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Born and raised in Turin, Italy, to music-loving parents, Roberta Gambarini grew up listening to her father's record collection constantly. Her first vocal inspiration was Louis Armstrong, but she soon discovered Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Carmen McRae, and Billie Holiday, as well as blues artists like Mahalia Jackson and Bessie Smith. At age 12 she began playing the clarinet, but realizing the versatility and talents of her clear alto, she moved to voice, singing and performing in clubs by the time she was 17. 

In 1998 Gambarini received a scholarship to study for two years at the New England Conservatory in Boston, and soon after arriving she competed, and eventually finished third, in the prestigious Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition behind Teri Thornton and Jane Monheit. Though Gambarini did not receive a recording contract from this accomplishment (unlike Monheit), it did give her enough performing opportunities that she decided to leave Boston and move to New York, where she could focus better on her music and the scene. In 2006, after years of working and becoming a kind of cult favorite in the New York jazz world, though she was still rejected by every label she pitched her album to, Gambarini started Groovin' High in order to release her American debut, Easy to Love. A collection of standards, the record impressed critics enough to garner the singer a Grammy nomination for Best Jazz Vocal Album, alongside Diana Krall and Nancy Wilson, among others.

Roberta Gambarini - Easy to Love
01  Easy to Love
02  Only Trust Your Heart
03  Lover Man
04  On the Sunny Side of the Street
05  Porgy, I's Your Woman Now / I Loves You, Porgy
06  Lover Come Back to Me
07  Two Lonely People, The
08  Centerpiece
09  Guess I'll Hang My Tears Out to Dry - (with James Moody)
10  No More Blues
11  Smoke Get's In Your Eyes / All The Things You Are
12  Too Late Now
13  Mulyi-Colored Blue - (Bonus Track)
14  Monk's Prayer / Looking Back - (Bonus Track)