For Zhao a crucial turning point came in 1997, when he met the late jazz vocal legend Betty Carter at an international jazz festival in Shanghai.

NPR: Singer Brings a Modern Sound to Chinese Jazz

Her folk- and jazz-tinged vocal affections garner comparisons to fellow Canadian Joni Mitchell.

NPR: The Way You Look at Feist, So She Appears to You

Even now, jazz musicians describe their art in vocal terms.

ECONOMIST: Jazz singers