Portal:Jazz/Selected biography/21

Sarah Lois Vaughan (March 27, 1924 – April 3, 1990) was an American jazz singer, described by music critic Scott Yanow as having "one of the most wondrous voices of the 20th century."

Nicknamed "Sassy", "The Divine One" and "Sailor" (for her salty speech), Sarah Vaughan was a Grammy Award winner. The National Endowment for the Arts bestowed upon her its "highest honor in jazz", the NEA Jazz Masters Award, in 1989.

Vaughan began her solo career in 1945 by freelancing in clubs on New York's 52nd Street such as the Three Deuces, the Famous Door, the Downbeat and the Onyx Club. Vaughan also hung around the Braddock Grill, next door to the Apollo Theater in Harlem. On May 11, 1945, Vaughan recorded "Lover Man" for the Guild label with a quintet featuring Gillespie and Parker with Al Haig on piano, Curley Russell on double bass and Sid Catlett on drums. Later that month she went into the studio with a slightly different and larger Gillespie/Parker aggregation and recorded three more sides. (Full article...)