Tamm E. Hunt has been an important force in the Baltimore jazz community, both as a singer and behind the scenes. She is the niece of jazz and blues singer Hannah Sylvester and Benny Clark (who owned a record company), and the daughter of K.D. Searcy, a tap dancer who danced at the Apollo Theater with Tip Tap & Toe. She grew up around music and, after hearing Dakota Staton‘s “The Late Late Show,” she knew early on that she wanted to sing jazz. Despite that, Hunt started out singing other styles of music. In her childhood she sang with a variety of R&B girl groups. She had some commercial success in the early ’80s singing disco, but then switched to jazz. Inspired by Betty Carter, Sarah Vaughan, and pianist Dorothy Donegan, Hunt sang with such notables as altoist Gary Bartz, tenor saxophonist Clifford Jordan, pianists Ronnie Matthews and Larry Willis, bassist Buster Williams, and drummer T.S. Monk, among others. She has performed throughout the U.S. in addition to Europe, Canada, and Japan. Hunt has thus far recorded one CD, Live @ Birdland, for her New Jazz Audience label. Hunt also founded the Harlem Jazz Foundation, and has written jazz education programs including Adopt a Kid 4 Jazz and Jazz 4 the Beginner. She starred and produced in the off-Broadway show Billie Holiday: The Legend, and appeared in a short dramatic film with Gary Bartz called A Jazz Story. In Baltimore, she has been the executive/artistic director of the Maryland Center for the Preservation of Jazz & Blues.