Sarah Vaughan: The Jazz Albums 1954-1959
"Sassy @ 100": Part 1
In 2012, Harry Weinger of Universal Music, which controlled the Mercury Records catalog, conceived of a four-disc package which would contain all of Sarah Vaughan’s essential jazz sessions. He called it Sarah Vaughan - Divine: The Jazz Albums, 1954-1959, and invited me to write the album notes. I don’t know if that (excellent) set is still available, but for those who might be listening to the albums without benefit of the notes, I’ll post those notes here as part of an ongoing series celebrating the Sassy Centennial, 1924-2024. (I’m also going to honor this auspicious occasion at the Film Forum on the actual birthdate, Wednesday March 27, and on more than one episode of my KSDS Jazz 88.3 radio series, Sing! Sing! Sing!) The following was my intro to that package, but reading it over now, it also stands as a pretty good (I hope) introduction to the artistry of a Great Lady of Jazz. Thanks for reading and listening.
Divine indeed.
From the time she emerged in the mid-1940s, at barely twenty years old, Sarah Vaughan almost immediately joined the pantheon of great jazz singers. Ella Fitzgerald was the voice of pure melody, Dinah Washington the voice of the blues, and Billie Holiday the voice of human experience, but few would dispute that Sarah Vaughan was the voice of the angels. She was the closest that jazz ever came to having an artist with grandly operatic chops, with more pure power than any of the great gospel singers (it’s hardly a surprise that her favorite of her own records was “The Lord’s Prayer”), and a technique that often seemed to be more than merely human. And yet her greatest strength was not the purely rapturous quality of said voice but her down-to-earth nature; not her divinity but her humanity. She also was the spirit of the blues, the spirit of human playfulness, of melodic invention, of effortless swing.
Vaughan had already long since established her immortality by the time she signed with Mercury Records in 1954. Born in Newark, New Jersey, on March 27, 1924, Vaughan grew up immersed both in the church—where she sang and played keyboards—and the exploding jazz and African-American music scene of the New York area. At age 18, she followed in the footsteps of Ella Fitzgerald as a winner of the amateur contest at Harlem’s Apollo Theater. Even at this early stage, the discrepancies between the various aspects of Vaughan’s persona were evident, specifically the vast contrast between the abundant nature of her talent and a crippling shyness. Her first husband and manager, trumpeter George Treadwell, helped her come out of her shell and find herself as a performer; the marriage itself ultimately didn’t last.
From the Apollo, Vaughan ascended through the big bands of two of her mentors and lifelong friends, veteran pianist Earl Hines and singer-“big brother” Billy Eckstine. Along the way, she earned the admiration and collaboration of bebop pioneers Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker; she would stay in their company for most of her career, never straying too far from the vital core of modern jazz, no matter how popular she became—or how many purely pop songs, with choirs and strings, she would record at nearly every point in her development. She began her recording career first as a guest vocalist, then as a star, in a wide range of mostly jazz-centric contexts for a string of independent record labels (DeLuxe, Continental, Guild), some of whom were so precarious that they nearly went out of business in between the time it took to do the session and release the records.
Her most important professional relationships were with two new-ish concerns that actually had a shot at making it into the majors: Musicraft Records (1945-1947) and Chicago-based Mercury Records (beginning in 1954); the second did, indeed, achieve that goal. Between Musicraft and Mercury, from 1949 to 1953, Vaughan was under contract to the most major of the majors, Columbia Records. By this point she was an important star, among both black and white audiences, in the worlds of jazz, which was itself still a powerful commercial force in the early ’50s, as well as the larger world of mainstream popular music. Throughout the Mercury era, she was playing the top clubs, hitting the charts frequently, and pulling in an average of $2,500 a week.
Even during her lifetime, at the dawn of the compact disc era, the awesome totality of Vaughan’s career was becoming increasingly evident. Starting in 1986, all of her Mercury recordings, from the years 1954-1959 and 1963-1967, were issued on a series of imposing multi-disc vinyl (and later CD) boxed sets, first in Japan then distributed around the world. (I actually owned a set on vinyl - I vaguely remember writing about it, I think, for Down Beat.) They were invaluable because they documented every single note of her work in these years: every high, every low, every triumph, every misstep, the often-classic albums, as well as the occasionally forgettable singles.
Where those sets were notable for their completeness, the present package is possibly even more worthwhile. More than Fitzgerald, Vaughan continued to record pop singles deep into her career and occasionally even got on the charts with one. Yet she was fundamentally a jazz artist, and it’s her jazz recordings, which, from this period onward, were invariably produced for the long-playing album market, that contain the soul of her music. This set contains all of the jazz sessions she made in the mid-1950s for Mercury Records, both live and in the studio, both with hot small combos and swinging big bands. Taken together, they are a powerful testament to Sarah’s divinity as well as her humanity.
A “LUCKY STRIKE EXTRA” VIDEO!
Lastly, I’m going to include some (hopefully rare and offbeat) video clips of the great Sarah in this series. This is from 1954 - the year that she signed with Mercury Records - apparently from a Dumont network variety series titled Stars on Parade. Several earlier clips are known to exist: a 1950 Universal-International short subject co-starring Herb Jeffries; the Snader Telescriptions, filmed in color in 1951; and the 1951 feature Disc Jockey. She also was on The Ed Sullivan Show from the very beginning, and the Sullivan folks have even posted a number from what I believe is her television debut, “Fools Paradise” on the December 4, 1949 episode of Toast of the Town. But this is the among the earliest very earliest extant TV performances of Vaughan that we have. She recorded “My Funny Valentine” at her very first session for Mercury in February 1954, so this is probably about that time. (This clip can be seen on YouTube but in inferior resolution, and with a watermark. Kudos to my buddy Richard E. Platt for finding this upgraded quality copy for us.)
PS: a further LUCKY STRIKE EXTRA - here’s Sarah singing “My Funny Valentine” again, circa 1968. This was part of a syndicated variety-anthology series titled Something Special, and, as far as I know, represents the only time Vaughan hosted her own TV special. While I have managed to procure copies of many episodes - thanks to such close friends as Alan Eichler, Anthony DiFlorio III, and Steve Kramer - this particular show remains elusive. I have only two numbers, both taken from the compilation Show Stoppers, hosted by Pearl Bailey. The second number, Bonnie Lake’s semi-standard “Man with the Horn” features special guest soloist Al Hirt. (As far as I can tell, none of this show is on youtube. If anybody has a complete copy of this program, let me know!)
And lastly, information on the Film Forum Sarah Vaughan Centennial show is here.
Very Special thanks to the fabulous Ms. Elizabeth Zimmer, for expert proofreading of this page, and scanning for typos, mistakes, and other assorted boo-boos!
Sing! Sing! Sing! : My tagline is, “Celebrating the great jazz - and jazz-adjacent - singers, as well as the composers, lyricists, arrangers, soloists, and sidemen, who help to make them great.”
A production of KSDS heard Saturdays at 10:00 AM Pacific; 1:00PM Eastern.
To listen to KSDS via the internet (current and recent shows are available for streaming.) click here.
The whole series is also listenable on Podbean.com, click here. (that includes last week’s episode on Dorothy Fields & Jimmy McHugh.)
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Oooooh how I love Sarah.....she's a true teacher for me. Love these beautiful clips! What a gift!
Ooh those clips - what a treasure! Thank you Will!!!