German postcard by Benedikt Taschen Berlag GMBH, Köln, 1997. Photo: William Claxton. Caption: Sarah Vaughan, New York City, 1960, from the book 'William Claxton's Jazz Photography'.
Dutch collector card, no. 43.
French postcard by Éditions du Désastre, Paris, no. FD10, 1992. Photo: F. Driggs Collection / Magnum / Éditions du Désastre. Caption: Sarah Vaughan, 1946.
Winning the $10 prize and a week's engagement at the Apollo
Sarah Lois Vaughan was born in 1924 in Newark, New Jersey. Her parents, Asbury Vaughan, a carpenter, and Ada Vaughan, a laundress, were also musicians. She began studying music when she was seven, taking eight years of piano lessons and two years of organ. As a child, she sang in the choir at the Mt. Zion Baptist Church in Newark and played piano and organ in high school productions at Arts High School.
As her adventures as a performer overtook her academic pursuits, she dropped out of high school during her junior year to concentrate more fully on her music. At 18, she entered an amateur contest at the Apollo Theatre in New York's Harlem area, singing 'Body and Soul' and won the $10 prize and a week's engagement at the Apollo.
She caught the attention of bandleader and pianist Earl Hines, with whose big band Sarah Vaughan became a singer. From 1943 to 1945, she sang together with Hines's singer at the time, Billy Eckstine.
In 1945, Vaughan went solo. Well-known songs from that period include 'Lover Man' (1945), the Jazz standard 'Tenderly' (1947) and 'Nature Boy' (1947). Her recording of 'It's Magic' from the Doris Day film Romance on the High Seas (Michael Curtiz, 1948) became a hit in the charts in early 1948. She signed with Columbia, and her chart successes continued with 'Black Coffee' in the summer of 1949.
Until 1953, Columbia steered her almost exclusively to commercial pop ballads, like 'That Lucky Old Sun', 'Thinking of You' (with pianist Bud Powell), and 'I Cried for You'. Vaughan sang to large crowds in clubs around the country during the late 1940s and early 1950s. In the summer of 1949, she made her first appearance with a symphony orchestra in a benefit for the Philadelphia Orchestra entitled '100 Men and a Girl.'
French postcard by Éditions du Désastre, Paris, no. FD08, 1992. Photo: F. Driggs Collection / Magnum / Éditions du Désastre. Caption: Sarah Vaughan, 1947.
American postcard by Pomegranate, Petaluma, CA, no. 2129. Photo: Michael Ochs. Caption: Sarah Vaughan, c. 1959, 'Broken Hearted Melody'.
American postcard by The American Postcard Co., Inc., no. 110. Photo: Michael Ochs. Caption: Sarah Vaughan, 1959.
Her wide range, perfectly controlled vibrato, and wide expressive abilities
Sarah Vaughan performed her songs in several films, including Disc Jockey (Will Jason, 1951) starring Tom Drake, the crime film Murder, Inc. (Burt Balaban, Stuart Rosenberg, 1960) with Stuart Whitman and May Britt, and the German production Schlager-Raketen / Hits Rocket (Erik Ode, 1960).
Scott Yanow at AllMusic: "She often gave the impression that with her wide range, perfectly controlled vibrato, and wide expressive abilities, she could do anything she wanted with her voice." In 1953, Vaughan signed a contract with Mercury in which she would record commercial material for Mercury and jazz-oriented material for its subsidiary, EmArcy. She was paired with producer Bob Shad, and their working relationship yielded commercial and artistic success.
She remained with Mercury through 1959. After recording for Roulette from 1960 to 1963, she returned to Mercury from 1964 to 1967. Her hits at Mercury included 'Make Yourself Comfortable', 'How Important Can It Be' (with Count Basie), 'Whatever Lola Wants' and 'The Banana Boat Song'. Her commercial success peaked with 'Broken Hearted Melody' (1959), a song she considered 'corny' but became her first gold record. Vaughan was reunited with Billy Eckstine for a series of duet recordings in 1957 that yielded the hit 'Passing Strangers'.
In the latter half of the 1950s, she followed a schedule of almost non-stop touring. She was featured at the first Newport Jazz Festival in the summer of 1954 and starred in subsequent editions of that festival at Newport and New York City for the remainder of her life. In the fall of 1954, she performed at Carnegie Hall with the Count Basie Orchestra on a bill that also included Billie Holiday, Charlie Parker, Lester Young and the Modern Jazz Quartet. She also toured Europe several times.
Vaughan continued to release records and perform until the early 1980s, working with luminaries such as Miles Davis and Quincy Jones. In 1947, she married her manager, trumpeter George Treadwell. Her later husbands were pro football player Clyde B. Atkins (1958-1963) and trumpeter Waymon Reed (1978-1981). All her marriages ended in divorce. She and Clyde B. Atkins adopted a daughter in 1961, whom they named Deborah Lois, now actress Paris Vaughan. Sarah Vaughan received many awards, including an Emmy in 1981 for a tribute to George Gershwin. She won two Grammy Awards, including the Lifetime Achievement Award, and was nominated for a total of nine Grammy Awards. Vaughan died in 1990, in Hidden Hills, Los Angeles, of lung cancer. Following her death, she was interred at Glendale Cemetery in Bloomfield, New Jersey.
American Arcade card.
Vintage card.
Dutch postcard by Syba, Enkhuizen, no. 14. Photo: Mercury.
Sources: Mike McKinley (IMDb), Scott Yanow (AllMusic), Wikipedia and IMDb.
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