KSDS 88.3 Blog

Like her idol Billie Holiday, Carmen McRae is remembered for her one of a kind voice and lyrical interpretation.  She was an accomplished piano player and early in her career she played piano at the famed Minton's Playhouse in Harlem.  It was at Minton's where she met notable jazz musicians like Dizzy Gillespie and drummer Kenny Clarke, who would become her first husband.  McRae found success as a pianist in Benny Carter's band, worked with Count Basie, and made her first recording not as a vocalist, but as a pianist with Mercer Ellington's band in the mid-40s. She often accompanied herself in her early gigs as a singer.

The warmth in her voice set McRae apart.  She could deliver a ballad with deep emotion, she could swing like mad, and had a command of phrasing that still inspires jazz singers today.  Throughout her fifty year career, McRae toured the world, appeared at major jazz festivals, and recorded dozens of albums.  Even toward the end of her career, she was recording important albums, notably "Carmen Sings Monk" and "Sarah-Dedicated To You" for Novus Records in the early 1990s.  

She earned seven Grammy Award nominations over the course of her career.  In 1993 she was honored with the NAACP Image Award and was named a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master in 1994.

Anita O'Day began her career not as a singer, but a dancer.  As a teen, she travelled the marathon dance circuit before deciding she would hang up the dance shoes in exchange for a microphone.  O'Day's earliest recording success was in the early 1940s when she made sides with Gene Krupa's big band, and soon after, the Stan Kenton Orchestra.  While rooted in the swing of these early bands, she was later cited as one of the early bebop vocal influencers and is considered part of the West Coast Cool Jazz sound. 

Rather than position herself as another "girl singer," O'Day presented herself as part of the band.  Her rhythmic approach and use of short phrasing set her apart from more traditional singers.  Throughout her career she worked with Louis Armstrong, Thelonious Monk, and Oscar Peterson.  Her 1958 performance at the Newport Jazz Festival was captured in the documentary "Jazz On A Summer's Day."  Drugs would play a big part in O'Day's story: She was arrested several times for marijuana possession and fell victim to a heroin addiction, nearly dying of an overdose in 1968. Her resilience showed itself and O'Day recovered and continued to record and perform.  

She published her memoir "High Times, Hard Times" in 1981 and in 2007, "Anita O'Day: The Life of a Jazz Singer", a full length documentary about her premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival.  

Dinah Washington dubbed herself "Queen of The Blues", but her sound and her style adapted easily to jazz, pop, and R&B.  Through her short lifetime, she recorded a legacy that has influenced artists as varied as Aretha Franklin, Bette Midler, and Amy Winehouse. 

Born in Alabama and raised in Chicago's Southside, Washington found her voice in gospel choirs.  She toured with a gospel group before turning her attention to jazz and blues.  Noted for her clean, expressive voice, she worked with Lionel Hampton's band in the mid-1940s, using members of that band to record her debut LP.  The album features her first hit and one of her enduring classics, "Evil Gal Blues" which made Billboard's Harlem Hit Parade in 1944.  Washington had success with hits like "What A Difference A Day Makes" and the country crossover gem "Cold, Cold Heart" by Hank Williams. Her interpretations of torch songs had an authenticity rooted in her own life (Washington was married seven times.)

Among her awards and recognition, Washington earned a 1959 Grammy Award for "What A Difference A Day Makes." That song and two others have been inducted to the Grammy Hall of Fame.  In 1993, thirty years after her death at 39, she was inducted as an Early Influencer into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  That same year, the U.S. Post Office issued a commemorative stamp to honor her. 

Betty Carter was a vocalist with a style all her own and the determination to create and present the music as she heard it.  Over the course of her career, she would not only solidify her place as one of America's great singers, but she was also a producer, record label founder, and perhaps most importantly, a mentor to other musicians.

Raised in Detroit, she studied piano at the Detroit Conservatory of Music at age 15, but would move on to concentrate on singing when she was 16.  Carter is often considered one of the last singers of the big band era, having landed a gig with Lionel Hampton's Big Band in 1948.  Their musical partnership is legendary...as it turned out, she was a little too free with her improvisations and clashed with Hampton more than once...he fired her seven times during their two and a half year run.  Note that he hired her back six.  

Carter was a master scat singer, patterning herself after Dizzy Gillespie.  She eventually would play with musicians Charlie Parker, Charles Mingus, and Wes Montgomery.  She released her first album in 1955 with The Ray Bryant Trio.  After being introduced to Ray Charles, the two made a self-titled album in 1961 that included the flirtatious hit single "Baby, It's Cold Outside."  Over her forty year career, Carter recorded over twenty albums, finally receiving a Grammy Award in 1988 for Best Female Jazz Vocal Performance for the album "Look What I Got." 

Her uncompromising commitment to her music led her to create her own record label, Bet-Car Records in 1969.  In 1993, she founded the Betty Carter's Jazz Ahead Program in conjunction with The Kennedy Center, offering young players a unique opportunity to compose and perform under the tutelage of high-level professional musicians.  She is credited with discovering musicians Mulgrew Miller, Benny Green, and Curtis Lundy among others.  The Jazz Ahead programs continues today, under the direction of Jason Moran.

June Christy, affectionately known as The Misty Miss Christy (also the title of her 1956 release for Capitol Records), was a legendary voice in cool jazz.  She was born Shirley Luster in Illinois and began singing professionally while still in high school.  She changed her name to Sharon Leslie while working with the Boyd Raeburn Band.  When Anita O'Day left Stan Kenton's band in 1945, Christy auditioned and won the vocalist spot, then changing her name one more time, to June Christy.

She and the Kenton Orchestra would have a series of hits from their collaboration, including "Tampico" which became Kenton's biggest selling record, reaching one million in sales and peaking at #3 on the record charts.  Christy would go on to appear on several Kenton releases, among them "Artistry in Rhythm" and "Innovations in Modern Music." After two stints with the Kenton Orchestra, she embarked on a solo career in the late 1940s, and in 1956 released one of two signature albums for Capitol, "Something Cool" with arranger and bandleader Pete Rugolo.  Rugolo had been an arranger for the Kenton band and would continue to work with Christy through the 1950s.  The album "Something Cool" essentially launched the vocal cool jazz scene.  

Christy continued to tour throughout the world until deciding to come off the road in the early 1960s to focus on her family and personal life.  She would return to the scene in the late 70s and record one final album, "Impromptu" in 1977.  Her sensual voice and the deep feeling of her style have secured her place in jazz vocal history.

Peggy Lee grew up in North Dakota and began singing on local radio as a young teenager. It was the program director at WDAY who suggested she change her name from Norma Egstrom  to Peggy Lee and by age 17, she was off to Los Angeles to make her way in music.  She landed a gig with Benny Goodman's band and she spent two years on the road with them from 1941 to 1943.  As she got more into the jazz world, her vocal style would set her apart.  Lee's sublte, sultry voice offered an understated, yet powerful presence in music...and led to a career that spanned seven decades. 

Lee's string of hit songs included the definitive version of "Fever" which was released in 1957.  But, her first Number 1 hit came in 1942 with "Somebody Else is Taking My Place", followed by another Number 1 chart topper in 1943, "Why Don't You Do Right?"  The latter would make her famous.  Lee then made her name as more than a girl singer.  She was an acccomplished songwriter, penning such classics as "What More Can A Girl Do" recorded by Sarah Vaughan, "Mañana (Is Soon Enough for Me)", and music for the enduring Disney film "Lady and The Tramp" (a film for which she not only wrote music, but voiced four of the characters.)  She was nominated for an Oscar for her work in the film "Pete Kelly's Blues" and also appeared alongside in the 1952 remake of "The Jazz Singer."  She recorded for Capitol Records and Decca Records,  Throughout her life, she was nominated for 12 Grammy Awards and was honored with a  Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1995. 

Nancy Wison was a multi-faceted entertainer who enjoyed a lengthy career in music, television, film, and radio. She was singing in clubs while still in high school and gave her final live perfomance in 2011, seven years before her death.  When it came to music, Wilson described herself as a "song stylist" and moved smoothly through jazz, blues, R & B, pop, and soul music.  She worked with some of the finest musicians of her generation: Hank Jones, Ramsey Lewis, and, perhaps most notably, Julian "Cannonball" Adderley.  Their 1962 Capitol Records recording "Nancy Wilson and Cannonball Adderley" not only boosted her recognition at the time, but remains a classic among jazz fans. 

Wilson would go on to have further recording success, including Billboard chart toppers for Capitol Records, and ultimately released over 60 albums and singles, earning 3 Grammy Awards in her lifetime.  She was named an NEA Jazz Master in 2004 and has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.  In addition to her success as a vocalist, Wilson also found success in television and film, appearing in shows like "I Spy" and "Hawaii 5-0."  She brought her multiple talents to radio as the host of NPR's "Jazz Profiles" from 1996 through 2005.  

As versatile as she was as a singer, actor, and radio host, Wilson is also remembered for her commitment to equal rights and human rights.  She marched in Selma with Martin Luther King, Jr. and in 1993 received an award from the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change in 1993; the NAACP Image Award – Hall of Fame Award in 1998. She was also awarded the NAACP Lifetime Achievement Award.  

Helen Merrill's first recording was with the Earl Hines band in 1952 and would be the start of a busy recording and performing career lasting six decades.  She signed with the EmArcy label (an offshoot of Mercury Records) in 1954, becoming the first artist to release a single on the newly-formed imprint, "Alone Together" with the B-side "This Is My Night To Cry." Her self-titled first album for EmArcy included trumpeter Clifford Brown and bassist Oscar Pettiford.

Merrill's debut found such success that EmArcy signed her for additional albums, including one produced and arranged by Gil Evans.  It was expressive, emotional approach to songs that made her such a sought-after singer.  Listening to her sing is almost like watching a film; her often heart-broken character coming alive through the song. She could swing just as comfortably as she caressed a ballad.  She would work with the cream of the instrumentalist crop throughout her career...Frank Wess, Marian McPartland, Bill Evans, Quincy Jones, Hal Mooney, Gil Evans, Milt Hinton, and Osie Johnson. One of her most notable projects was "Duets" released in 1989 with bassist Ron Carter. 

Throughout her lifetime, Helen Merrill has taken her music worldwide, even co-hosting a radio program while she lived in Japan.  She is a first generation American and her 1999 release "Jelena Ana Milcetic" paid tribute to her Croatian heritage and blended jazz, pop, folk, and traditional Croatian music.  Merrill was inducted as a Living Legend into ASCAP's Jazz Hall of Fame in 2014.

Another way to join KSDS San Diego's Jazz 88.3 is with the listening stream. There's the KSDS APP. Please search 'KSDS Jazz' in your respective Google or Apple store.

Her legend includes being Miles Davis' favorite singer, worthy praise from a master musician who didn't offer such things lightly.  Shirley Horn had an exquisite voice...a dusty, warm sound of her own, with plenty of swing and soul.  Her style utilized the space that Davis sought in much of his own music.  Horn was one of those rare musicians who was both master of her internal instrument, her voice, and master of her external instrument, the piano.

Her piano sensibility for jazz grew on top of her foundation in classical music.  At one point in her early life, she was accepted to The Julliard School of Music, but her mother put the brakes on her daughter going off alone to New York City.  Her ears turned to jazz and she said, "Oscar Peterson became my Rachmaninov, and Ahmad Jamal became my Debussy."  She would record her first jazz album in 1960, "Embers And Ashes" for a small label in New York City.  That was the album that caught the attention of Miles Davis.  His invitation to play between sets during his stints at the famed Village Vanguard raised her profile significantly and she was signed by Quincy Jones to Mercury Records in 1962.

Shirley Horn would go on to record 25 albums as a leader, including collaborations with Miles Davis, earning nine Grammy Award nominations.  In 1999, her tribute album to her friend Davis earned her the Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Performance.   In 2005, months before her death, she was honored by the National Endowment for The Arts as an NEA Jazz Master.