Anne Ducros is a French jazz singer from the north of France who won the Victoires du Jazz vocal prize in 2002 and again in 2003, recorded with pianists such as Chick Corea, Jacky Terrasson and Enrico Pieranunzi on Piano, Piano, and has released ten albums under her own name between 1989 and 2023. She was born on December 1, 1959, in Longfossé, a village in the Pas-de-Calais, and trained at the conservatoire in Boulogne-sur-Mer, where her study of classical singing led her into baroque music (Couperin, Rameau, Bach) before she turned to jazz in the mid-1980s.

She began as a competition winner. In 1986 she took the prizes for best soloist and first vocalist at the Dunkerque jazz festival, and in 1989 she won first prize for soloist and vocalist at the Vienne jazz festival. Her first album, Don't You Take a Chance (1989), was made with a quartet of drums, keyboards, bass and guitar and includes "My Funny Valentine"; it was little distributed but was well received by press and public. She built a following in the Paris club circuit and on some international stages, often at the invitation of the pianist René Urtreger, and her official biography and English Wikipedia say she spent about ten years touring with musicians including Chick Corea, Jacky Terrasson and Kenny Barron; French Wikipedia adds a meeting with the bassist Ray Brown as a formative one. From 1992 to 2010 she was also teacher and director of studies at the Prélude school in Paris, described as the only school in the city devoted entirely to vocal jazz, and she has given workshops and master classes in other European countries, the United States and Japan.

The breakthrough came with the support of the violinist Didier Lockwood, another musician from the north, who made it possible for her to record Purple Songs for the Dreyfus label. Made with the pianist Gordon Beck, Lockwood on violin and trumpet, the bassist Sal La Rocca and the drummer Bruno Castellucci (Discogs gives the recording date as February 1999), it was issued in 2001. That year she received the Prix Billie-Holiday of the Académie du Jazz, and in 2002 the Django d'or; the Victoires du Jazz named her vocal artist of the year in 2002 and again in 2003. Close Your Eyes (Dreyfus Jazz, 2003), recorded at Studio Damiens in May 2002, widened her repertoire to songs by the Beatles, Carole King, Stevie Wonder, Serge Gainsbourg and Michel Legrand, and features the harmonica player Toots Thielemans on two tracks. Her cover of "Taking a Chance on Love" from that record was used in a 2005 Chanel perfume advertisement.

Piano, Piano (Dreyfus Jazz, 2005) paired her with five different pianists: Corea on three tracks, Pieranunzi on two, Terrasson on two, Urtreger on two and Benoît de Mesmay on three, with Sal La Rocca on bass and the saxophonist Bob Franceschini on two pieces; Ducros is also credited as music director and producer. It opened the way to prestigious stages in Japan and the United States, according to French Wikipedia. Urban Tribe (Dreyfus Jazz, 2007) was recorded in January 2007 at Bennett Studios in New Jersey with Dae Bennett, the son of Tony Bennett, as engineer, and with the saxophonist Ada Rovatti, the pianist Olivier Hutman, the bassist Essiet Okon Essiet and the drummer Bruce Cox; it entered the French top 50 sales chart at number 37. In 2008 she was a singing teacher on the eighth season of the television talent show Star Academy.

Ella... My Dear (Plus Loin Music, 2010), recorded in June 2009, is a tribute to Ella Fitzgerald with the 45-piece Coups de Vents Wind Orchestra conducted by Philippe Langlet, arrangements by the trumpeter Ivan Jullien (who also plays trumpet on the record), the pianist Jean-Pierre Como, Essiet and Cox, and the singer Dany Brillant as guest. It earned her a Globes de Cristal nomination for female performer of the year. Either Way... From Marilyn to Ella (Naïve, 2013), recorded in Brussels in January 2013, mixed Marilyn Monroe and Ella Fitzgerald repertoire with string arrangements, and on August 29, 2013 the Minister of Culture named her Chevalier de l'ordre national du Mérite.

Her later records are Brother? Brother! (2017), a self-released set of pop, chanson and standards arranged by the Italian composer and pianist Giuseppe Emmanuele and played with a youth symphony orchestra and guests including the saxophonist Lionel Belmondo; Something (Sunset Records, 2020), a trio record with the guitarist Adrien Moignard and the bassist Diego Imbert; and Anne Ducros fait son cinéma (2023), a collection of film themes, released on November 10, 2023, which the newspaper Les Échos listed among its favourite albums of the year. She is still performing: a Paris concert listing from February 2025 shows her as guest of the Laurent Epstein Trio.

Ducros is a wide-ranging jazz singer in whose scat singing the AllMusic reviewer Ken Dryden hears the influence of Ella Fitzgerald, to whom she dedicated one album and shared another. The reviewer Christopher Loudon of JazzTimes described her as part Blossom Dearie, part Annie Ross and part Yma Sumac, and Jack Goodstein, writing in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, called Either Way perhaps the finest album from a jazz vocalist he had heard that year. She sings in English and French. Her repertoire goes well beyond the standards of Piano, Piano and Ella... My Dear to Beatles, Carole King and Stevie Wonder songs, Gainsbourg, French chanson such as "La Bicyclette", "Déshabillez-moi" and "Clopin-Clopant", Brazilian pieces including "Samba Saravah", and in 2023 film music. Much of her work sits in the mainstream of vocal jazz, set in small-group, duo and big-ensemble formats, with a pop and chanson side that has brought a wider audience (the Chanel advertisement, a top-50 chart entry) without displacing the jazz core of her catalogue.