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Celebrated Jazz Vocalist

Rebecca Kilgore

January 7, 2026, in Portland, Oregon, of Lewy body dementia.

Jazz vocalist and musical arranger Rebecca “Becky” Kilgore was celebrated around the globe, yet her distinguished career was quietly launched from Reed. She first connected with Professor Richard Crandall ’69 [physics 1978–2012] through his band the Chameleons, and in 1981 he hired her to be secretary for his department (the precursor to IT).

Crandall was overseeing the initiative to bring desktop computing to campus; Becky brought good humor to the operation by day and lent her voice to musical groups by night. With encouragement from colleagues, at age 30 she took the leap into full-time performing, and returned to Reed to perform at the alumni holiday party in the late 1990s and early 2000s. It is a tall order to follow the boar’s head procession, but she graced the event with an effervescent flair that made her an audience favorite.

Around Portland, Becky was beloved as the vocal complement to pianist-composer Dave Frishberg in their twice-weekly gigs at the Heathman Hotel. She also played every week for more than 10 years at Jo Bar (sister restaurant to Papa Haydn), co-owned by Michael Gibbons ’84.

Described by the New York Times as distinctive for her “pure, elegant tone, impeccable swing style and adventurous musical taste,” Becky was praised by peers for her understated kindness, consummate preparedness, and playful sense of humor.

Becky’s repertoire was expansive, having been inspired by everyone from Joan Baez to Billie Holiday—and she maintained a versatility of style and skill by playing her own rhythm guitar in a swing quartet named Wholly Cats and in Beck-A-Roo, her own 1960s-style honky-tonk band.

Prolific in recording albums, Becky produced a couple of radio programs and had ongoing collaborations with artists far and wide, including guitarist Bucky Pizzarelli, trombonist Dan Barrett, jazz-ukulele player Lyle Ritz, and drummer Ron Steen. She appeared multiple times on Fresh Air with Terry Gross and performed as comfortably on A Prairie Home Companion as she did at Carnegie Hall, earning a diverse array of fans (including cartoonist Gary Larson, who invited her to sing “I’ll Be Seeing You” on the soundtrack of his 1994 animated special Tales from the Far Side).

In recent years, Becky kept up a full performance schedule, augmenting local gigs with international festivals and “jazz cruises.” “My desk is an absolute mess because of a huge stack of sheet music,” she said in a 2011 JazzTimes profile. “I’ll take one off the top and incorporate it into my repertoire and then add five more to the pile. My tombstone is going to read, ‘I can’t go yet—I haven’t learned all the songs!’”

On July 5, friends and fans gathered on the patio at Papa Haydn to celebrate Becky’s life. It was a perfect afternoon for the Randy Porter Trio and other local musicians to play and reminisce and honor a radiant voice. She is survived by her husband, trumpeter Dick Titterington.

Appeared in Reed magazine: Fall 2026

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