Featured on over 85 albums, including four as a leader, Gretchen received a Grammy Award nomination for Best Jazz Vocal Album for Live in NYC (2013) and a coveted 4.5 star review from Downbeat Magazine with the DVD hitting No. 1 on the iTunes best music video list.

The Lost and Found (2011) received more than 30 national and international awards, including the Downbeat Jazz Critics Poll No.1 Vocal Album of 2011 and iTunes Vocal Jazz Album of the Year. Her 2009 sophomore release, In a Dream, was Jazz Times Critics Poll Vocal Album of 2009 and hailed by Billboard as “the most alluring jazz vocal album of 2009.”

Gretchen returns after a six year focus on motherhood with Flor (2021); a project celebrating her love and admiration for Brazilian music. Flor weaves a new sonic texture of guitar, cello, and percussion/drums, exquisitely complementing the intensity and delicacies of Gretchen’s signature voice.

While each successive release revealed new dimensions of Parlato’s wide-ranging vision, the foundational sound she pioneered fifteen years earlier never stood still—it matured, deepened, and evolved alongside her collaborators. At the same time, the early promise of In a Dream and The Lost and Found was fully realized as those albums went on to profoundly influence a new generation of creative musicians. Her latest album, The Wise Ones inhabits that lineage with grace, luxuriating in the beauty of its origins while extending the canopy—adding fresh emotional layers, lived-in wisdom, and a quietly powerful sense of arrival.

Released in September 2026, via Edition Records, The Wise Ones reunites Gretchen Parlato with a core circle of collaborators from her earliest recordings, alongside fellow travelers from across her remarkable artistic journey. Robert Glasper, Gerald Clayton, and Mark Guiliana—each now firmly established among the most influential artists of their generation—return to the table, meeting Parlato on a shared plane, shaped by time, trust, and shared history.

“Gretchen Parlato is easily one of my favorite singers to collaborate with,” shares Glasper. “She understands, honors, and respects all the genres of music she touches. She’s not singing at it, she’s singing in it. It’s a rare thing to be able to cross over and get the attention of people in R&B music. That’s not something you really learn, that’s a gift that is given to you. Gretchen definitely has that gift.”

The Wise Ones feels both like a homecoming and a threshold. It is an album shaped by patience, trust, and a deep listening to time itself—one that honors the roots of Gretchen Parlato’s artistic voice while allowing new branches to reach outward with clarity and grace. “I have always been patient with my creativity, allowing the wave to come in due time,” Parlato reflects. “Looking back, I realize that everything has led to this. This moment used to be my future and will someday be my past. So, I want to hold it, suspend it, and make art of it.” With The Wise Ones, she does exactly that—capturing a rare moment of balance between reflection and possibility. The album stands as a pinnacle of decades of connection and growth, while opening the door to what comes next: “This album is a culmination,” she adds, “and also just the beginning of my next chapter.”