Veronica Nunn built a long career as a jazz vocalist after establishing herself on the New York scene in the late 1970s, during which time she appeared frequently alongside singer and composer Michael Franks. Critics have noted the imprint of Ella Fitzgerald, Carmen McRae, Sarah Vaughan, Abbey Lincoln, and Billie Holiday on her approach, yet Nunn has maintained that instrumentalists shaped her development at least as much as any vocalists. She has singled out tenor saxophonists John Coltrane, Hank Mobley, Lester Young, Ben Webster, and Gene Ammons as central influences and has credited pianist McCoy Tyner with further guiding her phrasing, observing that her work reflects “the horn players who had really warm tones.”
Although she spent decades based in New York, Nunn was born and raised in Little Rock, Arkansas. There she absorbed jazz alongside soul, funk, rock, blues, and gospel. After relocating to the city in 1978, she took a non-musical position at the Gimbels department store on the Upper East Side. Her entry into the jazz community came the following year when she encountered bandleader, tenor saxophonist, and singer George Walker, known professionally as Big Nick Nicholas, at the West Village club Sweet Basil. Nicholas, who had performed since the 1940s and had instructed Coltrane during the 1950s (an association Coltrane acknowledged by composing “Big Nick” in 1962), served as her mentor until his death in 1997 at age 75; he introduced her to vibraphonist Red Norvo, trombonist and guitarist Eddie Durham, and pianist Roger “Ram” Ramirez, the composer of the standard “Lover Man.”
Nunn performed regularly with Nicholas’s band throughout the 1980s. She received full scholarships to both the Juilliard School and Berklee College of Music yet declined them to pursue theology at Lehman College in the Bronx. She maintained an active performing schedule nonetheless, and in 1993 she began an extended collaboration with Franks, whose well-known compositions include “When Sly Calls (Don’t Touch That Phone),” “Rainy Night in Tokyo,” and “Popsicle Toes.” Franks engaged her for international tours and featured her in concerts worldwide. During the same decade she met pianist Travis Shook, whom she later married and with whom she has frequently worked. In 2000 she produced her first album, American Lullaby, issued on Shook’s Dead Horse Records label and featuring his piano work. Early in 2007 Dead Horse released her follow-up, Standard Delivery, again produced by Nunn and spotlighting Shook at the keyboard.
