Kris Adams
Kris Adams is an acclaimed jazz vocalist, recording artist, and educator whose work bridges performance, pedagogy, and creative exploration. A longtime member of the Berklee College of Music faculty, she teaches voice, harmony, and music theory, with a particular focus on helping singers develop strong musicianship, rhythmic clarity, and improvisational fluency rooted in personal expression.
As a performer, Kris has appeared internationally in jazz and Latin jazz settings, collaborating with renowned musicians and presenting her own projects as a leader. Her artistry reflects a deep commitment to both tradition and innovation, drawing from the jazz lineage while encouraging fearless exploration and individual voice.
In addition to her performance career, Kris has led workshops, retreats, and clinics around the world, inspiring singers to connect mind, body, and sound. She is the author of Sing Your Way Through Theory, a widely used workbook that empowers contemporary singers to internalize theory through the voice. This approach reflects her core belief that deep musical understanding grows from embodied, expressive practice—where technique, creativity, and presence come together.
Kris currently teaches at Berklee and is author of the book “Sing Your Way Through Theory” (Hal Leonard).
Kris Adams Biography:
Full Biography | Short Biography
Creative works:
Away
We Should Have Danced
Longing
Weaver of Dreams
This Thing Called Love
Sing Your Way Through Theory
Reviews
Jon Garelick
Artfuse.org
Jazz, November 6, 2025
“Kris Adams & Peter Perfido, Away (Jazzbird) With two nominal “leaders” and no clear unifying theme, this album nonetheless comes off as satisfying and nourishing as a carefully planned, beautifully executed concert program. Drummer Perfido put this band together as a tribute to his late friend and colleague, guitarist Michael O’Neil, who died in 2016, recruiting singer Adams, pianist Bob Degen, and bassist André Buser.
It’s an odd mix: Dedicated to O’Neil, it includes nine of his compositions, two by Paul Motian, and one by guitarist Eric Schultz, who does not play on the album. Four of the vocal features are wordless. The two opening songs, by O’Neil (“Play,” “Here”), could have come out of musical theater; they don’t necessarily set you up for the gentle free-jazz turbulence and pulse that threads its way through the album.
But, as the album unfolds, it’s clear the unifying factor isn’t O’Neil or Motian, or even Adams as featured vocalist. It’s this band as a whole, fluid in every context, in which Adams is simply the lead horn, clear and bright whether delivering the lyrics with conversational directness or floating long-toned wordless lines in vocal numbers that include extended trio passages and one group improvisation (“Free One”). Two by O’Neil easily upend the expectation of those two openers: “No Ordinary Girl,” a textured character portrait using words and extended improvisation for voice and the trio, and the duo “Blessing” in which Buser’s uncommonly lyrical, singing electric bass lines are a perfect complement to Adams’s rendering of the simple, affecting lyrics.”
Jon Garelick
Artfuse.org
Jazz, January 27, 2019
“Singer Kris Adams’s foruth album (and first since Longing, in 2014, a stellar collaboration with trumpeter arranger/Greg Hopkins) is probably her most personal – a tribute to the late composer and Berklee professor Steve Prosser, to whom Adams (another Berklee teacher) was married for a couple of decades, and with whom she remained friends until his death, in 2012. On the new We Should Have Danced, Adams has collected music that Prosser wrote and set it with lyrics, some inspired by Prosser’s poetry. The results are lyrical, swinging, harmonically rich, and beautifully sung and played by Adams, pianist Tim Ray (who arranged), bassist Paul Del Nero, and flutist Fernando Brandão. That group will join Adams at the Lilypad.”
Chris Spector, Editor and Publisher, www.midwestrecord.com
“KRIS ADAMS/Longing: Not your usual fine voiced jazz thrush, Adams wraps her throat around the Great American songbook her way. That means she’s covering Steve Swallow, Ralph Towner, Abbey Lincoln and more that might just well be new to younger ears. Singing words as well as vocalese, her music almost comes across like a one woman playlet without the tortured artist effect in it’s wake. Delightfully ear opening stuff, Adams is loaded with the chops that make her stand out as can be heard on a stand out release like this. A winner throughout, try not to miss it because it’ll be your loss.”
Fred Bouchard, Downbeat Magazine
November 2014
“Blithe, airy Kris Adams rolls a bright set of heartfelt, gnarly linearities as post-bop arranger Greg Hopkins re-meters classics (“All Of You”, “One Upon A Summertime”, “Voce E Eu”) in daring charts that nimbly exercise 7-to 12-man Berklee-based ensembles. A superb scatter, Adams precisely navigates thrilling hairpin vocalise amid keen solos for Hopkins’ trumpet, agile pianist Tim Ray, bassist Fernando Huergo, flutist/engineer Bob Patton and altoist Shannon LeClaire.”
Jon Garelick
Scene & Heard-Best of Boston Music 2014
Boston Globe Arts Section, December 19, 2014
“The crystalline glow of Kris Adams’s singing, along with her technical assurance and emotional commitment, make this a standout vocal album, but the arrangements by her Berklee colleague Greg Hopkins put it over the top. Hopkins worked with Adams on seven of the 11 tracks, sometimes with as many as 10 pieces, including cello. The varied material ranges from Joni Mitchell’s “The Dawntreader” and Michel Legrand’s “Once Upon a Summertime” to Mary Lou Williams’s “What’s Your Story Morning Glory?,” a couple of pieces by the British singer Norma Winstone (including the title track), and Adams’s own lyric setting of Steve Swallow’s “Wrong Together.”
Jack Goodstein, www.blogcritics.org
“In Longing, her new album, vocalist Kris Adams demonstrates just what jazz singing is all about. She uses her instrument, her voice, in the same way a fine horn player uses his; she takes the song, explores it, and makes it her own. This is no mere lounge singer. This is a creative artist.”
Vittorio Lo Conte, www.musiczoom.it, Rome, Italy
“An impressive team with which Kris Adams singing one of the most interesting vocal albums of the moment, between tradition and look to the future, where nothing is predictable and obvious.”
Jerome Wilson, Cadence Magazine
“Kris Adams has a lovely, malleable voice that can either come out as a wistful sigh or sharpen into a piercing soprano sax wail . . . she has very impressive versatility.”
Scott Yanow, All Music Guide
“A very talented and subtle jazz singer . . . “
Frank-John Hadley, Down Beat Critic
“Adams voice is warmly inviting and projects a sense of believable drama when articulating the lyrics of standards.”
Bob Blumenthal, Jazz Critic
“Kris Adams takes rare natural gifts, a most pleasing voice and sure sense of time, and adds taste in material and a curiosity in conception that is central to jazz.”
Christopher Loudon, Jazz Times
“Kris Adams has a strong jazz sensibility . . . an easy, agreeable sense of swing and an obvious appreciation for everything from Ella’s scatting to Sheila Jordan’s intonation.”
Steve Starger, The Hartford Advocate
“Prosser’s rearrangements can snap like elastic bands or unravel like balls of twine . . . Right on the edge!”
Dave Nathan, All Music Guide
“Adams is not a typical songbird, but one who stretches herself, requiring listeners to open their ears. Those who do will find the rewards many and great!”
Bill Donaldson, Jazz Improv Magazine
“Kris Adams stakes her own claim as a singer to be reckoned with . . . she subtly gets into the melodies and the music itself.”
Dr. Herb Wong, The IAJE Journal
“An arresting CD with an interesting edge book ended by Watch What Happens and The ‘In’ Crowd underscores Kris Adams’ range of abilities, values, and attitudes as a genuinely ripened singer.”
