“This is four-hundred-dollar-a-bottle jazz – no cheap imitation.” – Rolling Stone

Jazz vocalist Jackie Allen’s extraordinary talent has taken her on tours of Europe, Africa, South America and Asia. She has performed international music festivals in Detroit, Chicago, The Hague, Stuttgart, Edinburgh, Bologna, Beijing, Hong Kong, Thessaloniki, and Sao Paulo. Locally, Jackie was a recipient of the Lincoln Mayor’s Arts Award and was featured on A Prairie Home Companion where she gave Garrison Keillor a “voice lesson.”

Jackie has recorded 13 critically acclaimed CDs, most notably: Santa Baby, The Men In My Life, Love Is Blue, Tangled, Starry Night with orchestra, My Favorite Color (USAToday’s Top 10 List). More recently Jackie released Rose Fingered Dawn (2017), a collection of original songs by her bassist and husband, Hans Sturm. The 2019 concert Live at the Rococo was filmed for PBS and has been shown on over 40 PBS stations nationwide. The concert was released on CD and Blu Ray. Her most recent release, a voice/bass duo album, The Nebraska Project, recorded in Paris (2021) celebrates famous Nebraska musical artists.

"She hails from Nebraska but swings like a big city girl!"

A Hastings native, Susie Thorne was first inspired by the music of her childhood through her classically trained mother and her father, who played jazz trumpet as a sideman with baritone saxophonist Gerry Mulligan and vibraphonist Lionel Hampton, among others. “Music was a big part of my family, so we were always playing and singing something or other! But it was the melodies and rhythms of jazz that always drew me in!"

Susie studied piano performance and voice at the University of Colorado at Denver, and the University of Nebraska at Omaha where she has a BA in Jazz Performance. She will say she developed her craft on the road with six-night a week gigs and overseas tours. "I was fortunate to meet many other musicians in my travels, which was a great learning experience!". When asked about her unique vocal style, Susie said she draws inspiration from a myriad of styles including jazz, rhythm & blues and classic pop/rock; blending them all to create her own unique sound and arrangements. “I’ve been told I have a bluesy quality to my voice and don’t sound like anyone else they’ve heard. It's more a mix of everything I listened to growing up that comes out in my own personal style."