For those unaware, Stella Heath has many stories to tell. Since emerging on the Bay Area jazz scene in 2014, she’s become one of the busiest and most consistently captivating vocalists in the region. Her debut album, For Billie, flows out of one of her signature endeavors, The Billie Holiday Project.

Scheduled for release by Matterhorn Records on May 15th, 2026, it’s a gorgeous, consistently captivating album that illuminates the treacherous emotional terrain that Holiday navigated as a soul-bearing singer.

“Billie is one of those rare artists that hold up a mirror and reflect back the deep and complex emotions we all hold inside,” says Heath, who’s earned a devoted following with her lustrous voice, supple sense of swing, and wide-ranging command of a vast repertoire. A dedicated educator, she’s led a Gypsy jazz combo, created historically rooted shows focusing on the early music of the Nat “King” Cole Trio, Ella Fitzgerald, and Edith Piaf, and worked with many of the Bay Area’s finest improvisers.

1. Now Baby, Or Never
2. If You Were Mine
3. What A Little Moonlight Can Do
4. Crazy He Calls Me
5. You Let Me Down
6. Them There Eyes
7. These Tears (Are All I Have Of You)
8. Swing Brother Swing
9. Good Morning Heartache
10. Please Don’t Talk About Me When I’m Gone
11. No Regrets
12. Strange Fruit

Much like the gifted Billie Holiday herself, Stella’s voice is both unmistakable and soulful, vulnerable and brimming with emotion, all of which is showcased from the very off on the spirited Now Baby, Or Never and the languishing beauty of If You Were Mine, and then we get brought forth the low slung finger snapper, foot taping delights of What A Little Moonlight Can Do, the effortless affecting Crazy He Calls Me and both the dulcetly smooth You Let Me Down and the regimented stance of Them There Eyes.

Along next is the emotively infectious These Tears (Are All I Have Of You) and the aptly-entitled frenetically-controlled ambiance of Swing Brother Swing, and they are in turn backed seamlessly by the sheer elegance shown within Good Morning Heartache, the all-embracing Please Don’t Talk About Me When I’m Gone, the set rounding out on the perky and playful No Regrets, coming to a close on the resounding, aching blues-jazz of Strange Fruit.

A Sonoma County native, Heath grew up in Petaluma, raised by her mother, a passionate lover of music. She immersed her daughter in the sounds of Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald “and all kinds of different artists, the Buena Vista Social Club, Edith Piaf, Bob Dylan, Latin jazz and classical music,” Heath recalls.

She began singing in a choir and studying classical voice and piano at the age of 8. Participating in community theatre, musicals and operas, Heath performed around Sonoma, Marin, and San Francisco throughout her youth.

www.stellaheathmusic.com