Miriam Klein, Swiss Jazz Singer Known for Billie Holiday Tribute Lady Like, Dies at 89

Miriam Klein, the Swiss jazz singer who worked alongside American musicians including Dexter Gordon and Roy Eldridge, died on Oct. 2, 2026, in her hometown of Basel. She was 89. Her family announced the death, and the news was carried on Nov. 3 by the Swiss news agency Keystone-SDA, published in English by SWI swissinfo.ch, and by the German magazine Jazz thing.

Klein was born in Basel on March 27, 1937, into a Jewish family of modest means. According to the family biography cited by Keystone-SDA, her parents took in refugees during the Second World War who had crossed the Swiss border hidden under railway carriages. She began singing in Paris in the 1950s, where Jazz thing says she performed with saxophonist Don Byas, bassist Pierre Michelot and pianist Art Simmons. After studying music in Vienna, where Keystone-SDA reports she worked with pianist Joe Zawinul, she returned to Switzerland and from the 1960s sang in the bands of her then-husband, the trumpeter and guitarist Oscar Klein, who died in 2006.

Her international breakthrough came in 1973 with Lady Like, a tribute to her idol Billie Holiday. Jazz thing lists Dexter Gordon, Roy Eldridge and trombonist Slide Hampton among the musicians on the record. Appearances at the Montreux Jazz Festival followed, as did recordings in New York, including By Myself with pianist Roland Hanna and bassist George Mraz, according to Jazz thing, and tours with drummer Kenny Clarke. Keystone-SDA also names Billy Cobham and Mal Waldron among her collaborators and notes her work with the orchestra of what was then Swiss Radio DRS.

Both obituaries emphasize a singing style built on the text rather than display. Jazz thing writes that her voice was shaped less by virtuoso effects than by direct, lyric-centered interpretation. She made a late comeback in 2001 with My Marilyn, recorded with her son, saxophonist David Klein, which reworked songs from Marilyn Monroe films. In recent years she performed with her partner and musical collaborator, pianist and composer Christian Gutfleisch.

Klein ran her career for long stretches without a manager while raising four children, at times on her own. "In an industry dominated by men, both artistically and commercially, she made her mark as an independent musician and entrepreneur in her own right, without professional representation," David Klein wrote of his mother, as quoted by Keystone-SDA.

For listeners, Lady Like remains the natural entry point: a European singer's homage to Holiday made with musicians who had played in the same postwar jazz world, and a reminder of why Keystone-SDA describes her as a pioneer for women in a male-dominated European jazz world.