One of the most-gifted hard bop trumpeters of her generation, Ingrid Jensen was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, in 1967. After attending the Berklee College of Music in Boston, she toured Europe with the Vienna Art Orchestra's production Fe and Males; following the completion of the tour, she remained abroad, teaching jazz trumpet and becoming, at age 25, the youngest professor at Austria's Bruckner Conservatory. Jensen also toured with Lionel Hampton & His Golden Men of Jazz before returning to the U.S. in 1994, joining the big band DIVA; that same year, she also recorded her debut LP, the Enja label release Vernal Fields. An acolyte of Miles Davis, Art Farmer, and Woody Shaw, her second album, Here on Earth, appeared in 1997 and was followed two years later by Higher Grounds.