Famous Jazz Singers- Billie Holiday and Sarah Vaughan

This week is focused on famous jazz singers. They helped add to the music with their singing through the emotions their voices could project. I will focus on two famous jazz singers, Billie Holiday and Sarah Vaughan.

Billie Holiday was born in 1915. At birth she was given the name Eleanora Fagan, but adopted the name Billie from one of her favorite actresses. Her parents were unmarried at the time of her birth; even though they were married later he never lived with them. As a child Billie worked at a young age cleaning a house of prostitution. It was then she first heart Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith’s music floating out the open windows. She moved to New York with her mother and applied to sing in a Harlem night club. When she sang on a recording for someone and more recordings in the following years she hit it big. By the late 1930s she was internationally known. Some Billie’s best work was recorded with tenor saxophonist, Lester Young. Though they never married they were labeled to soul mates and their relationship “is the stuff of legends.” Billie was arrested for illegal drug abuse and one time she even requested to go into rehab where she remained for a year and a day. Both of Billie’s husbands had no effect on her and could not keep her away from illegal drugs. By the 1950s Billie’s phenomenal voice had be strained by all the alcohol and marijuana. Her voice was unnaturally deep now and would sometimes crack during a performance. She died in 1959 from congestion of lungs complicated by heart failure. At the time she was under arrest for possession of illegal drugs. She was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000 as an early influence of rock and roll. Her life began terribly and when she had finally achieved greatness illegal drugs and alcohol destroyed what she had achieved. Her music is still listened to and loved today as the sad truth of Billie’s life reverberates throughout her music.

Sarah Vaughan was born in 1924 in New Jersey. Her parents were amateur musicians and she began learning the piano, organ, and singing in the church choir by the age of 7. After winning an amateur contest she was hired as a singer and back-up singer in an orchestra. A year later some of the group split to make their own group and Sarah went with them. In this new group she was greatly influenced by two of the musicians in the group, Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker. Her singer began to imitate those of the instruments. She only stayed a year with them before leaving and starting her solo career, she was 21 at the time. In the following years she sang in many genres and with a wide expanse of groups and people. She had perfect pitch and her voice was that of legends. While her professional life was so successful her personal life was that of many other famous people. She was married and divorced 4 times. She also had a daughter. One of the many awards she received during her long and fruitful career was the 1982 Grammy for best Jazz Vocal Performance. A few months before her death she began working on another album. The last song she would ever record was called September. She died of lung cancer in her Los Angeles home in 1990 at the age of 66. Her voice some would describe as a gift from God. Over the years she shared her special gift with so many and her repertoire was vast. She will always be remembered by her phenomenal voice.

This week I listened to Billie Holiday music. My favorite is her singing Strange Fruit. Her singing is phenomenal and expresses so many emotions and feelings just by the way she enunciates the words or the way she sings it. We voice sounds so smoky and is just perfect for blues songs and jazz. She was so great at singing and will forever live on in music history. Her voice is not an everyday thing. I also listened to some of Sarah’s music. My favorite of her music is You’re Not the Kind. Her voice is almost complete opposite of Billie’s voice. It is not rough or smoky at all. Her voice is so warm and rich. I can see how people said her singing sounds almost like musical instruments. Her range is simply amazing, to sing three octaves is unheard of and impossible for most singers. These two women were amzing singers and I am glad I had a chance to listen some of their music. Listening to them makes me wish I could sing like that.

For more information see:

http://www.notablebiographies.com/He-Ho/Holiday-Billie.html

http://www.bookrags.com/biography/sarah-lois-vaughan/

Pictures from:

http://www.austinlindy.com/Sound_of_Jazz_Cover.jpg
http://api.ning.com/files/DpI9-ez3TiGL3fBTQGjH4tTLROZ4RWaK6j1yvJSceP3eC8gyQiAg3vGYwyhEEjtmdxR9tArMNAFxs6nyYIHptJI1PHfVSEWh/Sarah_Vaughn.jpg