Basia

One of the most famous Polish emigres in the arts, Basia (née Barbara Trzetrzelewska) is a jazz/pop vocalist and songwriter with a devoted international audience. She got her start in the early 1980s with a popular U.K.-based light-jazz outfit called Matt Bianco, but by 1987 had gone solo, releasing her first album, TIME AND TIDE, to universal acclaim. The zeitgeist was right for sophisticated, Latin-flavored pop, and critics and audiences loved Basia's supple, four-octave voice and striking good looks. She continued to release albums into the 1990s, but retired from the music business in 1998.