LISA BELL On stage Lisa Bell's CD release party for "Dare to Be" will be from 9 p.m. to midnight Saturday at Ciao Vino, 126 W. Mountain Ave. Information: 484-8466 or http://www.lisabellmusic.com/ Bell and members of her quartet, Crescendo, will be performing songs from the CD.

That will be the scene Saturday for Lisa Bell's CD release party at Ciao Vino.

Boulder native Bell, 36, is fulfilling her dream of recording jazz professionally with her first CD release, "Dare to Be..." a collection of 11 popular jazz standards done to different arrangements and one original song.

"I really picked that title because, at 36, I'm taking quite a chance," said Bell, a singer who performs on the album with a jazz quartet. "I'm daring to be a professional singer for the first time in my life.

"There are some standard jazz arrangements, but also cool jazz," she says of the work. "We've taken an innovative look at jazz standard."

It's a project 10 years in the making.

"I put that dream aside to have a family and start a business and just got into it again last August," Bell said.

Bell was offered a full scholarship right out of Fairview High School jazz choir to the University of Missouri at Kansas City. She spent eight years in music there, performing with musicians including Bobby McFerrin, Marilyn Maye and Ida McBeth. She also sang with numerous jazz ensembles during college and around town after receiving her Bachelor of Arts degree in vocal performance.

She moved back to Colorado in 1992 and started a public relations business and a family. With a portion of inheritance money from her father's estate, she recorded the first seven tracks on her first CD last August.

Since then, she has been singing her way right into the best jazz clubs in Colorado, including Denver's Sambuca Jazz Café, Boulder's Trios and Ciao Vino in Fort Collins.

"We have live jazz five nights a week," said Patrick Laguens, general manager for Ciao Vino. "We've been open for a year and seven months. That's quite a few bands I've heard. Lisa Bell ranks right up there with the top performers for sure. She's played for us a couple times and we're glad to have her back and glad she's having her CD release party here. I can always tell experience levels by how they play our room. Those who can't don't get asked back. We keep having her back, so that ought to say something."

The listener likely won't be able to tell "Dare to Be..." is the singer's first professional recording from the silky, jazzy confidence of her voice.

The official name for her band is Lisa Bell & Crescendo, with band members from different cities rounding out the jazz sound. Some of the popular jazz tunes include "That Old Black Magic," "They Can't Take That Away From Me" and "Skylark." In the original song, "What Can I Do," Bell was fortunate enough to land one of her inspirations, Nelson Rangell, to accompany her on soprano saxophone.

"He's a world-renowned saxophone player who happens to reside in Denver and that was just a pretty amazing thrill for me to be able to record with him and have him think the tune was good," Bell said. "Growing up, I had always listened to him. He gave me a pretty good independent person rate, starving artist rate, and was nice enough to come and record that. That was one of the highlights. It was a touching moment to have a really high- caliber musician come and play your song."

"The original keyboard player (Jon Glazer) who also wrote the original song with me, his background was very diverse -- pop and rock and country. So he brought a really unique ear and feel to the songs they were trying to do. What we pride ourselves on in the quartet is being unique and different. In the live show we do Joe Cocker to the Beatles to Frank Sinatra hits. ... We take a whole variety of music and make them jazz standards, or we take some rock and pop standards and make them more jazz."

For more information about local arts and entertainment, listen to Anna Maria Basquez's weekly radio report at 7:15 a.m. Fridays on KCOL (AM 600).

Originally published Friday, August 2, 2002