“Sarah (Lois) Vaughan: (1924-1990) U.S. singer, one of the most virtuosic and expressive in jazz. Born in Newark, New Jersey, Vaughan won an amateur contest at Harlem’s Apollo Theater in 1942 and joined Earl Hines’s big band as vocalist and second pianist the following year. Joining Billy Eckstine in 1944, she gained exposure to the new music of bebop, and later recorded with Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker. Alternating between popular song and jazz, she worked as a soloist for the rest of her career. A vast range and wide vibrato in the service of her harmonic sensitivity enabled Vaughan to employ a seemingly instrumental approach when singing, often improvising as a jazz soloist.”
Excerpted/Adapted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.
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