Obscure & Neglected Female Singers Of Jazz & Standards (1930s to 1960s)

However, one "small" fact in her biography was missed:

"In 1958 she went to England and then to Paris, performing with Quincy Jones and the Platters. She stayed in Europe for the next thirty years [!], calling Madrid home for over 20 years.
It was in Spain where she reached the peak of her career, being marketed as a pop singer and songwriter. After winning a European song festival in 1970, she won the notice of Spanish Columbia Records, and was offered a recording contract. It was during this time that she met and collaborated with Spanish singer Danny Daniel. Her biggest hit, “This World Today is a Mess”, was issued internationally as a record single, selling more than a million copies.

Later in her life she became a devout Christian shifting her musical career path. In 1990 she moved to Austin, Texas, where she went into a semi-retirement, performing solely Gospel and American Spiritual Music. She went back to Spain as a performer on several occasions, the last one being as the guest of honor at the IV Festival International de Jazz in 2006."
(from A Guide to the Donna Hightower Collection, 1951-2013;
Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, The University of Texas at Austin)

Although, this is interesting and important fact, nevertheless, it is not what I meant when I said "surprising twist".

I love Donna Hightower and always wanted to buy the Fresh Sound CD with her two albums:
(I have to say it again):
In my experience, everything they produced before 2010, was not remastered in 24-bit, and doesn't sound good. Those CDs don't have mark "24-bit Digitally Remastered" on the back cover, like this:



Finally, I decided to buy it anyway for 10 bucks together with Jeri Southern new reissues (see Posts # 121-128, page 5 and 6):
From Anita & Ella To Nina & Sassy: Celebrated Songstresses Of Jazz & Standards

Imagine, how shocking for me was to see this:





I don't know when they did this new 24-bit remaster, but they did it...
I listened to it with my headphones - sound was amazingly good, so was she.
Ben probably was inspired by her singing, because he was on top of his game (all musician were):

Listen to this:


Please Don't Take Your Love Away From Me

I hear a bit of Dinah here and there...
A Cottage For Sale

Blues, posted in the previous post by Nathan Aaron:
(It was performed by male bluesmen only; I believe Donna is only female singer of this song;
She turned on her vibrato).
Every Day I Have The Blues

Donna was an amazing singer in any genre.

 

I really don't understand all of the knocking of the Fresh Sounds label. Even before 2010, a great number of their reissues were of material that no one else in the world, even Japanese companies, were reissuing. The original vinyl of many of those albums, jazz instrumental or vocal, was extremely rare. If you could ever find that vinyl at all, it was often in degraded condition. Certainly, a portion of it has since been reissued on Japanese labels. Those go out of print quickly and skyrocket in price. Unlike many non-official labels, Fresh Sounds has been doing a superb job with their text and graphics. Fresh Sounds has been dedicated for many years to finding rare extra tracks never included on Japanese reissues. They are dedicated to the history of the music and try to keep their things in print for many years.

 

And I would add that today Fresh Sounds is the premier vocalist reissue label in the world. The Japanese companies have really dropped the ball. They don't cover much new ground, and they are mostly in a cycle of covering records they have reissued numerous times. It is great that they are doing some of these at more reasonable prices. But they have largely stopped searching for rare material and they still don't do much from the singles era

 

Does Ida James, Dorothy Donegan,or Savannah Churchhill qualify?

Quite an addictive thread, I just imagine some of you wearing Bogart like raincoats, chain smoking, while tracking down vinyl and cds in basements, yard sales, thrift shops, and harassing the distant relatives of some of the women above to rummage through their belongings looking for posters, hand written notes, and rare pressings.

You all have my appreciation and gratitude.

 

P.S.

I found an interesting episode about Donna Hightower on a French site, looking like a joke, but I think this is true:

(translation)
"While working in a restaurant, she began to sing in the kitchen. A customer calls the owner of the restaurant asking him to turn the volume of the radio higher.
The latter then retorts that it was not a radio but only Donna Hightower who sings. This is how the beautiful voice of one who will soon become a great singer known all over the world has been discovered."

You cannot make up such a thing...

 

I have never heard Dorothy Donegan sing.
Being a great pianist and trio leader, she really wanted to sing.
She tried it once, and this is what happened:





Love this photo:

 

Now that I've perused all 76 pages, here are my initial entries into the discussion that I don't think have gotten too much of a mention yet.

One-off albums that I love and know nothing about the singer: Thelma Gracen ("Thelma Gracen"), Inez Jones ("Have You Met Miss Jones?")

Singers with an album early enough to qualify: Amanda Ambrose ("Swings, Sings, & Plays at the Black Orchid"), Jane Harvey ("Leave It to Jane")

Anita Ellis - I have a couple of albums/CDs. Seems like a good singer to discuss on this forum.

Since people have talked a lot about Pat Suzuki, I'll mention Miyoshi Umeki who put out some albums I really like.

 

Tell us about your Miyoshi Umeki albums of your. I've never heard about her.

 

Miyoshi Umeki is probably better known today as an actress - Sayonara with Marlon Brando and Flower Drum Song. The two standards albums I'm familiar with:
"Miyoshi" - Miyoshi Umeki - Miyoshi
"Miyoshi Sings for Arthur Godfrey" - Miyoshi Umeki With The Hugo Peretti Orchestra - Miyoshi Sings For Arthur Godfrey (Sings American In Japanese)

Her Wikipedia page says that she cited Billy Eckstine as one of her favorite singers.

 

Thank you for mentioning Miyoshi Umeki and her two albums.
However, I prefer her early singles:


Miyoshi (Nancy) Umeki
(1929-2007)


"Her voice is very beautiful and singing style is very unique,

and I could tell she really put her heart and soul into each

song that she sang. You have to listen to her for yourself."

(from the review)




There is a very nice article on the Wiki site about Miyoshi Umeki.
What is important to know that a high-class Japanese jazz singer moved to the United States in 1955 to become a citizen and high-level actress.

As a singer, she had distinctive velvety mid-range with very warm and ambient approach.
Add to this the charm of light retro-style of her early recordings, which reminiscent the best singers of the 30's, and you have something to hunt for.

Let's Say Good-bye


Early Days of Miyoshi Umeki Complete Victor Recordings 1952-54 Victor, Japan 2001



Reviews
"Soothing Vocal Caresses of Miyoshi Umeki
After enjoying two excellent Miyoshi Umeki CDs ("Miyoshi" [1960?] and "Miyoshi Sings for Arthur Godfrey: Miyoshi Umeki Sings American Songs in Japanese" [1956]), again I am impressed by her first-rate singing in this third CD of 22 songs she recorded in the early 1950s--before she was a hit on Arthur Godfrey's TV show, "Talent Scouts"; before her Oscar-winning performance in the movie, "Sayonara"; and before her starring role in "Flower Drum Song" on Broadway (and the movie). In this "Early Days" CD, some of the songs are entirely in Japanese; others are entirely in English; and the rest have a combination of Japanese and English lyrics. These are my favorites: With a Song in My Heart (EJ), Again (J), Why Don't You Believe Me? (E), Kiss Me Again Stranger (E), Sayonara (E), and My Foolish Heart (EJ). The other songs are Sleepy My Love (E), It Isn't Fair (E), Sentimental Me (E), Manhattan Moon (J), I'll Walk Alone (EJ), My Baby's Comin' Home (EJ), I'm Walking Behind You (EJ), Doggie in the Window (EJ), My Ichiban Tomodachi [My Best Friend] (E), Vaya Con Dios (EJ), I'm Waiting for You (E), and five Japanese songs (Under the Moonlight, Don't Say That Person's Name, Evening Whisper, I Feel Like Crying, and One Night of Sorrow and Misery) (J). I was pleasantly surprised to discover that these recordings of Miyoshi proved that even in the early 1950s (when she was in her early 20s) she was already a superb singer. The CD comes with a 32-page booklet of biographical material in Japanese, photos, lyrics to the songs (EJ), and discography (EJ). This CD is a treasure chest of Miyoshi's sweet music." (July 31, 2003)

Sleepy My Love
Sleepy My Love by Miyoshi Umeki
It Isn't Fair
It Isn't Fair by Miyoshi Umeki
I'm Waiting For You
I'm Waiting For You by Miyoshi Umeki
I'm Walking Behind You
I'm Walking Behind You by Miyoshi Umeki
I'll Walk Alone
I'll Walk Alone by Miyoshi Umeki
Kiss Me Again Stranger
Kiss Me Again Stranger by Miyoshi Umeki
Sentimental Me
Sentimental Me by Miyoshi Umeki
Why Don't You Believe Me
Why Don't You Believe Me (Live) by Miyoshi Umeki
If You Sing in My Heart
With A Song In My Heart by Miyoshi Umeki

11 songs in English and 11 - in Japanese (also nice)
Whisper Of The Clock
Whisper Of The Clock by Miyoshi Umeki

As for her LP "Miyoshi", one will disagree, but it fell short against her early Victor recordings.
The magic is gone, and her unique timber was covered with Broadway-style stain, and only breaks through here and there.


Mini LP CD

Here are 3 the best songs:

Sometimes I'm Happy
Sometimes I'm Happy by Miyoshi Umeki
That Old Filling
That Old Feeling by Miyoshi Umeki
Gone With the Wind
Gone With The Wind by Miyoshi Umeki

It will be an Oscar:
Miyoshi Umeki winning Best Supporting Actress
and two big nominations, movies and plays, and TV appearances:
DINAH SHORE & MIYOSHI UMEKI: Faraway Places
But only in some songs of her second LP she reached the level of her hey days in Japan:


Mini LP CD

How Deep Is the Ocean?
How Deep Is The Ocean by Miyoshi Umeki
Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man
Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man by Miyoshi Umeki
I'm in a Mood for Love
I'm In The Mood For Love by Miyoshi Umeki

All in all, Miyoshi Umeki was a great singer and fits very well in our List.

SAYONARA GOODBYE

 

​

​

Your comment provides a good opportunity to note that albums of American standards were recorded by at least five of the actors who appeared in the original Broadway and Hollywood productions of Flower Drum Song. In addition to the portrayers of ingenue Mei Li (Miyoshi Umeki in both productions) and her rival Linda Low (Pat Suzuki on the original), we have the two guys who took on the role of Wang Ta, the first in the Broadway show (1958), the second in the subsequent film (1961):

​

If anyone wants to discuss -- or is curious to know more about -- these guys, there have been posts about them in Forgotten Male Crooner/Jazz vocalists, Nathan Aaron's companion thread to this one (pages 12 and 13).

The fifth singer is female, and we have not yet covered her here:

​

But, to follow up BFK's and Toilet Doctor's posts above, let's concentrate on Miyoshi Umeki. Here is her one solo from the musical, as it was re-imagined for the film (starting around :29):

​

Her character sang or co-sang three or four of the show's numbers, but none of them has become widely known outside of theatre circles. (The other female characters were assigned the numbers that would go on to become often-recorded standards: the fun "I Enjoy Being a Girl" and the lovely "Love Look Away.")

 

Stage Gate Records owns us Miyoshi Umeki at least 2CD newly remastered set.

 

Thanks for letting me know about the singles collection "The Early Days of Nancy Umeki" - I was definitely not familiar with that.

I have the Juanita Hall album you mentioned, plus another compilation:
https://www.amazon.com/Glory-Love-J...8&qid=1549298946&sr=1-2&keywords=Juanita+Hall

 

​

I just checked the page. It points out one additional detail of my interest: she did a vocal impersonation of Eckstine on an episode of Merv Griffin's show. That should be worth watching. Hopefully it will show up in YouTube some day.

Other distinctive credits and biographical details of interest:

Miyoshi Umeki is said to have been the first singer to record American songs in Japan. She learned to sing English-language standards by assiduously listening to Dinah Shore, Peggy Lee, and Doris Day on the radio. Her other stated influence was the musical side of traditional Kabuki theater.

Miyoshi is also credited with being the very first Asian actor to win an Academy Award. It was for her role in the aforementioned Sayonara, which predated Flower Drum Song by a couple of years.





YouTube has the clip here. Other awards of note have already been mentioned by Toilet Doctor.

Miyoshi grew up as the last of nine children in what sounds like a reasonably affluent household in a rural area. (Just my impression; I could be wrong.) Her parents disliked American music so much that she literally put a bucket on her head while practicing her singing in that more awful of foreign languages ... so as to relieve her parents from the unpleasant sounds and accompanying sight!

After moving to the United States, the lady stayed for the rest of her lifetime. Miyoshi was just in her early 40s when she fully retired from the world of music, film and television (1972). The award winning actress and singing pioneer was residing in Missouri when she passed away (2007).

​

In agreement about the merits of her earlier recordings. I too prefer the way she sounds in them. It might be that those earlier recordings are the ones which more overtly show the influence of the "blonde triumvirate" to which she referred. In listening to her version of It Isn't Fair in YouTube, I'm detecting touches of mid-1940s Peggy Lee in the vocal. Similarly, I hear some touches of young Doris Day here.

I also agree completely with your description of her style. At her best, she has a mellow and moody sound, combined with an approach that does feel "old fashioned" in the good sense of the term. Kind of 1940s "middle of the road." (I'm referring to the early recordings. In the two LPs, she brings different, more updated approaches, including a surprisingly sensual tone for the Godfrey album.)

Finally, the YouTube clip with which you closed ("Sayonara Goodbye") is the same one I would have chosen, if my intention had been to showcase her vocal talents. In other words, agreement on everything.

​

Once again, I find myself sharing your opinion, insofar as I do not like that LP a whole lot. However, I wouldn't go as far as saying that she had lost anything. To me, it's just a different stylistic approach to the numbers.

I bought that LP some twenty years ago. Back then, I gave it a couple of spins and found myself bored to tears. I promptly filed it and decided that it was all the Umeki that I needed in my vinyl collection. Two decades later, I'm glad to have the opportunity to reassess ...

Well, my opinion of her singing has definitely improved, thanks in part to those early recordings on Mercury. Granted that I still wasn't wowed or anything of the sort, this time around I did find myself appreciating several aspects of the LP. In particular, I liked the fact that a couple of the standards were rendered with their rarely heard verses. Her voice, appealingly soft (yet also hardy), sustained me throughout the whole experience. Overall, it was pleasant, harmless listening.

There was something else that I noticed this time around. It seems to me that she occasionally mispronounces words. Just the occasional word here and there. (Listen, for instance, to how she sings "yesterday's kisses" in Gone with the Wind.) Understandable, if so. Just imagine, singing in a language so different from hers, even if by this time she had had many years of experience. All the same, I find it endearing.

Here she is, singing "I Could Write a Book." Same arrangement as on the version from the LP. But, well, on TV, shall we say that one part of her book is in need of "rewriting": the preface.

[P.S. Video disabled. How annoying. Here is the link: Oscar Winning actress, Miyoshi Umeki sings I Could Write a Book ]​

​

 

Thank you for your excellent posts, Ridin'High, and for your opinion. I always read them with great interest.

Honestly, I prefer Miyoshi Umeki to sing with a miss-pronounced English than in Japanese. Japanese adds some ethnic flavor that transforms standards into Japanese pop, called J-pop.

As for her first album, it seems that someone "taught" her how she should sound.
And even she did not agree, in her newcomer's position, she could not say: No, I will not sing like that - this is just the Broadway's cliché.
On the second album, she was more free to approach. While the "teachers" had more indirect impact on her, anyway.
Nevertheless, she is very good:
Teach Me Tonight

In her early recordings, she was absolutely free, reaching the best sound in her career, based on great examples. She put her own, the Miyoshi Umeki trademark on these songs.
People don't know, how much to ask for that CD:
https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias=popular&field-keywords=4988002538133

 

I believe all three of these women have previously been discussed here. I went to a new record shop during the week and was surprised to find all three of these! (And as an added bonus, none cost me more than $8!) The jackets are in various conditions (someone got tape happy!) But the vinyl conditions for all are nice!

Diana Trask is an exceptional album! I had wondered what happened to her, as you only find her later LPs out and about. Looks like this might have been her only “classic torch singer” album as the next release was with Mitch Miller, and after that she seems to get a bit country for a while.

Ethel Azama reminds me of what a young Mavis Rivers would sound like, for some crazy reason! It’s also excellent. And I haven’t had a chance to listen to Paula yet but I know it’ll be great as well!

Diana recorded many albums up into the 1980’s, Ethel recorded two LPs (including a rare Exotica album) and it looks like Paula only did one, sadly!

 

I like Joan Shaw's two US albums, but I've never ventured into her reincarnation as Salena Jones in the UK.

Joan Shaw - Sings For Swingers
Joan Shaw - Joan Shaw In Person

 

Be careful what you wish for.

Although her name was certainly included in an old message that listed many singers who qualified for discussion here, we have not really covered Miss Greer. Perhaps for good reason. Heaven help us.

Actually, scratch that last sentence. What I should have said instead is ...

Heaven help YOU.

That's because you are the one whose ears are about to be exposed to the record. They will never ever hear things the same way again.


What a stun-ning singer she is. What a breath-taking degree of tunefulness. What a stupefying approach to vocal control she has! Out of this world, I tell you.

And what an extra-ordinary album Introducing Paula Greer is. I'll be curious to read what you think about it, once you've listened to the whole thing -- including its standout tracks, "Make Someone Happy," "Somewhere," and "Faraway Places." I just looked up, and none of those are currently on YouTube, unfortunately.

But we are not completely out of, um, luck. YouTube does have one track from the album. It is not as astonishing as those other three cuts that I mentioned, but it has its own brand of, uh, sonority.

Here it is. Curious listeners wanting to get the full effect of Paula's mind-blowing vocalizations should listen to the entire performance (especially from :51 onwards):





For those among us who want to learn more about la Greer, here are the notes from the 1963 album's back cover.





Paula seems to have been the only vocalist ever signed to Motown's jazz subsidiary, Workshop Jazz. The other artists were instrumentalists. It also seems that she was being groomed to be the face of Workshop Jazz, because she was the only artist with multiple releases. If such was the case, perhaps the decision to showcase Miss Greer points to one of the reasons why this sub-label was so short-lived (1963-1964), generating only a small batch of released (about 20). The same reason could partially explain why Motown album projects by Great American Songbook artists such as Sammy Davis, Jr., Billy Eckstine and, to a lesser extent, Bobby Darin, often leave plenty to be desired.

In addition to this album, Workshop Jazz released two singles by Paula. A second album, titled Detroit Jazz, was put together and scheduled for release just one month after her first. A tiny photo of the sophomore project's artwork can be seen on the back covers of other Workshop Jazz LPs. But that's all that's ever been seen of it. Apparently, it was cancelled (maybe after reviews and sales for the debut LP started to come in?), never ever to be issued ... She actually recorded more than 40 masters for the Berry Gordy subsidiary, which means that the bulk of her work remains unreleased.

So well did Introducing Paula Greer introduce her that she never released any other albums, either, despite a fairly long career performing in the greater Chicago area. (I've read claims of the existence of a gospel album -- claims which might very well be true, especially if it was a local release on a tiny label -- but I have never actually seen any traces of it.)

 

Joan Shaw

I do have these 2 albums on the Fresh Sound double CD set (Disc 2).
First disc, however, has 27 of her singes from 1947 and on.





"Not many people will remember the name Joan Shaw, a great singer who never really got her due in the early days of her career. Born in 1930 in Newport News, Virginia, home town of Ella Fitzgerald and Pearl Bailey, she began singing in amateur programs when she was 13. In December 1947 she made her recording debut as a featured jazz vocalist, singing Rain in My Eyes with the Buddy Tate Orchestra. From 1949 on she toured and recorded with different groups during the R & B era and the rise of rock n roll. In 1956 she tried the pop route, recording with strings and commercial arrangements, but it didn t work.
A better future loomed when eminent jazz critic Leonard Feather hailed her as one of the most promising singers in the United States, and in 1961, surrounded by fine jazzmen, she recorded her first album Sings for Swingers, for Epic Records. She played some of the best clubs on the contemporary circuit, recording Joan Shaw in Person, a live album with the Herman Foster trio. Despite good reviews, however, it proved to be a false dawn. In 1965, faced with diminishing success and racism in the USA, she moved to Europe, reinvented herself as Salena Jones and finally went on to enjoy the long, successful career she deserved. This compilation presents a retrospective of her first recordings as Joan Shaw."


Unfortunately, I couldn't find on youtube two of my favorites from Disc 1: "Rain in My Eyes" and "You Made Me Love You..."
The most of the singles are R&B stuff:



from the Disc 2:
Joan Shaw - Fly Me to the Moon

SALENA JONES ( JOAN SHAW ) sings MOON RIVER

Joan Shaw - Just Squeeze Me



Salena Jones


"I loved Sarah Vaughan so much and adored Lena Horne's elegance;
I put them together as 'Salena.' It looked good. And I kept Joan in 'Jones.'"
(Salena Jones)



Salena Jones is a much more successful lady than Joan Shaw. Her voice also has changed on a better - besides that it can go smoky upon request, it also gained stability, confidence and consistency. I'd say that her voice reached quality of excellence in some songs.

(want to hear the sound of excellence?)
Salena Jones - You Go To My Head - 1995

Tenderly - Salena Jones

The beauty of her voice was noticed, and her songs were included on audiophile CDs in Japan and Hong Kong:
SALENA JONES - "WE'VE ONLY JUST BEGUN."

You light up my life - Salena Jones

Victor, Japan (JVC) recorded most of her albums.
She performed jazz versions of many pop songs, and this is welcomed in our thread.
Her Beatles album is something to check out:
Salena Jones ~ Something (HQ)

Salena Jones ~ Don't Let Me Down (HQ)

Her renditions always were distinctive and fresh:
(Live in Japan)
SALENA JONES sings SUMMERTIME

Night And Day サリナ・ジョーンズ Salena Jones

Another album meant for us 'Sings Cole Porter':
Salena Jones - Solitude

Salena Jones - What Is This Thing Called Love

Salena Jones - Begin The Beguine

Salena Jones - I Concentrate On You

Salena Jones - I Get A Kick Out Of You

(from 'Over the Rainbow' album)
Salena Jones - Silk Shiny Stockings

Salena Jones - In A Mellow Tone

Salena Jones - Canadian Sunset

Later Selena (Live)
(Japan 2000)
Salena Jones - Antonio's Song (Michael Franks)

Salena Jones - Just The Way You Are

Salena jones. Agua De Beber


5 more great standard interpretations:
SALENA JONES sings COME RAIN OR COME SHINE

Salena Jones - The Man I Love

Salena Jones / Hank Jones - You've Changed

Salena Jones ~ Alone Together

Love for Sale - Salena Jones

Selena Jones was and remains a first-class singer and stylist of songs, who, regardless of the genre, turns everything into Jazz:
Salena Jones - Soul Shadows

SALENA JONES - "WE'VE ONLY JUST BEGUN."

When she sings Broadway, it's not a Musical any more:
(from the musical 'A Chorus Line')
SALENA JONES sings WHAT I DID FOR LOVE

(I've never liked this song, but Salena convinced me otherwise)
Salena Jones - Over The Rainbow

Recently I said that when Japanese singers sing standards in Japanese, they sound like J-Pop. Salena went in the opposite direction: she chose several Japanese ballads, translated them into English and turned them into jazz (album “Salena Sings J-Ballads”).

("Salena sings this beautiful song accompanied by Antonio Carlos Jobim (from their album recording Salena sings Jobim with the Jobims") comment
(audiophile quality sound)

Salena Jones - Once I Loved

The more I listen to Salena Jones, the more deeply I'm falling for her:
(unbeatable slow version; it is just breathtaking...)
Salena Jones - Teach Me Tonight

Her last album was recorded in 2012:
(unbelievable, but fact - better than original...)
SALENA JONES sings YOU`VE GOT A FRIEND

Unlike Shirley Bassey, who also recorded two jazz albums and then went pop, Salena Jones remains truthful to her combined name.
Salena Jones is one of the best jazz singers of the old school alive.

 

I went into a used store a while back, and they had a whole pile of used copies of Salena's Japan-only CDs. I picked them all up.

 

Ida James was remarkable singer with very unusual and unique voice.
She deserves to talk more about her.



Ida James
(1920-1986)



"She was always a class act, irresistibly
pleasing to the eyes and to the ears."
(Alicia T.)

"She was a very fine singer,
the kind we miss and need today."
(comment)




"Delicate beauty Ida James was a sweet-honey voiced singer who's singing could rival the birds, she gained popularity in the 1940s for her beauty, high, bird-like voice, grace, and glamour. She was the definition of daintiness and winsomeness. In everything she did, she always had charm and grace in appearance and style. She gained stardom by singing her trademark song, "Shoo Shoo Baby," and from that she was always known as and billed as "The Shoo Shoo Baby" and "The Shoo Shoo Girl." Her recognition came by singing with Nat King Cole, they both popularized the song "Is You Is, Or Is Not My Baby," they sung the duet in a musical short together. She sung with various popular trios and bands in which she recorded with also. In 1945, she was voted by music fans as one of the top 20 popular vocalists in America.

As an actress, she was very convincing, her first screen appearance was in "The Devil's Daughter," where she gave a watchable and commendable performance showing she could very much be an actress given the chance. Several years later, she appeared in "Hi-De-Ho" with Cab Calloway, where she gave another favorable performance. In between she did quite a few musical shorts. She appeared in leading Black magazines and print ads of the time as well. Ida James was always a likable presence on stage and screen. Not too many women possessed such charm, soft, sweet beauty, class and lady-like qualities as Ida James did. She was always a class act, irresistibly pleasing to the eyes and to the ears."
(Mini Biography by Alicia T., [email protected])


"Best remembered for her baby-talk singing voice, modern audiences seem fascinated by Ida James, much more so than her contemporaries. James was at best a minor celebrity. She rarely recorded, never had a hit song, and didn’t have a presence on radio. Though black journalists of the time praised her achievements, she remained a second-tier entertainer within her own community, and she failed to catch on with white audiences, who often saw her as a novelty act due to her chirping voice, which limited her effectiveness on a range of material. White critics sometimes panned her, calling her act tepid.

James was born on June 1, 1920 (Southbridge, Massachusetts), but grew up in Providence, Rhode Island, and made her professional start as part of the The Horn and Hardart Children’s Hour on Philadelphia radio station WCAU in the 1930s.

She sang with Earl Hines’ band in 1937 before joining Erskine Hawkins in 1939, where she stayed through 1942.

After leaving Hawkins to go solo, James spent time on the West Coast, where she played clubs around the Los Angeles area and performed in the The New Meet the People revue. She made two soundies, “Who’s Been Eating My Porridge?” and “Is You Is, or Is You Ain’t My Baby?” with the King Cole Trio for RCM before heading to New York in June 1944 to begin an engagement at the Cafe Society. While there she made two more soundies, “His Rockin’ Horse Ran Away” and “Can’t See for Lookin’,” both for Filmcraft in late 1944.

In early 1945, James appeared on Broadway twice, in the Olsen and Johnson revue Laffing Room Only and in the all-black musical Memphis Bound. Neither show lasted long. In late 1945, she headed to the South Pacific with her own USO unit.

Back in the states by mid-1946, James hit the theater and night club circuit before landing a long residence at the Savannah Club in New York’s Greenwich Village from late-1947 to mid-1948. She released two songs on Decca with the Ellis Larkins Trio in mid-1946 and signed with the Manor label in late December 1947, making four sides just before the recording ban of 1948 was due to begin. She also appeared on the Adventures in Jazz television program in 1949.

James made only a few film appearances, the first in the 1939 horror film The Devil’s Daughter, and later in Republic’s 1944 musical Trocadero, where she performed her signature tune “Shoo Shoo Baby.” In 1947, she starred as Cab Calloway’s manager in the Calloway vehicle Hi De Ho.

In January 1950, James opened on Broadway in another production, the social justice drama How Long Till Summer? As the 1950s rolled around, she turned towards rhythm and blues, recording two sides on Columbia in 1951 and signing with the new Nickelodeon label in 1953. She continued performing through the mid-1950s but by that time had drifted into obscurity and eventually left show business.
Ida James died on September 1986 (age 66) Philadelphia, Pennsylvania."
(bandchirps.com)

I find this bio kind of "tepid". It says: "...modern audiences seem fascinated by Ida James, much more so than her contemporaries."
So am I, and I don't understand how not to be.
People call such a voice: “One of a kind”.



With Nat King Cole (1944)
Nat King Cole Trio ft. Ida James // Is You is Or Is You Aint My Baby // 1944

KING COLE TRIO & IDA JAMES Who's Been Eating My Porrdge 1944

Knock Me A Kiss (FULL EP)
01. Knock Me A Kiss
02. Jumpin' In A Julip Joint
03. Night After Night
04. Big Wig In The Wig-Wam
Ida James - Knock Me A Kiss (FULL EP)

Ida James fronted two big bands for 6 years...

Earl Hines (Remastered 2015) (feat. Ida James)
Please Be Kind
Earl Hines "PLEASE BE KIND" (1938)
I Cannot Believe
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrrOhuzHnJ8

5 her songs could be found on the Chronological Classics, France:





Night After Night

What Do You Know About Love

Who's Beatin' My Time With You? (Remastered)

It was not easy, but finally, I retrieved from youtube 15 more songs billed as 'The Best of...'.
I selected 10 songs, which I can listen to at least ones a day:

Ida James - Close to You

People Will Say We're in Love

I Don't Want to Walk Without You

Stormy Weather

On the Sunny Side of the Street

Honeysuckle Rose

I the Living I

What Do You Know About Love

I Can't See for Looking

No Love, No Nothing

Ida James really is fascinating lady, who is definitely qualified for our list.
I would be thrilled to buy her song collection on CD, but where is it?

 

P.S.
One rare Ida James photo, which recently was sold out:

 

I love finding lesser known big band singers - thanks for the Ida James tip. I have some big band collections that include Mary Mayo and British songbird Marjorie Kingsley.

 

R.I.P. to Ethel Ennis...

Ethel Ennis, Baltimore's 'First Lady of Jazz,' dies at 86 (November 28, 1932 - February 17, 2019)

 

For the time when the link is unavailable:

Ethel Ennis,

Baltimore's 'First Lady of Jazz,' dies at 86


Frederick N. Rasmussen

Baltimore Sun - February 19. 2019

Ethel Ennis, Baltimore’s “First Lady of Jazz” who during her seven-decade career performed with such musical luminaries as Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Cab Calloway, the Miles Davis-John Coltrane Sextet and Wynton Marsalis, and thrilled audiences at the Newport and Monterey jazz festivals, died Sunday from complications of a stroke at her Greater Mondawmin home.

She was 86.

Frank Sinatra once described Ms. Ennis as “my kind of singer.”

“She was not just a wonderful singer Ethel could do what the really great singers do and that is inhabiting a song and making it her own in a very special way,” said Andy Bienstock, a jazz scholar, WYPR vice president, program director and on-air-host.

“It’s a very hard thing to do, and you really have to be great to do that,” said Mr. Bienstock, an Annapolis resident. “She did everything on her own terms, and that may have kept her from becoming a household name. She was a very strong woman and she did things her way.”

Geoffrey Himes, who writes about music for The Washington Post, Jazz Times, Paste and Downbeat, and hosts the Roots Cafe Series at An Die Musik Live in Baltimore, wrote in an email, “Yes, she could fully inhabit the character in each song, but she could support that with a firm grasp of the chord progression and melodic intervals and how her embellishments and improvisations could best operate within those structures.

“No wonder musicians from Benny Goodman and Duke Ellington to Cyrus Chestnut and Stef Scaggiari were eager to work for her. We in Baltimore were lucky to have her as long as we did.”

“Ethel was not only a musical legend in her time but a true champion of Baltimore, always spotlighting her hometown,” said Baltimore Mayor Catherine E. Pugh in a statement regarding Ms. Ennis’ death.

Born in a North Calhoun Street rowhouse in Baltimore and raised in Sandtown-Winchester, Ethel Ennis was the daughter of Andrew Ennis Sr., a Harlem Park barber, and Arrabell “Bell” Ennis, a homemaker who played piano at Ames United Methodist Church.

Ms. Ennis grew up in a home where jazz and the blues, which represented the “fast life,” were not played.

“‘I could hear the music coming from an apartment below us,’” she told The Baltimore Sun in a 1998 article.

“So, to get a better earful, the young Ennis got down on the floor, one ear pressed to the concrete,” the article read. “‘I came from a rather conservative background. Jazz and blues were forbidden,’” she said.

Ms. Ennis was urged by her mother to study the piano, which turned into her first paying job as a church pianist. By the time she was in her teens, she had discovered popular rhythm and blues music, which didn’t please her family, who thought it was just a passing phase.

She joined a group of young enthusiastic jazz musicians, Riley’s Octet, which was led by Abraham Riley, as a $2.50 a week pianist.

“I was much too young to play in clubs, so we played in places like VFW and fellowship halls where my age was accepted,” she explained in the Sun interview. “My grandmother always emphasized ‘being a lady.’ She kept saying to always be a lady. So, I’ve been a lady singing the blues in these bars forever.”

The first time Ms. Ennis sang in public was as a 15-year-old when Riley’s Octet was playing an Odd Fellows Hall in Randallstown, after an audience member promised her a $5 tip if she sang “In the Dark.”

After her performance, her days as the group’s pianist came to an end.

“Her angelic, full-throated singing brought the house down,” wrote John Lewis in Baltimore Magazine in 2011. “The crowd demanded encores, and, from then on, she was a vocalist.”

After she graduated in 1950 from Frederick Douglass High School, she attended business school during the day and performed with Montell Poulson, a bassist, or solo. They played strip clubs on Baltimore’s Block and other joints, including Sherrie’s Bar on Pulaski Highway, a truckers’ bar.

“She and Poulson played mostly ballads, jazz tunes, and R&B at Phil’s Lounge, The Zanzibar, and Pennsylvania Avenue’s Club Casino,” Mr. Lewis wrote.

After George Fox, owner The Red Fox, a Pennsylvania Avenue club, heard Ms. Ennis singing at the Club Casino in 1954, he hired her, and she performed at his club for the next nine years.

She signed her first recording contract in 1951, and four years later, made her first album for Jubilee Records, “Lullabies for Losers,” which earned her a national following, bookings across the country, and a midnight call from jazz legend Billie Holiday.

One night when she and her first husband, Jacques “Jack” Leeds, a Baltimore attorney, were in bed, the phone rang, and the caller who identified herself as Billie Holiday said she was struck by Ms. Ennis’ singing on “Lullabies for Losers.”

“Sherry Baker, a Baltimore hairdresser, who knew Ethel, was also a friend of Billie Holiday’s, was visiting New York,” and Holiday asked her about that new singer in Baltimore, so they called her, recalled Earl Arnett, an author and former Sun feature writer who married Ms. Ennis 51 years ago. “She told Ethel she was a great singer and could tell that she didn’t fake it, that she was the real deal, and one day would be famous.”

In 1958, Ms. Ennis learned that Benny Goodman was looking for a vocalist to join his 18-man “all stars” band to perform at the Brussels Worlds Fair and then embark on a European tour organized by the U.S. State Department that was billed as “jazz diplomacy.”

“Everywhere they appeared, Ethel Ennis was a huge success. Baltimoreans were filled with pride at the spectacular rise of one of their own, and fully expected Ethel’s career to continue its path toward the highest peaks of stardom,” wrote Liz Fixsen, whose profile of Ms. Ennis was published in “Music at the Crossroads: Lives & Legacies of Baltimore Jazz.”

With the big time seemingly in her grasp after her agent landed an RCA Victor Recording contract and bookings across the country in the 1960s, it came with two conditions: She’d have to leave Baltimore and RCA would control her appearances.

“You had to belong to a clique. You were supposed to be seen with all of the right people, the movers and the shakers. They tried to mold you into something you were not,” Ms. Ennis explained in the 1998 Sun interview. “The agent said, ‘You don’t want to be a star. You want to be a semi-star.’ I said, ‘OK. I’ll be a semi-star.’ I did have determination, but I don’t think you have to go against your grain.”

Even though she stayed in Baltimore, Ms. Ennis continued to work steadily with the jazz greats of the day while making appearances on such nationally broadcast TV shows as “The Bell Telephone Hour” and “The Arthur Godfrey Show.” She was a show-stopper at the 1964 Newport Jazz Festival, and a year later, at the Monterey Jazz Festival. In the 1970s, she played Ethel Earphone, an animated character, on Maryland public Television’s “Book, Look and Listen.”

“She was such a talent, but I think avoided the national fame grind and was happy to have stayed a ‘Baltimore Lady,’” said Stan Heuisler, former editor of Baltimore Magazine and a Roland Park resident.

“In 1970, on a Saturday night as the first City Fair’s entertainment chair, I was honored to introduce her as ‘Baltimore’s gift to the world’ as she and the superb U.S. Army Jazz Orchestra thrilled a Hopkins Plaza crowd. They did about two hours and people were dancing,” Mr. Heuisler said.

Ms. Ennis won wide critical acclaim for her a cappella rendition of the “Star Spangled Banner” at Richard M. Nixon’s presidential inauguration in 1973, and after returning to her Baltimore home that afternoon, busied herself cleaning out her refrigerator.


Through the decades, her voice has been compared to those of Sarah Vaughn, Ella Fitzgerald and Peggy Lee.

A jazz critic writing for the Chicago Sun Times in 1964 described her as a “smoldering jazz contralto with phrasing that leaps, lifts or melts into a lovely dying fall,” while another wrote that her singing was “all honey and flame and seduction.”

“Like everyone else, I was completely disarmed by her personality. She had a warm smile and a quick laugh, both onstage and off, making every person she sang to or talked to feel as if they had her complete attention and approval ” wrote Mr. Himes in an email. “In fact, her charisma was so radiant that it was easy to overlook her skills as an artist. But she was more than a singer; she was a musician whose instrument was her big, brimming-over voice.”

Ken Jackson, the host of WYPR’s “In the Mood,” likened her singing to that one found in an “intimate jazz cabaret venue. I really liked her voice.”

Mike Giuliano, a professor at Howard County Community College and a local arts journalist, praised her optimism.

“Ethel was incredibly optimistic and spent her entire career turning no’s into yeses. She had a bubbly personality and such an enthusiastic spirit,” said Mr. Giuliano, a Charles Village resident. “She really came out of the great tradition of jazz singing. She understood the product and was never a show-off. She put her heart and herself into the music.”

In 1984, she and her husband opened “Ethel’s Place,” an upscale jazz club on Cathedral Street that featured local and national acts such as Joe Williams, Max Roach, George Shearing, Toots Thielmans, Charlie Byrd, the Modern Jazz quartet and Wynton Marsalis, Mr. Giuliano said. “I don’t think Baltimore ever really appreciated it.”

The club, which was not profitable, closed in 1988.

“I have no regrets,” Ms Ennis said in the 1998 interview. “I would do it this way all over again. I would not change a thing. Every day for us is a holiday.”

In 2008, she received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from the Johns Hopkins University, and last October she was given a star at Maryland Public Television’s Walk of Fame at its Owings Mills headquarters.

Her last CD, “Ennis Anyone?” was released in 2005, and her last performance was in 2016 at the Montpelier Cultural Arts Center in Prince George’s County.

Plans for a memorial service are incomplete.

In addition to her husband, Ms. Ennis is survived by a brother, Andrew Ennis of Baltimore, a musician who performed with Ray Charles; and cousins, nieces and nephews.