the Olympia Brass Band in 1980, and in 1982, made her first jazz album. After leaving the show in 1983 she assembled a band to tour overseas, and became a star performing in theaters and on television in Sweden, Germany, Poland, Italy, England, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Denmark.  

In 1984, she married her bands clarinetist and saxophonist Thomas L'Etienne. Their “Music Friends” ensemble toured internationally for many years, working both in Europe and back in the USA. Lillian’s talent was to connect immediately with an audience, whether in a tiny club or a vast concert hall. For more than three decades, she made her home abroad, performing and promoting the spirit of New Orleans music across international stages. Along the way, she helped bring countless fellow musicians with her, offering them opportunities to perform and grow beyond the city’s borders. 

                       Here's " You Send Me" from above album. 

                                   

Her music was rooted in New Orleans, but was not strictly traditional jazz, incorporating New Orleans music from gospel onward. She could belt out a vaudeville number with everyone clapping along, and, next moment, hush the crowd to silence with a ballad or spiritual as highlighted when she sang with pianist Sammy Price’s small group in an intimate studio theatre. In a 1986 interview with WWOZ, she said, "the people we entertain all over the world seem to like music, they don't try to characterize my music, they don't put it only as what some folks say 'Preservation Hall Music.' We play all of the music, we play the blues, we play the traditional jazz, we play many standard ballads, we play a little bit of boogie, we play soul, and a little bit of rock and roll." 

She returned often to New Orleans, and WWOZ broadcast many of her performances from the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, and the French Quarter Festival. In one performance in the French Market she shut down Decatur Street as her audience spilled out of Dutch Alley into the street.  

In 1986 she was named "New Orleans Musical Ambassador" by Mayor Ernest "Dutch" Morial, only the second person to hold that title after the city's first Ambassador, Louis Armstrong. The Price event was at the Ascona Jazz Festival in Switzerland, where from 1985-89 she was known as the “Queen of Ascona”, playing to some of the festival’s biggest crowds. In 1989, and a year or so later at the Barbican, she performed with US pianist Butch Thompson. 

She was a popular guest vocalist with Humphrey Lyttelton from the late 1980s. Through the years, Lillian Boutte recorded for many labels (mostly in Europe), including Herman, Feel the Jazz, High Society, Turning Point, Timeless, Southland, Storyville, GHB, Calligraph , Blues Beacon, and Dinosaur Entertainment. 

She continued performing until 2017, when she began suffering from dementia and Alzheimer’s. Part of the city’s famed Boutte musical lineage, Lillian was the older sister of singer John Boutte and related to many others in the family’s rich musical tradition. As her health declined, relatives brought her back to New Orleans in 2017 to care for her. She had been living in Hamburg, Germany for over 30 years. She died from the disease, on May 23, 2025, at the age of 75. 

(Edited from Wikipedia, AllMusic, Jazzwise & New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation)