Carmela Rappazzo grew up in what she has described as "a rather large and crazy Sicilian family" in New York, with her father and five uncles all playing in swing bands. Music was the background and texture of daily life from her earliest years. She developed as a vocalist across multiple cities — New York, Los Angeles, New Mexico — absorbing big band experience, theatrical work, and singer-songwriter influences before eventually settling in New Orleans.
New Orleans gave Rappazzo both a collaborator and a musical direction. Her ongoing partnership with pianist and composer Oscar Rossignoli has been central to her output since moving to the city, and she has also become a sometime member of Paul Sanchez's Rolling Road Show, appearing with him at Jazz Fest and French Quarter Fest. Other New Orleans musicians who appear regularly in her work include bassist Martin Masakowski, drummer Doug Belote, and bassist Jasen Weaver.
Her sixth album, Howlin' at the Moon (2018), was the most explicitly New Orleans-inflected record of her career: a tribute to her adopted hometown, recorded at the Ellis Marsalis Center for Music and featuring local musicians including Paul Sanchez. Her seventh, Love and Other Difficulties (2021), recorded during COVID lockdown, explored the many faces of love through original songs, Cole Porter and Billy Strayhorn standards, and a cover of a Paul Sanchez song. Her eighth, Whispering (2023), continued the run of prolific original songwriting and earned strong reviews in OffBeat Magazine.
Her ninth album, simply titled 9 (2024), returns to the intimate, largely original territory of Whispering — this time built around an unusual ensemble of cello, piccolo trumpet, bass clarinet, and vibraphone rather than a conventional rhythm section. Paul Sanchez co-writes and sings on the duet "Too Much in Love," Glenn Hartman of the New Orleans Klezmer All Stars plays accordion, and the album includes covers of Spencer Bohren's "Travelin'" and Bob Dylan's "Simple Twist of Fate." OffBeat's Jay Mazza called it "a grown-up effort from a singer comfortable in her own skin," while Brett Milano placed her sound "somewhere between jazz and cabaret."
