Jazzy Stuff

June Christy was an American singer, known for her work in the cool jazz genre and for her silky smooth vocals. Her success as a singer began with The Stan Kenton Orchestra. She pursued a solo career from 1954 and is best known for her debut album Something Cool. After her death, she was hailed as "one of the finest and most neglected singers of her time."

Julie London was an American singer and actress whose career spanned more than 40 years. A torch singer noted for her sultry, languid contralto vocals, London recorded over thirty albums of pop and jazz standards between 1955 and 1969. Her recording of "Cry Me a River", a track she introduced on her debut album, was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2001. In addition to her musical notice, London was nominated for a Golden Globe Award in 1974 for her portrayal of nurse Dixie McCall in the television series Emergency!.

Anna Marie Wooldridge, known professionally as Abbey Lincoln, was an American jazz vocalist, songwriter, and actress. She was a civil rights activist beginning in the 1960s. Lincoln made a career out of delivering deeply felt presentations of standards as well as writing and singing her own material.

Mary Jean Loutsenhizer, known professionally as Chris Connor was an American jazz singer.

Ernestine Anderson (November 11, 1928 – March 10, 2016) was an American jazz and blues singer. In a career spanning more than six decades, she recorded over 30 albums. She was nominated four times for a Grammy Award. She sang at Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, the Monterey Jazz Festival (six times over a 33-year span), as well as at jazz festivals all over the world. In the early 1990s she joined Qwest Records, the label founded by fellow Garfield High School graduate Quincy Jones.

Ernestine Irene Anderson (and her twin sister Josephine) were born in Houston, Texas, on November 11, 1928. Her mother, Erma, was a housewife, and her father, Joseph, a construction worker who sang bass in a gospel quartet. By the age of three, Anderson showed a talent for singing along with her parents' old blues 78 rpm records by the likes of Bessie "The Empress of the Blues" Smith. Anderson started singing at a local church, singing solos in its gospel choir.

Maria Grazia Morgana Messina (June 4, 1930 – March 22, 2018), known as Morgana King, was an American jazz singer and actress. She began a professional singing career at sixteen years old. In her twenties, she was singing at a Greenwich Village nightclub when she was recognized for her unique phrasing and vocal range, described as a four-octave contralto range. She was signed to a label and began recording solo albums. She recorded dozens of albums well into the late 1990s.

King had her debut and breakout role in film as Carmela Corleone in The Godfather (1972) and The Godfather Part II (1974). She had roles in three additional films including her latest performance in A Brooklyn State of Mind in 1997.

Dee Dee Bridgewater (née Denise Garrett, May 27, 1950) is an American jazz singer and actress. She is a three-time Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter, as well as a Tony Award-winning stage actress. For 23 years, she was the host of National Public Radio's syndicated radio show JazzSet with Dee Dee Bridgewater. She is a United Nations Goodwill Ambassador for the Food and Agriculture Organization.

Born Denise Eileen Garrett in Memphis, Tennessee, she was raised Catholic in Flint, Michigan. Her father, Matthew Garrett, was a jazz trumpeter and teacher at Manassas High School, and through his playing, she was exposed to jazz early on. At the age of sixteen, she was a member of a Rock and R&B trio, singing in clubs in Michigan. At 18, she studied at Michigan State University before she went to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. With the school's jazz band, she toured the Soviet Union in 1969.

Shirley Valerie Horn was an American jazz singer and pianist. She collaborated with many jazz musicians including Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Toots Thielemans, Ron Carter, Carmen McRae, Wynton Marsalis and others. She was most noted for her ability to accompany herself with nearly incomparable independence and ability on the piano while singing, something described by arranger Johnny Mandel as "like having two heads", and for her rich, lush voice, a smoky contralto, which was described by noted producer and arranger Quincy Jones as "like clothing, as she seduces you with her voice".

Anita Belle Colton, known professionally as Anita O'Day, was an American jazz singer and self proclaimed “song stylist” widely admired for her sense of rhythm and dynamics, and her early big band appearances that shattered the traditional image of the "girl singer". Refusing to pander to any female stereotype, O'Day presented herself as a "hip" jazz musician, wearing a band jacket and skirt as opposed to an evening gown. She changed her surname from Colton to O'Day, pig Latin for "dough", slang for money.

Dianne Elizabeth Reeves is an American jazz singer.

Joe Williams was an American jazz singer. He sang with big bands such as the Count Basie Orchestra and the Lionel Hampton Orchestra and with his combos. He sang in two films with the Basie orchestra and sometimes worked as an actor.

Carol Sloane was an American jazz singer.

Irene Kral was an American jazz singer who was born to Czechoslovakian parents in Chicago, Illinois and settled in Los Angeles in the early 1960s. She died from breast cancer in Encino, California.

Diane Joan Schuur (born December 10, 1953), nicknamed "Deedles", is an American jazz singer and pianist. As of 2015, Schuur had released 23 albums, and had extended her jazz repertoire to include essences of Latin, gospel, pop and country music. Her most successful album is Diane Schuur & the Count Basie Orchestra, which remained number one on the Billboard Jazz Charts for 33 weeks. She won Grammy Awards for best female jazz vocal performance in both 1986 and 1987 and has had three other Grammy nominations.

Schuur has performed in venues such as Carnegie Hall, The Kennedy Center, and the White House, and has performed with many artists including Ray Charles, Frank Sinatra, Quincy Jones, and Stevie Wonder. Co-performers on Schuur's albums have included Barry Manilow, José Feliciano, Maynard Ferguson, Stan Getz, Vince Gill, Alison Krauss, and B.B. King. Her album with B.B. King was number one on the Billboard Jazz Charts. She was Johnny Carson's guest on NBC's The Tonight Show eleven times.

Dakota Staton was an American jazz vocalist who found international acclaim with the 1957 No. 4 hit "The Late, Late Show". She was also known by the Muslim name Aliyah Rabia for a period due to her conversion to Islam as interpreted by the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community.

Susannah McCorkle was an American jazz singer.

Margrethe Blossom Dearie was an American jazz singer and pianist. She had a recognizably light and girlish voice. Dearie performed regular engagements in London and New York City over many years and collaborated with many musicians, including Johnny Mercer, Miles Davis, Jack Segal, Johnny Mandel, Duncan Lamont, Bob Dorough, Dave Frishberg, and Jay Berliner.

Lionel Frederick Cole was an American jazz singer and pianist whose recording career spanned almost 70 years. He was the brother of musicians Nat King Cole, Eddie Cole, and Ike Cole, father of Lionel Cole, and uncle of Natalie Cole and Carole Cole.