Jula De Palma

Italian Jazz Singer and Performer

Italian singer (born April 21, 1932, Milano, Italia). Married to songwriter and arranger Carlo Lanzi. De Palma started to work in the early 1950s as a singer in radio next to pianist, composer and showman Lelio Luttazzi. In the early part of her career she preferred to sing french songs, but her powerful and sophisticated voice started to become famous thanks to her interpretations of many jazz classics: her albums Jula in jazz (1958), and Jula in jazz 2 (1959), contains songs as "I've Got You Under My Skin", "One for My Baby (and One More for the Road)" and "Blues in the Night". In 1959, De Palma sang in "Festival di Sanremo" and shocked the press and the audience because of her passionate performance of the song "Tua", considered "too sexy". Due to this fact she didn't appear on the national television (RAI) for a few years, but the attention of the public on her grew incredibly. In 1970 she wonderfully performed in a concert at the famous Sistina Theatre in Rome, in which she faced with her refined vocal abilities many jazz standard ("That Old Black Magic", "I Won't Dance" and "St. Louis Blues"), a bossa nova tune ("Desafinado") and a lot of great Italian songs, two of them made famous by Mina ("Bugiardo e incosciente" and "Non credere"). The recording of this successful performance was available on the long playing, Jula al Sistina. In 1974, after many years of success, she retired from music, and moved with her family to Canada. In 2001 she made a brief comeback on Italian television.