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Joyce Bryant, "the Bronze Blond Bombshell," never achieved Eartha Kitt or Lena Horne popularity, but the supper club chanteuse is still fondly remembered. The four octave singer, aka the black Marilyn Monroe, "the Voice You'll Always Remember," and "the Belter," was born in Oakland, CA, but raised in San Francisco (the oldest of eight children). She moved to Los Angeles to live with cousins when she was in her late teens. The move came after a disastrous marriage; she eloped at the age of 14 but the marriage ended on the wedding night without consummation. Her father was a carousing railroad chef who only came home long enough to impregnate his wife, a devout Seventh-Day Adventist. An impromptu singalong in a Los Angeles club in the late '40s was Bryant's first public performance. From there, she picked up other gigs and built a strong reputation. Her act was outrageously sexy; she wore provocative, tight, backless, cleavage-revealing mermaid dresses that left little to the imagination and they were so tight, she had to be carried off-stage. Supposedly, Bryant twisted so much she lost four pounds a performance. Bryant's hair was naturally black, but not wanting to be upstaged by Josephine Baker at a club, she doused it with silver radiator paint, slithered into a tight silver dress and voila: the Bronze Blond Bombshell and even Baker was impressed. The gimmick and Bryant's elastic voice elevated the singer to heavyweight status; she earned as much as $3500 dollars a gig and $150,000 dollars a year in the early 1950s. She was called one of the most beautiful black women in the world and regularly appeared in Black magazines such as Jet. And a Life magazine layout in 1953 depicted the sexy singer in provocative poses. She recorded a series of 78s for OKeh Records with the Joe Reisman Orchestra around 1952 that includes "It's Only Human," "Go Where You Go," "A Shoulder to Weep On," "After You've Gone," and "Farewell to Love." Two recordings, "Love for Sale" and "Drunk With Love," were banned from radio play. As meteoric as her career took off, it landed even faster. The paint damaged her hair and, raised to fear God, she started having second thoughts about her image. She disliked working on the Sabbath and hated the clubs and the men (often gangsters) who frequented them, lusting after her body. She was once beaten in her dressing room for refusing an admirer's advances. Years later, she told Essence magazine that she never enjoyed her career. She wanted to quit earlier, but couldn't because of nefarious managers and prior commitments. She found solace in pills. Pills for sleeping and pills for energy. The first phase of her career ended in 1955 when she denounced it for the church. Despite problems with the IRS (she owed $60,000), she enrolled in a Seventh-Day Adventist College in Alabama and later became an evangelist. She returned to entertaining in the '60s, finding work with touring foreign opera companies. She returned to the rocky club scene and sang on cruise ships; this time without the theatrics, blond hair, and tight dresses. Bryant was honored at the Arlington County Library in Arlington, VA, during Black History Month at an event hosted by jazz historian and WPFW radio host Jim Beyers (who calls her the Lost Diva). Joyce Bryant's site: www.joycebryant.net/ From her site: "Dear Fans: It is with a heavy heart that I relay that Joyce Bryant's family informed me of her transition on Sunday, November 20, 2022 at the age of 95. She passed peacefully at home surrounded by her loving family." Sources: Joyce Bryant by Andrew Hamilton from All Music Guide; James J. Kriegsmann, Photographer

Believed to be the only photograph of the two jazz legends together. Sinatra's take on Billie .... "she was and still remains the greatest single musical influence on me." Source: Avalon Archives, Lady Day: The Many Face of Billie Holiday by Robert O' Meally.

Eric Dolphy (1928 - 1964), was one of several groundbreaking jazz alto players to rise to prominence in the 1960s. He was also the first important bass clarinet soloist in jazz, and among the earliest significant flute soloists; he is arguably the greatest jazz improviser on either instrument. On early recordings, he occasionally played traditional B-flat soprano clarinet. His improvisational style was characterized by a near volcanic flow of ideas, utilizing wide intervals based largely on the 12-tone scale, in addition to using an array of animal-like effects which almost made his instruments speak. Although Dolphy's work is sometimes classified as free jazz, his compositions and solos had a logic uncharacteristic of many other free jazz musicians of the day; even as such, he was definitively avant-garde. In the years after his death his music was more aptly described as being “too out to be in and too in to be out.” Dolphy was born in Los Angeles and was educated at Los Angeles City College. He performed locally for several years, most notably as a member of the big band led by Roy Porter. Dolphy finally had his big break as a member of Chico Hamilton's quintet, with Hamilton he became known to a wider audience and was able to tour extensively through 1958, when he parted ways with Hamilton and moved to New York City. Dolphy wasted little time upon settling in New York City, quickly forming several fruitful musical partnerships, the two most important ones being with jazz legends Charles Mingus and John Coltrane, musicians he'd known for several years. While his formal musical collaboration with Coltrane was short (less than a year between 1961-62), his association with Mingus continued intermittently from 1959 until Dolphy's death in 1964. Dolphy was held in the highest regard by both musicians - Mingus considered Dolphy to be his most talented interpreter and Coltrane thought him his only musical equal. Coltrane had gained an audience and critical notice with Miles Davis's quintet. Although Coltrane's quintets with Dolphy (including the Village Vanguard and Africa/Brass sessions) are now legendary, they provoked Down Beat magazine to brand Coltrane and Dolphy's music as 'anti-jazz.' Coltrane later said of this criticism “they made it appear that we didn't even know the first thing about music ... it hurt me to see (Dolphy) get hurt in this thing.” The initial release of Coltrane's stay at the Vanguard selected three tracks, only one of which featured Dolphy. After being issued haphazardly over the next 30 years, a comprehensive box set featuring all of the recorded music from the Vanguard was released by Impulse! in 1997. The Complete 1961 Village Vanguard Recordings carried over 15 tracks featuring Dolphy on alto saxophone and bass clarinet, adding a new dimension to these already classic recordings. A later Pablo box set from Coltrane's European tours of the early 1960s collected more recordings with Dolphy for the buying public. During this period, Dolphy also played in a number of challenging settings, notably in key recordings by Ornette Coleman (Free Jazz: A Collective Improvisation), Oliver Nelson (The Blues and the Abstract Truth) and George Russell (Ezz-thetic), but also with Gunther Schuller and Max Roach among others. Dolphy's recording career as a leader began with the Prestige label. His association with the label spanned across 13 albums recorded from April 1960 to September 1961, though he was not the leader for all of the sessions. Prestige eventually released a nine-CD box set containing all of Dolphy's recorded output for the label. Dolphy's first two albums as leader were Outward Bound and Out There. The first is more accessible and rooted in the style of bop than some later releases, but it still offered up challenging performances, which at least partly accounts for the record label's choice to include “out” in the title. Out There is closer to the third stream music which would also form part of Dolphy's legacy, and reminiscent also of the instrumentation of the Hamilton group with Ron Carter on cello. Far Cry was also recorded for Prestige in 1960 and represented his first pairing with trumpeter Booker Little, a like-minded spirit with whom he would go on to make a set of legendary live recordings (At the Five Spot) before Little's tragic death at the age of 23. Dolphy would record several unaccompanied cuts on saxophone, which at the time had been done only by Coleman Hawkins and Sonny Rollins before him. The album Far Cry contains one of his more memorable performances on the Gross-Lawrence standard Tenderly on alto saxophone, but it was his subsequent tour of Europe that quickly set high standards for solo performance with his exhilarating bass clarinet renditions of Billie Holiday's God Bless The Child. Numerous recordings were made of live performances by Dolphy, and these have been issued by many sometimes dubious record labels, drifting in and out of print ever since. 20th century classical music also played a significant role in Dolphy's musical career, having performed and recorded Edgard Varèse's Density 21.5 for solo flute as well as other classical works, and participated heavily in the Third Stream efforts of the 1960s. In July 1963, Dolphy and producer Alan Douglas arranged recording sessions for which his sidemen were among the leading emerging musicians of the day. The results were his Iron Man and Conversations LPs. In 1964, Dolphy signed with the legendary Blue Note label and recorded Out to Lunch (once again, the label insisted on using “out” in the title). This album was deeply rooted in the avant garde, and Dolphy's solos are as dissonant and unpredictable as anything he ever recorded. Out to Lunch is often regarded not only as Dolphy's finest album, but also as one of the greatest jazz recordings ever made. After Out to Lunch and an appearance as a sideman on Andrew Hill's Point of Departure, Dolphy left to tour Europe with Charles Mingus' sextet (one of Mingus' most underrated bands and without a doubt one of the most exciting) in early 1964. From there he intended to settle in Europe with his fiancée, who was working on the ballet scene in Paris. After leaving Mingus, he performed with and recorded a few sides with various European bands and was preparing to join Albert Ayler for a recording. On the evening of June 28, 1964, Dolphy collapsed on the streets of Berlin and was brought to a hospital. The attending hospital physicians, who had no idea that Dolphy was a diabetic, thought that he (like so many other jazz musicians) had overdosed on drugs, so they left him to lie in a hospital bed until the “drugs” had run their course. The notes to the Prestige nine-disc set say he “collapsed in his hotel room and when brought to the hospital he was diagnosed as being in a diabetic coma. After being administered a shot of insulin (apparently a type stronger than what was then available in the US) he lapsed into insulin shock and died.” Dolphy would die the next day in a diabetic coma, leaving a short but tremendous legacy in the jazz world, which was immediately honored with his induction into the Down Beat magazine Hall of Fame that same year. Coltrane paid tribute to Dolphy in an interview: “Whatever I'd say would be an understatement. I can only say my life was made much better by knowing him. He was one of the greatest people I've ever known, as a man, a friend, and a musician.” Dolphy posthumously became an inductee of the Down Beat Jazz Hall of Fame in 1964. Sources: All About Jazz; Photographer, Charles 'Chuck' Stewart

She was born Ernestine Letitia Allen, on November 11, 1920, in Champaign, Illinois. Rhythm & blues in the 1950s was mostly a male affair, but there were a few talented and determined women who made their marks as singers and musicians during this decade. One of the first to do so was Annisteen Allen, a jazz-tinged blues singer born in Illinois and raised in Toledo, Ohio. She was a big-band singer in the style of Ella Fitzgerald when she was hired in 1945 to work with the band of Lucky Millinder, upon the recommendation of Louis Jordan. Millinder was a native of Anniston, Alabama, and changed her name from Ernestine to Annisteen Allen. The moniker stuck, and it was not until Allen's final recording session in 1961 that she used her real name on a record. Allen made her recording debut in December 1945 for King's subsidiary label Queen, backed by Millinder band mates Bull Moose Jackson, Hal Singer and Panama Francis. As Millinder was formally contracted to Decca, the 1945-46 Queen recordings were a clandestine affair, credited to "Annisteen Allen And Her Home Town Boys" and "Bull Moose Jackson & His Band". In February 1946 she did her first official session for Decca ; her Decca recordings were all credited to Lucky Millinder and his orchestra and included "Let It Roll," which Annisteen performed in the movie "Boarding House Blues" (1948), her only film appearance. In 1949 Millinder left Decca for RCA and scored a hit for that label in early 1951 (# 8 R&B) with a cover of "I'll Never Be Free" (a big hit in 1950 for several artists). The Millinder version featured a duet of Annisteen and Big John Greer. Another duet, later in 1951, was an even bigger hit : " I'm Waiting Just For You." This time the duet partner was John Carol, but the label credit went again to Lucky Millinder. By this time Allen had already started a solo recording career, on King's Federal subsidiary, one of the first artists to record for that label. Her first two Federal singles both coupled a fine up-tempo jump blues ("Lies, Lies, Lies", "Hard To Get Along") with a blues ballad ("Cloudy Day Blues", "Too Long"). In 1953 she was transferred to the parent label and scored the only hit under her own name, "Baby I'm Doin' It," an answer song to the '5' Royales' "Baby Don't Do It", an R&B chart topper. The differences between the two songs were so minimal that the publisher of "Baby Don't Do It", Bess Music, sued King for copyright infringement. The legal costs were subtracted from Allen's royalties. Annisteen continued to tour and record with the Millinder band through 1954, consolidating her status as a powerful R&B singer. In the summer of 1954 King did not renew her contract and she signed with Capitol. Her second session for that label, in November 1954, yielded what is probably her best known song, "Fujiyama Mama" (written by 14-year old Jack Hammer, then still operating under his real name, Earl Burrows). Annisteen's version inexplicably failed to chart. Covers by Eileen Barton on Coral (1955) and Wanda Jackson, also on Capitol (1957), hardly fared better, but the song has become a rock n roll classic nevertheless. Altogether, Allen recorded 11 songs for Capitol in 1954-55. Disappointed by the lack of success, she went back to Decca in 1956. In July 1957 she recorded her most rocking song, "Rough Lover" (recently included on the "Classy Sugar" 3-CD set devoted to New York rock n roll), but still without any effect on the charts. In 1959-60 there followed one-off releases on Todd (a remake of "Let It Roll"), Warwick and Wig. Her swan song on record was a jazz LP for the Tru-Sound label ("Let It Roll", 1961), with the King Curtis band. It was her only album, for which she reverted back to her original name, Ernestine Allen. She left show business shortly after and disappeared into obscurity. Ms. Allen died of a heart attack at her apartment in Harlem in 1992, aged 71. It's not easy to understand why she didn't enjoy the chart success of, say, Ruth Brown and LaVern Baker. As a singer she was at least their equal and the accompaniment came usually from the same top New York session men (Mickey Baker, Sam Taylor, Lloyd Trotman, etc.). Dave Penny writes, "She may have been perceived as a touch more jazzy and for some reason she certainly didn't appeal to the early rock 'n' roll crowd in the way that the Atlantic artists did." "This Is My Story" by Dik de Heer, photo courtesy of Paul Ressler Allen performing with the Lucky Millinder Band (1948) Let It Roll www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWC6dspuzNc

She was known as Queen of the Boogie and the Empress of the Torch Blues . Born Hadda Riah Hopgood (1916 - 2002), to fairly affluent parents in Boyle Heights, a subdivision of Los Angeles. Her mother was a doctor -- a rarity for a black women in the early 1900s and her father was one of the first African Americans to be named a deputy sheriff. Brooks mercifully was spared the horrible racism that so many African Americans endured during that time. However, The Independent quoted her as once saying of her father, "People thought he was white. I took his color mostly, and my sister's a little darker, like my mother. It wasn't until folks saw him taking us out for walks that they started wondering what color he was." The Hopgoods had emigrated from Georgia where Brooks' grandfather, Samuel Alexander Hopgood, had worked as a Pullman porter and had managed to save enough money to buy land in California. The house Brooks was raised in was built by her grandfather. Brooks told Offbeat, "My grandfather was a big influence on me." He introduced Brooks to classical music and opera at an early age and took Brooks and her sister to musicals and concerts. "We had a tall standup RCA Victor Victrola and my grandfather had the records and used to bring them out every Saturday after we finished dinner," Brooks recalled in an interview. By the age of four, Brooks decided she wanted to play piano and begged her father for lessons, however, her prospective teacher told her she'd have to wait until her hands could span an octave, or eight keys. "She showed me how I could reach an octave by stretching my hands on the piano and finally in a week's time I got an octave, barely, and she took me," Brooks recalled to Offbeat. Her musical abilities landed her a spot at Los Angeles's Polytechnic High School, a school for aspiring musicians. Following graduation she attended Northwestern University in Chicago and then returned home to Chapman College in California, where she continued her musical training. Brooks first professional employment was as a piano player for the Willie Covan Dance Studio in Los Angeles. She earned $10 a week. "I thought that was a lot of money because I had never worked in my life," she told Offbeat. She was soon tinkling the ivories for students who included Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, and Shirley Temple. Through the studio's owner she met Earl "Shug" Morrison, a member of the Harlem Globetrotters and in 1941 they were married. However, a year later Morrison died suddenly of pneumonia at the age of 21. Brooks would never remarry. Though she had trained as a musician, Brooks was not actively seeking a career as a performer. Nonetheless, a career found her. In 1945 she was browsing through a music store and began playing one of the pianos, trying to nail down a boogie sound. "There was a man standing near me while I was playing, and he asked me if I could do a boogie. I said, 'Well, I'm trying.' And he said, 'I'll give you a week. If you can work up a boogie, I'll record it. I have $800, and if it goes, then we're in business. If it doesn't go, I've lost $800,'" the Los Angeles Times quoted Brooks as saying. That man was jukebox repairman Jules Bihari. A week later, Brooks had written a boogie for piano and true to his word, Bihari recorded it. Thus, Modern Records was launched. With World War II just over, the country was in the mood for something fun and boogie music was it. Brooks' first recording "Swingin' the Boogie" was an instant hit. She dropped Hopgood and adopted the stage name Brooks and began churning out records. She soon earned the title of "Queen of the Boogie." "I was making on the order of three boogie recordings a month," she told Offbeat. Over the next five years, Modern would release more than 60 of Brooks' recordings. In the process the record company became the West Coast's premier R&B label, signing artists such as B.B. King and Etta James. Meanwhile, Bihari and Brooks began a love affair that lasted many years. In many interviews she referred to him as "the love of her life." Brooks became a regular on the club circuit and performed with big names such as Artie Shaw and the Count Basie Orchestra. At the time she was performing strictly as a pianist. However, after a 1947 performance, band leader Charlie Barnett asked her what she would do if she was asked for an encore. When she replied "another boogie," he suggested that she sing. She tried to protest saying she wasn't a singer, but according to The Times, Barnett told her to "fake it." On her next foray onto the stage she sang "You Won't Let Me Go." The fans went wild and the song promptly became her first vocal recording. "Hadda had a throaty, gritty voice that had a seductive, after-hours quality," record producer Lester Sill told The Times. Her voice made hits out of the songs "That's My Desire," "Trust in Me," and "Dream," and soon she had a new nickname, "The Empress of the Torch Blues." In 1947 Brooks made her film debut as a nightclub singer in the comedy 'Out of the Blue'. The film was forgettable but the title song became a top ten hit for Brooks. In 1950 Brooks beat out Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan to appear in the Humphrey Bogart film, 'In a Lonely Place'. In the film she sang "I Hadn't Anyone 'Til You" as Bogart looked on. She recalled to Los Angeles Magazine that Bogie intervened with a studio mogul who "kept asking me to play the song this way, play it that way. Finally, Bogart said, 'Why don't you let her play it the way she wants?'" She also appeared as a singer in 'The Bad and the Beautiful' starring Kirk Douglas and Lana Turner. Brooks' sultry singing style combined with her stunning looks made her a hot property in Los Angeles and in 1951 she became the first African-American woman to have her own weekly television show. The Hadda Brooks Show was a typical low-budget local production. "They sat me at the grand piano and opened up the top," Brooks told the Los Angeles Times. "They had this great big ceramic ashtray--because I was smoking at the time--and they opened the show with a close-up on a cigarette in the ashtray, and then came in on my face. They pointed to me, and I sang maybe eight bars of 'That's My Desire.' From that point, I was on my own. That was the whole format." When her records stopped topping the charts, Brooks left Modern--despite her relationship with Bihari--and signed with Columbia's OKeh label in 1952. She also recorded briefly for London Records. She found little success at either label and returned to Modern in 1956. She and Bihari teamed up in 1957 to record her full-length album Femme Fatale. Meanwhile she toured around the world including a performance for the Queen of England and a private audience with Pope Pius XII. She also traveled with the Harlem Globetrotters, performing for half-time audiences. By the 1960s she had become fed up with America's growing appetite for raucous rock-and-roll. "I couldn't keep an audience of 25 quiet," she told Los Angeles Magazine. After a stint in Hawaii, Brooks emigrated to Australia. There she found success with another television show, "In Melbourne Tonight," and kept up an active performing schedule. In 1971 Brooks returned to Los Angeles and retired. With a well deserved retirement after a nearly 30-year long career. However, Brooks was set to make a comeback. "I've always said I'd keep performing until the day that I can't walk to the piano unassisted," she told The Clarion-Ledger. In 1987 she was coaxed out of retirement to perform at a high-profile restaurant opening. Los Angeles's newest crop of clubsters were immediately seduced by her still strong, sultry-as-ever voice. With the reemergence of lounge music as the preferred sound of the terminally hip, Brooks became a star once again. Of her new young fans, Brooks was enamored, claiming they kept her young. "It's like a second chance," she told the Los Angeles Times. "And I'm very happy about it, because I am not going to be wheeled up to a piano to sing to people who are 60 and 80 years old." In 1989 she performed a series of shows in New York City prompting a New York Times music critic to write, "Her voice, velvety and drenched with an after-hours smokiness, is familiar with deep emotions." During performances, she toyed with the audiences, relishing the raised eyebrows she'd get when she'd croon numbers such as "You Can't Tell the Difference After Dark." After nearly half a century of performing, it was obvious that Brooks had only gotten better. The Smithsonian's Rhythm and Blues Foundation agreed and in 1993 inducted her into its Hall of Fame and awarded her its Pioneer Award. In 1994 she was back in the studio recording the album Anytime, Anyplace, Anywhere. The following year she performed the title track for the film The Crossing Guard starring Jack Nicholson. She also became a regular performer at Johnny Depp's Hollywood hot spot The Viper Room. In 1995, exactly 50 years after making her first recording with Modern, she returned full-circle by signing with Virgin, the mega-label that had acquired Modern. In 1996 she released 'Time Was When', a CD of new recordings, and in 1998, I've Got News For You, a double-CD retrospective of her work. In 1999 Brooks appeared back on the big screen as a singer in 'The Thirteenth Floor' and in 2000, she had her first speaking part in 'John John in the Sky.' Brooks continued to perform to packed audiences and music festivals throughout the country right up until her death on November 21, 2002. Her last performances were two month's earlier at a Los Angeles club. "She played three or four weekends in a row," the manager told the Los Angeles Times. "It was packed every night she played, and the crowd would go wild. This was a woman who knew how to work the crowd." In 2007, a 72-minute documentary, Queen of the Boogie, directed by Austin Young & Barry Pett, was presented at the Los Angeles Silver Lake Film Festival. Her most famous songs: Swingin' the Boogie, That's My Desire, Romance in the Dark, Don't Take Your Love From Me, and Say It with a Kiss. Sources: Answers.com, Black Biography: Hadda Hopper; "I've Got News For You."

Born on March 27, 1924, in Newark, New Jersey, Sarah Vaughan grew up with a love of music and performing. Winning a talent competition held at Harlem's Apollo Theater launched her singing career. She worked with bandleaders Earl Hines and Billy Eckstine before becoming a successful solo performer who commingled pop and jazz. At age 66, Vaughan died in Hidden Hills, California, on April 3, 1990. Sarah Lois Vaughan was born in Newark, New Jersey, on March 27, 1924. Outside of their regular jobs—as a carpenter and as a laundress—her parents were also musicians. Growing up in Newark, a young Sarah Vaughan studied the piano and organ, and her voice could be heard as a soloist at Mount Zion Baptist Church. Vaughan's first step toward becoming a professional singer was taken at a talent contest held at Harlem's Apollo Theater, where many African-American music legends made their name. After being dared to enter, she won the 1942 competition with her rendition of "Body and Soul." She also caught the attention of another vocalist, Billy Eckstine, who persuaded Earl Hines to hire Vaughan to sing with his orchestra. In 1944, Vaughan left Hines to join Eckstine's new band. Also working with Eckstine were trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie and saxophonist Charlie Parker, who introduced the group to a new form of jazz, known as bebop. An inspired Vaughan brought bebop into her singing, which can be heard in the 1945 recording of "Lover Man" that she made with Parker and Gillespie. After performing with Eckstine's orchestra for a year, Vaughan briefly worked with John Kirby before leaving big bands behind to become a solo artist (though she often reunited with Eckstine for duets). Having already been given the nickname "Sassy" as a commentary on her onstage style, it was while striking out on her own that she was dubbed "The Divine One" by a DJ in Chicago. In the late 1940s, her popular recordings included "If You Could See Me Now" and "It's Magic." The next decade saw Vaughan produce more pop music, though when she joined Mercury Records she also recorded jazz numbers on a subsidiary label, EmArcy. She sang hits like "Whatever Lola Wants" (1955), "Misty" (1957) and "Broken-Hearted Melody" (1959), which sold more than a million copies. Vaughan gave concerts in the United States and Europe, and her singing was also heard in films such as Disc Jockey (1951) and Basin Street Revue (1956). After the 1950s, shifting musical tastes meant that Vaughan no longer produced huge hits. However, she remained a popular performer, particularly when she sang live. In front of an audience, her emotional, vibrato-rich delivery, three-octave vocal range and captivating scat technique were even more appealing. Though her voice took on a deeper pitch as Vaughan got older—likely due in part her smoking habit—this didn't impact the quality of her singing, as could be heard on "Send in the Clowns," a staple in her repertoire. Vaughan's later recordings include interpretations of Beatles songs and Brazilian music. Over the years, she collaborated with people like producer Quincy Jones, pianist Oscar Peterson and conductor Michael Tilson Thomas. Vaughan won her first Grammy thanks to her work with Thomas and the Los Angeles Philharmonic on Gershwin Live! (1982). Vaughan's final concert was given at New York's Blue Note Club in 1989. She passed away from lung cancer on April 3, 1990, at age 66, in Hidden Hills, a suburb of Los Angeles, California. Married and divorced four times, she was survived by her adopted daughter. Throughout her career, Vaughan was recognized as a supremely gifted singer and performer. She was invited to perform at the White House and at venues like Carnegie Hall, was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Grammy in 1989 and was selected to join the Jazz Hall of Fame in 1990. She also received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. bio.com; Star-Ledger File Photo

Ms. Baker was the first black artist to file a legal grievance against white artists who produced pop covers of their hits. LaVern Baker was born Delores Williams on November 11, 1929, in Chicago. Her aunt was the classic blues vocalist Memphis Minnie, and she began to sing with friends at an early age. The raw power in her voice, as it did for so many other African American singers, came from gospel; Baker joined the choir at her Baptist church at the age of 12. By her late teens, she was singing blues and pop in Chicago nightclubs. She had a separate alias for each of the two images she wanted to project; for the down-home crowds recently arrived in Chicago, she took the name of Little Miss Sharecropper, while for other club dates she used the name Bea Baker. The name might have been derived from Memphis Minnie's real name, Merline Baker. After two flops, success finally came around a silly bit of fluff called "Tweedle Dee," somehow turned into something special by that fiery, sexy voice. 14 R&B chart hits followed, but success on the pop charts was harder to come by, thanks largely to competing label Mercury, who hired white singer Georgia Gibbs to cover her songs for the pop market. This so infuriated Baker that she petitioned the U.S. Congress to pass laws making an arrangement as legally untouchable as a composition. She lost that fight, but it set an important precedent. In later years while traveling to entertain the troops in Vietnam in the late Sixties, Baker contracted pneumonia and was rushed to the military's Subic Bay hospital in the Philippines. Baker ended up living on the islands for twenty years, working as entertainment director for the Marines nightclub there. It wasn't until the late Eighties, spurred on by the Rhythm and Blues Foundation's efforts, that LaVern returned to America, working on the Dick Tracy soundtrack, appearing on Broadway, and cutting new blues-oriented records for her fan base. Towards the end of her life, she suffered from diabetes and a series of strokes. The diabetes ended up claiming both her legs. But Lavern performed to the end, impressing crowds of fans with her exuberance, even when singing from a wheelchair. But diabetes is a persistent disease, and the wonderful, booming, gospel-tinged voice of Lavern Baker was silenced on March 10, 1997, a tragic loss to the world of music. Source: Rolling Stones Magazines 30th Anniversary Edition (Nov. 1997)

Mr. Byrd hones his his skills on the subway en route to a Manhattan session. Born in Detroit in 1932, his studies at Wayne State University (1954) were interrupted by military service, during which he played in an Air Force band. He then attended the Manhattan School of Music (MA in music education). At the same time he was the favorite studio trumpeter of the bop label Prestige (1956-58), though he also recorded frequently for Riverside and Blue Note. He gave performances with George Wallington (1955), Art Blakey (1956), and along with Gigi Gryce was a member of the Jazz Lab Quintet (1957). He also performed with Max Roach, Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane, and others, before settling into a partnership with Pepper Adams (1958-61). After studying composition in Europe (1963-63) Byrd began a career in black music education, teaching at Rutgers, the Hampton Institute, Howard University, and (after receiving a law degree, 1976) North Carolina Central University; in 1982 he was awarded a doctorate by Columbia Teachers College. He married his wife Lorraine Glover in 1955. Following the death of Clifford Brown in 1956, Byrd was for a few years arguably the finest hard-bop trumpeter. He had not only a masterful technique, displayed on all his albums from this period, but also a beautiful tone. He resumed playing in the 1970s and made several pleasant recordings in a jazz-rock style. His best-selling album Black Byrd led to the formation of his students into the Blackbyrds, a hit group of the mid-1970s. Byrd died February 4, 2013 at a hospital in Delaware, he was 80 years old. Source: The New Grove Dictionary Of Jazz by Barry Kernfeld; William Claxton

As her performs at Bob City in Manhattan. When the master pianist Art Tatum lay dying, the legend goes, he had a word of warning for a younger pianist who had come to see him: "Watch out for the little man." Erroll Garner Garner was so little that he carried a Manhattan telephone book with him wherever he went in order to reach the keys. He was silent onstage, rarely saying a word to the huge audiences that turned out to hear him. And he didn't know one note from another on paper but he was the most prolific, best loved jazz pianist of his era. Jazz: A History of America's Music; by Geoffrey C Ward and Ken Burns

This, the most famous of the Holiday photographs, was taken in 1945, by Robin Carson at his studio in New York. For that session, she obliged Carson's request for something special by singing "Strange Fruit" acapella. "This was one of the most unbelievable evenings in my entire life," Carson told someone right after the shoot. "I'm quite sure I've gotten some beautiful pictures." On a sweltering day in July 1959, thousands of mourners gathered to pay tribute to one of the most influential musical artists of the 20th century. Among the pallbearers were some of the biggest names in the business, and outside policeman had to redirect traffic as the overflow of mourners spilled into the nearby streets. It was a moving show of public mourning for an artist whose career was often overshadowed by personal problems and whose best work had occurred at least a decade in the past. Born Eleanora Fagan in Philadelphia, April 7, 1915, to an unwed teenage mother, she would later choose her stage name as a tribute to movie star Billie Dove and her father, Clarence Holiday (himself a moderately successful jazz guitarist). When Billie was a toddler, her mother moved her to a poor neighborhood in Baltimore and briefly married Billie's father, but the union didn't last. At 10, Billie was raped by one of her neighbors. Soon thereafter, she was sent to the House of the Good Shepherd, a reform school known for meting out harsh punishments for even minor transgressions. "For years I used to dream about it and wake up hollering and screaming," Holiday wrote of her reform school experiences in her 1956 autobiography, Lady Sings the Blues. "It takes years to get over it." Holiday moved to New York with her mother in 1928. At 14, Billie was raped a second time and her attacker sentenced to a mere three months in jail. With little family support, only a fifth grade education and the harsh experiences she'd had growing up, it was little surprise when she turned to prostitution. Holiday supported herself on the streets for three years before she was arrested for solicitation. After being released from women's prison, she soon landed her first paid performing gig – even though it wasn't the job she'd hoped for. "I stopped in the Log Cabin Club run by Jerry Preston," recalled Holiday. "Told him I was a dancer. He said to dance. I tried it. He said I stunk. I told him I could sing. He said sing … I sang. The customers stopped drinking." Preston hired her at $18 a week, and it wasn’t long until she became well-known around Harlem for a distinctive vocal style most were at a loss to describe (the only influences she herself cited were Bessie Smith and Louis Armstrong). Her range was limited and her voice didn’t always project well – shortcomings that would only be amplified later in her career after years of substance abuse – but her intonation, her phrasing and the emotion she delivered were unmatched. Nat Hentoff, critic at esteemed DownBeat Magazine called her voice, "steel-edged and yet soft inside; a voice that was almost unbearably wise in disillusion and yet still childlike, again at the centre." Bandleader Artie Shaw later said that her vocal style "has been copied and imitated by so many singers of popular music that the average listener of today cannot realize how original she actually was." After being discovered by John Hammond in 1933, she would meet Lester Young, the horn legend who became a lifelong friend, sometimes collaborator and bestowed upon her the nickname Lady Day. The two toured Europe together with Count Basie's orchestra, for which Holiday was paid a then career high of $14 a day. Touring the U.S. in the 1930s meant coming head-on against racial discrimination. While with Basie in Detroit, a theatre manager insisted the light-skinned Holiday blacken her face so the audience would not mistake her for white and get angry she was performing with black musicians. While touring with Shaw's mostly white band in the segregationist South, it was difficult just finding a restaurant where the band could eat together. Such experiences may have informed what was to become the most haunting song in her repertoire, if not one of the most chilling in all of American music. "Strange Fruit" was based on a poem written by Abel Meeropol, a Jewish high school teacher in the Bronx sickened by a recent lynching of two black men. The song was introduced to Holiday by a Greenwich Village club owner, and she was at first reluctant to sing it. Columbia Records was afraid to record it, but the record she cut for Commodore would eventually become her biggest seller (having the jukebox-friendly "Fine and Mellow" on the flip-side helped). She typically closed her shows with the song but was ambivalent about whether audiences understood the song's point. "They'll ask me to 'sing that sexy song about the people swinging'," she told a Philadelphia deejay. Holiday would go on to make great recordings throughout the 1940s, but her personal problems began overshadowing her artistic output. Already a heavy drinker, she was introduced to heroin by her first husband, trombonist Jimmy Monroe, himself an addict. Much of the money she made went to supporting their habits. Her situation deteriorated when her mother Sadie died. Holiday sought treatment for heroin addiction, but was eventually arrested for drug possession in 1947 and ended up serving 10 months in a federal prison. Her conviction meant her "cabaret card" license in New York state was revoked and she could no longer perform at any club where liquor was sold. It was a worse punishment than jail. She played Carnegie Hall, booked gigs in other major U.S. cities and toured Europe, but her heart was in the nightclubs, a steady source of income and artistic outlet now denied her. She was arrested again in San Francisco on drug charges in 1949 but was acquitted. Her lifestyle was slowly destroying her physical health and her relationships with abusive men were taking an increasing toll. She left husband Monroe for a trumpet-playing drug dealer, then eventually married a mafia enforcer who wanted to exploit her name to open a chain of recording studios. She continued making records throughout the 1950s – nearly a third of her total output occurred during this period – but her voice had noticeably weakened. It had become rougher, more vulnerable, while still retaining the raw intensity she was known for. For some listeners, the fragility of her voice only gave her world-weary blues more emotional resonance. Though the last years of her life were mostly lost to drugs and alcohol, a rare performance with her old friend Lester Young provided a small grace note. The precise nature of her relationship with Young had been mysterious even to those closest to them, but at some point in the late 1930s they'd had a falling out and hadn't spoken to each other for years. In 1957 they reunited for a televised rendition of "Fine and Mellow." Young would die alone in a hotel room two years later, a victim of chronic alcoholism (his death would occasion another great jazz standard, the Charles Mingus tribute "Goodbye, Pork Pie Hat"). Holiday outlived Young by only a few months. She was admitted to the hospital for liver and heart problems in May 1959. The authorities levied one final insult by arresting her on her death bed on narcotics charges after someone allegedly found heroin in her hospital room. A guard was placed outside the room, and flowers and notes from well-wishers were removed, as was her record player. When Billie Holiday died, she had $750 taped to her leg and another 70 cents in the bank. She was 44. Sources: Lady Day: The Many Faces of Billie Holiday, written by Robert O'Meally; Legacy (Staff)

Consisted of Yvonne DuBarry, Bill Forrester, Bert Hall, and Bobby Smith. They were a vocal/instrumental group with Yvonne on the conga drums and the Three B's playing guitar, bass and piano. They recorded at least two songs for Savoy records in Columbus, Ohio at the WCOL studios on January 27, 1949, and released in March 1949; "Grieving for You" and "Buzzin' Around." There were two additional songs recorded in this session but not released. They were with Davis-Claiborne Records in 1948. The group originally formed in Baltimore, Maryland but later moved to Columbus. Grieving For You: www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-E_D3zLI6k Source: Columbus African American Collection

Along with The Ravens, Sonny Til and the Orioles were the founding fathers of rhythm and blues and the premier love-song balladeers of the late ‘40s and early ‘50s. With their smooth style, the Orioles had more of an influence on R&B groups of the next 20 years than almost any other act. While the Ravens brought prominence to black groups by doing white swing material, the Orioles were the first black group to gain national popularity by recording black songs. The Orioles became the innovators of what would later be defined as pure R&B four-part harmony. In this book They All Sang on the Corner, Phil Groia described the Orioles as having “a mellow, soft second tenor lead, a blending baritone featured as a ‘gravel gertie’ second lead, a floating high first tenor and a dominant bass.” This description would easily fit some of the great 1940s gospel groups like The Soul Stirrers; it’s more than likely these gospel legends inspired Til and company. The Orioles’ flight to fame began in Baltimore in 1946 after Erlington Tilghman returned from military service. Erlington (later Sonny Til) had always aspired to sing and even wrote in his high school yearbook that his aim was “to become on of the greatest singers in show business.” His girlfriend persuaded him to perform in a local amateur show; Sonny won first place two nights in a row, and began vocalizing with subsequent winners. A group evolved that included Sonny (lead and second tenor), Alexander Sharp (first tenor), George Nelson (second lead and baritone), Johnny Reed (bass), and guitarist Tommy Gaither. Sonny named them the Vibranairs. Their harmonizing on Pennsylvania and Pitcher Streets earned them a chance to sing at the bar on that corner. Inside they met songwriter/salesclerk Deborah Chessler, who’d written a ballad, “It’s Too Soon to Know.” Chessler became their manager, rehearsing them at her house and arranging for them to appear in New York on “Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts” show in 1948. They lost out to George Shearing, but Godfrey was so impressed he brought them back for his morning show. Jerry Blaine, a record distributor, signed them to his It’s a Natural label that summer, changing their name to the Orioles. On the release of “It’s Too Soon to Know,” a reviewer in the September 4, 1948, issue of Billboard remarked, “New label kicks off with a fine quintet effort on a slow race ballad. Lead tenor shows fine lyric quality.” The review was historic in its noting of the Orioles’ first effort and in its categorization of the single as “race music.” The song climbed to number 13 (#1 R&B); never before had a black act singing black music reached the pop top 15. Blaine’s label became Jubilee in August 1948, and the sales of “It’s Too Soon to Know” were credited to that company. Their next release, “Lonely Christmas,” reached number eight on the R&B chart. Two singles later “Tell Me So” became their second R&B number one. A Billboard reviewer described it as “one of those slow easy torch ballads that lend themselves to the group’s glistening note-bending style. Could be an important platter in the race mart.” More great ballads followed: “A Kiss and a Rose” (#12), “Forgive and Forget” (#5 R&B, 1949), and “What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve” (#9, 1949); the flip side hit number five, a second charting for “Lonely Christmas,” now on its way to becoming a Christmas perennial. Some of the group’s best ballads, though selling well, never made the national R&B Top 20. These included “At Night” (that Billboard cited on April 8, 1950: “Chalk up another hit for the high-flying group, tune is a standout; group delivers one of their best jobs yet”) and “I Wonder When” (reviewed on June 3rd with the observation, “Group does one of their top performances here on a promising torcher”). The latter’s flipside, a cherished collectors’ item called “Moonlight,” was described in Billboard as merely an “ordinary ballad side in comparison with the standout flip job.” The Orioles were on top of the world, playing for top dollar on the chitlin circuit and appearing on TV shows like “The Star Night Show” with Perry Como. But at the end of 1950 their success came to a crashing halt: an auto accident killed Tommy Gaither and seriously injured George Nelson, Johnny Reed and Sonny Woods, Orioles valet and founding member of the Royals (Federal). Ralph Williams took over guitar (he also occasionally subbed on baritone for the recovered Nelson, who was becoming unreliable). The first of their singles with Williams was “Oh Holy Night.” In April 1951 Jubilee issued “Pal of Mine,” the group’s tribute to the sorely missed Gaithers. A number of Orioles’ subsequent recordings were not up to their usual quality as the group’s interest waned. It was reflected in Billboard reviews of records like “Bar Fly” (“Orioles are not very exciting on this new weeper ballad. Though the lead does an effective job – side may get spins”) and “You Belong to Me” (“The group works over the pop hit in a schmaltzy style. Not their best effort, though their fans will probably take to it”). But they began to come out of it with “I Miss You So,” released in early 1953, and the beautiful “I Cover the Waterfront.” Around this time George Nelson left and Gregory Carrol (Four Buddies, Savoy) joined with Charlie Harris, making the group a quintet. Their next single, “Crying in the Chapel,” became the standard they would always be known for. Recorded on June 30, 1953, it prompted a Billboard reviewer to write, “The Orioles have here what is undoubtedly the strongest record in the past two years, and one of the strongest R&B discs released in the past few months. The tune is the serious ditty now getting actions in the country and pop markets and the boys hand it a powerful rendition, full of feeling and spark by the fine lead singer. This could be a big, big hit!” By summer’s end it was at number 11 (#1 R&B). The group followed with “In the Mission of St. Augustine,” which reached number seven R&B by October and turned out to be their last national hit. The Orioles disbanded when they found it difficult to earn top dollar in a market flooded with a new generation of groups. Sonny, however, found a new Orioles complete and intact when he spotted a modern harmony group, the Regals, performing at the Apollo in 1954. Together, they issued a string of Jubilee sides through 1956 including excellent versions of “Runaround” and “Don’t Go to Strangers.” The new members were Gerald Holman, Albert Russell, Billy Adams, and Jerry Rodriguez. They signed with Vee Jay Records in 1956 for three singles, the most popular being “Happy Till the Letter,” In 1962 Til formed yet another Orioles with Gerald Gregory (of THE SPANIELS), Delton McCall (from THE DREAMS) and Bill Taylor (THE CASTELLES). They recorded an LP on September 21 for Charlie Parker along with a few nicely done remakes of the group’s old hits. The most interesting was an answer record to “Crying in the Chapel” called “Back to the Chapel.” Meanwhile, Jubilee issued a number of oldies LP, in a “battle of the groups” style, and the Orioles’ early records were well represented. The LPs were popular sellers from the beginning and became cult classics. In 1966 Til formed a new Orioles with Clarence Young, Mike Robinson, and Bobby Thomas. The latter two, who had idolized the Orioles since their youth, belonged to a group named after Til’s original, the Vibranairs (After Hours). They recorded one excellent LP with Sonny for RCA that year. In 1978 the Orioles did a tribute LP to the original group, Sonny Til and the Orioles Today (Dobre), with Pepe Grant (tenor), Larry Reed (baritone), and George Holms (bass). Sonny’s last recording was in 1981 on the LP Sonny Til and the Orioles Visit Manhattan Circa 1950s. George Nelson died of an asthma attack around 1959, and Alex Sharp died in the ‘70s while singing with the Ink Spots group. Johnny Reed retired from singing, and Ralph Williams was seen with a band in St. Louis during the ‘70s. On December 9, 1981, Sonny Til died at the age of 56 due to heart failure. VocalGroup.org by Jay Warner

Singer Evelyn Dove, (1902 - 1987), was born in London, the daughter of Francis Dove, a barrister from Sierra Leone, and his British wife, Augusta. Francis Dove was the son of William Dove, who had made a fortune from trading out of Freetown, Sierra Leone. Evelyn Dove studied singing, piano, and elocution at the Royal Academy of Music. When she graduated in 1919, she was awarded a silver medal. As a contralto she hoped for a career on the concert platform but the worlds of jazz and cabaret were more welcoming. In the early 1920s the all-Black jazz revues that were popular in America were being recreated in Europe. In 1925 the cast of The Chocolate Kiddies, starring Adelaide Hall, was sent to Europe to give overseas audiences an opportunity to see some of America's top Black entertainers. Dove was invited to join them in Britain and with the company she toured western Europe for a year, then went to Russia, playing in Leningrad and Moscow, where the audience included Stalin. After replacing Josephine Baker as the star attraction in a revue at the Casino de Paris, Dove travelled to New York in 1936 to appear in cabaret at the famous nightclub, Connie's Inn. This rivalled the Cotton Club as a showcase for top Black talent. In 1937 her travels took her to Bombay, India, where she performed with great success for white colonials at the Harbour Bar. This review of her opening night appeared in the Evening News of India on October 7, 1937: ‘She is an artist of international reputation, one of the leading personalities of Europe's entertainment world. She is described as the closest rival of the great Josephine Baker herself. Evelyn didn't get just the big hand. She got an ovation, a roaring welcome.’ Dove’s greatest professional success was her work with the BBC. From 1939 to 1949 she took part in broadcasts of many popular music and variety programmes, including Rhapsody in Black (1940) with Elisabeth Welch. She also made over fifty broadcasts with the Trinidadian folk-singer Edric Connor in Serenade in Sepia (1945–7). This series was so popular with listeners that the BBC produced a television version, with Dove and Connor, at the studios at Alexandra Palace. After leaving the BBC to work in cabaret in India, Paris, and Spain, Dove found it difficult to find employment when she returned to London. Despite her experience and talent, in 1951 she was the understudy for Muriel Smith in the role of Bloody Mary in the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, South Pacific, at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. Then, in 1955, short of money and desperate for work, Dove applied for a job as a Post Office telephonist, asking the BBC for a reference. In 1956 the BBC cast her as Eartha Kitt's mother in a television drama called Mrs. Patterson. More television work followed and she returned to the West End musical stage, not as an understudy, but as one of the stars of Langston Hughes's Simply Heavenly. Also in the cast was the singer and actress Isabelle Lucas, who later recalled: ‘We became friends, but Evelyn's life took a bad turn. Her reputation as a singer faded, and she became very ill. She lost contact with her family. Her spirit was broken.’ In 1972 Dove was admitted to a nursing home in Epsom, Surrey, where she died of pneumonia in 1987. Source: Black Londoners In The Dictionary Of National Biography written by Stephen Bourne

On a sweltering day in July 1959, thousands of mourners gathered to pay tribute to one of the most influential musical artists of the 20th century. Among the pallbearers were some of the biggest names in the business, and outside policeman had to redirect traffic as the overflow of mourners spilled into the nearby streets. It was a moving show of public mourning for an artist whose career was often overshadowed by personal problems and whose best work had occurred at least a decade in the past. Born Eleanora Fagan in Philadelphia, April 7, 1915, to an unwed teenage mother, she would later choose her stage name as a tribute to movie star Billie Dove and her father, Clarence Holiday (himself a moderately successful jazz guitarist). When Billie was a toddler, her mother moved her to a poor neighborhood in Baltimore and briefly married Billie's father, but the union didn't last. At 10, Billie was raped by one of her neighbors. Soon thereafter, she was sent to the House of the Good Shepherd, a reform school known for meting out harsh punishments for even minor transgressions. "For years I used to dream about it and wake up hollering and screaming," Holiday wrote of her reform school experiences in her 1956 autobiography, Lady Sings the Blues. "It takes years to get over it." Holiday moved to New York with her mother in 1928. At 14, Billie was raped a second time and her attacker sentenced to a mere three months in jail. With little family support, only a fifth grade education and the harsh experiences she'd had growing up, it was little surprise when she turned to prostitution. Holiday supported herself on the streets for three years before she was arrested for solicitation. After being released from women's prison, she soon landed her first paid performing gig – even though it wasn't the job she'd hoped for. "I stopped in the Log Cabin Club run by Jerry Preston," recalled Holiday. "Told him I was a dancer. He said to dance. I tried it. He said I stunk. I told him I could sing. He said sing … I sang. The customers stopped drinking." Preston hired her at $18 a week, and it wasn’t long until she became well-known around Harlem for a distinctive vocal style most were at a loss to describe (the only influences she herself cited were Bessie Smith and Louis Armstrong). Her range was limited and her voice didn’t always project well – shortcomings that would only be amplified later in her career after years of substance abuse – but her intonation, her phrasing and the emotion she delivered were unmatched. Nat Hentoff, critic at esteemed DownBeat Magazine called her voice, "steel-edged and yet soft inside; a voice that was almost unbearably wise in disillusion and yet still childlike, again at the centre." Bandleader Artie Shaw later said that her vocal style "has been copied and imitated by so many singers of popular music that the average listener of today cannot realize how original she actually was." After being discovered by John Hammond in 1933, she would meet Lester Young, the horn legend who became a lifelong friend, sometimes collaborator and bestowed upon her the nickname Lady Day. The two toured Europe together with Count Basie's orchestra, for which Holiday was paid a then career high of $14 a day. Touring the U.S. in the 1930s meant coming head-on against racial discrimination. While with Basie in Detroit, a theatre manager insisted the light-skinned Holiday blacken her face so the audience would not mistake her for white and get angry she was performing with black musicians. While touring with Shaw's mostly white band in the segregationist South, it was difficult just finding a restaurant where the band could eat together. Such experiences may have informed what was to become the most haunting song in her repertoire, if not one of the most chilling in all of American music. "Strange Fruit" was based on a poem written by Abel Meeropol, a Jewish high school teacher in the Bronx sickened by a recent lynching of two black men. The song was introduced to Holiday by a Greenwich Village club owner, and she was at first reluctant to sing it. Columbia Records was afraid to record it, but the record she cut for Commodore would eventually become her biggest seller (having the jukebox-friendly "Fine and Mellow" on the flip-side helped). She typically closed her shows with the song but was ambivalent about whether audiences understood the song's point. "They'll ask me to 'sing that sexy song about the people swinging'," she told a Philadelphia deejay. Holiday would go on to make great recordings throughout the 1940s, but her personal problems began overshadowing her artistic output. Already a heavy drinker, she was introduced to heroin by her first husband, trombonist Jimmy Monroe, himself an addict. Much of the money she made went to supporting their habits. Her situation deteriorated when her mother Sadie died. Holiday sought treatment for heroin addiction, but was eventually arrested for drug possession in 1947 and ended up serving 10 months in a federal prison. Her conviction meant her "cabaret card" license in New York state was revoked and she could no longer perform at any club where liquor was sold. It was a worse punishment than jail. She played Carnegie Hall, booked gigs in other major U.S. cities and toured Europe, but her heart was in the nightclubs, a steady source of income and artistic outlet now denied her. She was arrested again in San Francisco on drug charges in 1949 but was acquitted. Her lifestyle was slowly destroying her physical health and her relationships with abusive men were taking an increasing toll. She left husband Monroe for a trumpet-playing drug dealer, then eventually married a mafia enforcer who wanted to exploit her name to open a chain of recording studios. She continued making records throughout the 1950s – nearly a third of her total output occurred during this period – but her voice had noticeably weakened. It had become rougher, more vulnerable, while still retaining the raw intensity she was known for. For some listeners, the fragility of her voice only gave her world-weary blues more emotional resonance. Though the last years of her life were mostly lost to drugs and alcohol, a rare performance with her old friend Lester Young provided a small grace note. The precise nature of her relationship with Young had been mysterious even to those closest to them, but at some point in the late 1930s they'd had a falling out and hadn't spoken to each other for years. In 1957 they reunited for a televised rendition of "Fine and Mellow." Young would die alone in a hotel room two years later, a victim of chronic alcoholism (his death would occasion another great jazz standard, the Charles Mingus tribute "Goodbye, Pork Pie Hat"). Holiday outlived Young by only a few months. She was admitted to the hospital for liver and heart problems in May 1959. The authorities levied one final insult by arresting her on her death bed on narcotics charges after someone allegedly found heroin in her hospital room. A guard was placed outside the room, and flowers and notes from well-wishers were removed, as was her record player. When Billie Holiday died, she had $750 taped to her leg and another 70 cents in the bank. She was 44. Sources: Michael Ochs Archives; Legacy (Staff)

Revella Eudosia Hughes (1895 – 1987), was a singer, musician and recording artist. She was one of the best known and most successful African American sopranos of the first half of the 20th century. A musician and performer whose repertoire ranged from classical to jazz, Revella Hughes began developing her talent under the tutelage of her mother in Huntington, West Virginia. Born July 27, 1895, to George and Anna B. Page Hughes, Miss Hughes began piano lessons at age five. Although she began school in Huntington, she transferred to her mother’s alma mater, Hartshorn Memorial College, in Richmond, Virginia, and received her diploma for completion of the course in music in 1909. She then attended Oberlin High School in Oberlin, Ohio, graduating in 1915. While at Oberlin, Miss Hughes took courses in the Conservatory and began choral work that was to prove the foundation of her later career. She sang with the high school girls’ choir, the Oberlin Musical Union and the First Methodist Church choir. She also played violin in the high school orchestra and composed a rally song for the high school. From Oberlin, Miss Hughes went to Howard University in Washington, D. C., where she studied voice and piano. Upon receipt of her bachelor of music degree in 1917, she remained in Washington to teach at the Washington Conservatory of Music for one year. She then became director of music at Orangeburg State College in South Carolina, while continuing to perform in a series of concerts and recitals. By 1920, Miss Hughes was in New York, studying voice under George Bagby. During this period she developed her repertoire and appeared with such artists as Paul Robeson, Roland Hayes and Marian Anderson. A highlight of the early period in New York was Miss Hughes’ appearance as principal soloist at the Mayor Hylan Peoples’ Concerts in September 1921 in Central Park. She was the first person of her race to be so featured. While a student of Walter Kiesewetter, voice coach for Metropolitan and Chicago Opera singers, Miss Hughes also performed for the New York City Police Department Police band banquet at the Hotel Astor in May 1922. She also recorded on W. C. Handy’s black Swan record label. In 1923, Miss Hughes’ career took a radical departure when she was offered a contract to become the choral director for the Broadway production of “Shuffle Along," featuring the music of Eubie Blake and Noble Sissle. She went on tour with the road company to major cities, including Chicago and Saint Louis. This change in career effected a change in her personal life as well, ending the marriage she had contracted in 1920 with Layton Wheaton, a New York dentist she had met at Howard when they were both students. From the road company of “Shuffle Along,” Miss Hughes accepted the lead in “Runnin’ Wild,” and toured with that show through 1925. In addition to the theater, she also performed on the radio, beginning in 1923 on WHN, New York, and appeared at motion-picture houses as part of the live entertainment. Notable among these presentation-house appearances were her performances on the B. F. Keith circuit in Huntington, West Virginia, and at Chicago’s Regal Theater. By 1930, after appearing in “Hot Rhythm” at New York's Colonial Theater, she had formed the Four Bon-Bons, a quartet comprised of Georgette Harvey of "Runnin' Wild" and "Porgy," Musa Williams and Lois Parker, the Bon-Bons had the distinction of appearing on nationwide Columbia Broadcasting System broadcasts where their race was not mentioned. They were also singled out to participate in an experimental television broadcast. The Depression ended the golden years of the Harlem Renaissance that had injected black music and literature into the mainstream of American culture. This period also brought about another major shift in Miss Hughes’ career. In 1932, she returned to Huntington to take care of her widowed mother in her last illness. Over the objections of some townspeople who decried her show business associations, she secured the position as supervisor of public school music in the then segregated schools. She created the band at Douglass High School, and took her young musicians out into the community, where they performed at major civic events and for white civic groups. After placing first in the West Virginia High School Music Contest (Negro) for three consecutive years, her high school musicians won a permanent trophy. In less than ten years, Miss Hughes had transformed a non-existent music program into one that won state-wide recognition. She also found time to complete a master’s degree in music at Northwestern University. At the death of her mother, Miss Hughes returned to New York to develop yet another phase in her career. Declaring that she had “left her voice with her students back in Huntington,” she perfected and toured with “An Informal Hour of Music,” on the Hammond organ, a program that summarized her musical career. Beginning with several classical pieces, she then gave a jazz treatment to light classical numbers, added some Latin-American rhythms, and ended with compositions by Duke Ellington, Fats Waller and W. C. Handy. Playing primarily in supper clubs on the East Coast, she made several appearances in West Virginia. A highlight of this period was in 1953 when she toured Europe and the Middle East with the Gypsy Markoff she for the U. S. O. She served as arranger for the group in addition to performing on the organ. Miss Hughes retired from full-time performing in 1955. After a twenty-five year hiatus, she was "re-discovered" and brought out of retirement by the Universal Jazz Coalition for the Women's Jazz Festival in New York in 1980. She then began a new round of appearances. And was named distinguished alumna by Howard University in 1984 and received an honorary doctorate of music from Marshall University in 1985. She died in New York City on October 24, 1987, at the age of ninety-one years. In 1988, she was inducted posthumously into the Huntington, West Virginia, Wall of Fame. She is buried in Spring Hill Cemetery in Huntingon, West Virginia. Sources: Revella E Hughes Papers/Special Collections Department, James E. Morrow Library Marshall University, Huntington, West Virginia

Connie McLean recorded something of a landmark blues song in 1936, titled "Sissy Man Blues," which had the lines "Lord, if you can't bring me no woman, bring me a sissy man." Blues songs had always been filled with sexual themes, but this was probably the first "out of the closet" blues song. There were four recorded versions but it was written and first sung by blues man, Kokomo Arnold, with his rendition being recorded in January of 1935. Versions by Josh White (then recording under the name Pinewood Tom) and George Noble also were released that year. Connie McLean's Rhythm Boys released their version in 1936. McLean's Rhythm Boys 'Sissy Man Blues' www.youtube.com/watch?v=lckRmBxEZlI James Van Der Zee, Photographer

Photo: Gilles Petard/Rederns/Getty Images Jazz chanteuse Gloria Lynne dies at 83 The Washington Post October 18, 2013 By Adam Bernstein If ever a song captured the allure of chanteuse Gloria Lynne at her peak, it was the improbable jazz-pop war horse “Birth of the Blues.” Backed by a romping trio on her 1961 album “I’m Glad There Is You,” she transformed the tune into an electrifying tour de force. It began with a teasing gospel refrain before blasting completely unforced into the stratosphere, as Ms. Lynne remained in complete command of the performance. The jazz critic Leonard Feather wrote that Ms. Lynne “shook it apart, disintegrating it and reintegrating it in revitalized shape.” The full-throated interpretation was all the more impressive because of her ability, on other albums, to channel great tenderness on torchy ballads such as “I Wish You Love,” which became a signature number, and “I’m Glad There Is You.” Ms. Lynne, the jazz singer whose expressive style made her a staple of nightclubs from New York to Las Vegas in the 1950s and 1960s and who enjoyed a resurgence of critical recognition in the 1990s, died October 15 at a hospital in Newark of a heart attack. She was 83. The cause was a heart attack, said her son, Richard Alleyne, a rock arranger who works under the name P.J. Allen. Ms. Lynne grew up in Harlem, where at 15 she won an amateur-night show at New York’s Apollo Theater. She was befriended by singers Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan, both of whom helped guide her career at pivotal moments. She made a jaunty and promising album debut in 1958 with “Miss Gloria Lynne,” backed by a band that included trumpeter Harry “Sweets” Edison, saxophonist Sam Taylor, organist Wild Bill Davis and guitarist Kenny Burrell. Her other notable albums of the early 1960s included “I’m Glad There Is You,” with the Earl May Trio; “At the Las Vegas Thunderbird,” backed by the Herman Foster Trio; and “Gloria, Marty and Strings,” with a big band arranged by Marty Paich. She also wrote lyrics to the song “Watermelon Man” by Herbie Hancock and “All Day Long” by Burrell, both of which she recorded. A critical breakthrough was a 1961 appearance on a Harry Belafonte TV special, “New York 19,” reportedly seen by 30 million viewers. Writing in the New York Times, the television reviewer Jack Gould called Ms. Lynne “tearfully effective” on the ballad “He Needs Me” but singled out her “soaring” duet with the host on “Liza Jane.” Ms. Lynne’s club and concert schedule continued apace for decades, though it was increasingly eclipsed by changing tastes in music and evolving jazz styles, as well as management problems and poor publicity for her albums. She spent periods working in a bank and as a physical therapist. “The crash for me was when disco came in,” she told the Philadelphia Inquirer in 1994. “Disco seemed to have taken over the whole era in the ’70s, and singers like myself were put in the background. I just wasn’t able to change over. “After that I found that the clubs were fading rapidly, and it seemed there were only a few quality houses left where an artist such as Carmen McRae or myself or Nancy Wilson or any of the singers who were on the borderline of jazz could get work,” she said. “Unless we had tours on the college scene or festivals, there wasn’t much work around. It’s kind of that way today.” A revival of interest was sparked when her brassy 1966 R&B recording “Speaking of Happiness” was used in the soundtrack of the Brad Pitt-Morgan Freeman thriller “Se7en” (1995), director Oliver Stone’s “U-Turn” (1997) starring Sean Penn, and in a 1997 British commercial for the Ford Mondeo. “Anyone going into this business needs to be told that it works in slow motion,” she once quipped about the delayed attention. She released new albums in recent years, including “From My Heart to Yours” (2007), which featured David “Fathead” Newman on flute. A reviewer for the Web site Allmusic.com noted that her voice remains “powerful, soulful, and unwavering.” Among those to cite Ms. Lynne as an influence was the pop singer Patti LaBelle. Ms. Lynne was born Gloria Mai Wilson on Nov. 23, 1929, in Harlem. Her father was a longshoreman. She was raised by her mother, who encouraged her daughter’s singing talents in church and then school glee clubs. She won the Apollo contest with a rendition of “Don’t Take Your Love From Me.” Her marriage to Harry Alleyne ended in divorce. Besides her son, survivors include a brother. Ms. Lynne was living most recently in East Orange, New Jersey. Her 2000 memoir, “I Wish You Love,” written with author Karen Chilton, documents hardships caused by record-company exploitation and denial of royalty payments. She received a $15,000 grant from the Rhythm and Blues Foundation, which honored her in 1997 for her “uninhibited vocal talents to gospel, blues, jazz and other musical forms.” It was a bittersweet career, with her once noting: “Honest to God, every time I would try to stray away from it, it would come right back and grab me.”

Clora Bryant remains a sadly under recognized musical pioneer. The lone female trumpeter to collaborate with Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, she played a critical role in carving a place for women instrumentalists in the male dominated world of jazz, over the course of her decades long career proving herself not merely a novelty but a truly gifted player regardless of gender. Born May 30, 1927, in Denison, Texas, Bryant grew up singing in her Baptist church choir. In high school, she picked up the trumpet her older brother Fred left behind upon entering the military, joining the school marching band. She proved so proficient that she won music scholarships to Bennett College and Oberlin, instead opting to attend the Houston area Prairie View College, joining its all-female swing band, the Prairie View Coeds. The group toured across Texas, in the summer of 1944 mounting a series of national dates that culminated at New York City's legendary Apollo Theater. Although one of the band's lead soloists, Bryant nevertheless transferred to UCLA in late 1945 after her father landed a job in Los Angeles; there she first encountered the fledgling bebop sound, and began jamming with a series of small groups in the Central Avenue area. In the summer of 1946 Bryant joined the all female Sweethearts of Rhythm, earning her union card and quitting school soon after. Around this time she befriended Gillespie, who not only offered her opportunities to perform with his band but also served as Bryant's mentor for the remainder of his life. When the Queens of Swing lost their drummer, Bryant rented a drum kit and won the job, touring with the group until 1951, at which time she returned to L.A. and to the trumpet, backing Billie Holiday and Josephine Baker during their respective performances at the Club Alabam. She relocated to New York City in 1953, gigging at the Metropole and appearing on several television variety shows. She even toured Canada, but ultimately returned to southern California in 1955, two years later cutting her sole headlining LP, Gal With a Horn, issued on the tiny Mode label. Bryant spent the remainder of the decade on the road, with long engagements at clubs in Canada, Chicago, and Denver. She also played Las Vegas opposite Louis Armstrong and Harry James. While performing with James, Bryant caught the attention of singer Billy Williams, joining his touring revue and backing him during a showcase on The Ed Sullivan Show. In 1960, she also appeared in the Sammy Davis, Jr. motion picture Pepe. After quitting Williams' band in 1962, Bryant again returned to Los Angeles, teaming with vocalist brother Mel to put together a song-and-dance act. The duo toured the globe for well over a decade, even hosting their own television show during a lengthy engagement in Melbourne, Australia. In the late '70s, Bryant replaced the late Blue Mitchell in Bill Berry's big band, but after several years out of sight she made international headlines in 1989 after accepting Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's invitation to play five dates in the U.S.S.R., becoming the first female jazz musician to tour the Communist nation. A 1996 heart attack and subsequent quadruple bypass surgery rendered Bryant unable to continue her career as a trumpeter, but she continued to sing, at the same time beginning a new career on the lecture circuit, discussing the history of jazz on college campuses across the U.S. Honored by Washington, D.C.'s Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts with its 2002 Mary Lou Williams Women in Jazz Festival Award, Bryant was again celebrated with the 2004 release of Trumpetistically, a documentary profile that took filmmaker Zeinabu Irene Davis some 17 years to complete. Bryant died August 25, 2019 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. She was 92. Sources: All Music, Artist Profile by Jason Ankeny; James J. Kriegsmann, Sr., Photographer