Sarah Vaughan at 100: divining the divine

The Apollo Theater, Harlem. Wednesday, 21 October 1942. It’s Amateur Night (“Where stars are born and legends are made”) and an 18-year-old Sarah Vaughan steps nervously onto the stage to sing ‘Body and Soul’, backed by the ‘Growl Trumpet King’, Cootie Williams and his Band. A song closely associated with Billie Holiday, who had released it as a single just two years before, this was an especially high-risk choice. Any doubts which the audience had on seeing this mere teenager before them were swept away by Vaughan’s mesmerising voice and unparalleled talent. As the veteran emcee Ralph Cooper later recalled: “She sang with such poise and precision, if you closed your eyes you’d be sure she was about 40 and had just flown in from the Paris Opera.”

Vaughan’s triumph that night earned her not only the prize money of $10 but also a week-long engagement at the Apollo a month later, where she would share the stage with one of her musical heroes, Ella Fitzgerald. By a twist of fate, Billy Eckstine, vocalist with the Earl Hines band, happened to be in the audience that night. Amazed by Vaughan’s performance, he encouraged her to try out for the Hines band. Vaughan won Hines over, too, and was hired as vocalist and second pianist. And so began the career of one of the greatest vocalists of the twentieth century.

Sarah Vaughan, affectionately known as ‘Sassy’ or ‘The Divine One’ – so good they named her thrice – was born on 27 March 1924 in Newark, New Jersey. Her musical journey began early, starting piano lessons at the age of seven and later playing the organ and singing in the Mount Zion Baptist Church choir. Prior to her breakthrough at the Apollo, Vaughan had already spent many nights learning her craft as both pianist and singer in numerous New Jersey nightclubs.

Within months, she was singing with Eckstine and Hines in an ensemble that included Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, at a seismic moment in jazz history: the birth of bebop. With an extraordinary range and gorgeous timbre, exceptional control and unerring harmonic understanding, Vaughan’s style was rooted in the improvisational spirit of bebop.

“I don’t think I ever modeled myself after a singer,” she once said. “I’ve more or less copied the styles of horn-tooters right from the start.” Her ability to effortlessly navigate complex melodic lines and intricate rhythms mirrored the innovative approaches of Gillespie and Parker, pushing the boundaries of expression in jazz. Vaughan’s musical prowess wasn’t confined to her vocals alone. Gillespie himself acknowledged her exceptional skill on the piano, noting in his autobiography: “[Sarah] was as good a musician as anybody in the band. She could play the piano, knew all of the chords, and played terrific chords behind us.”

Vaughan’s versatility as an artist saw her effortlessly navigate across various genres, from bebop anthems and jazz standards to pop, rock, and Brazilian music. With her working trio, big bands and orchestras, she recorded for Columbia, Continental, Mainstream, Mercury, Musicraft, Pablo, Roulette and Verve among others, creating a discography that spanned an impressive five decades, from the 1940s to the 80s,

Any Vaughan recording is worth exploring, but those new to her music will definitely want to check out One Night Stand – The Town Hall Concert 1947, featuring Vaughan and Lester Young. With an increasingly enthusiastic response from the New York audience, it offers a captivating glimpse into her early career. The 1955 album Sarah Vaughan with Clifford Brown, which earned a place in the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999, is another essential listen. Swingin’ Easy (1957) presents vibrant takes on classics such as ‘Shulie A Bop’, ‘Lover Man’, and ‘Body and Soul’, while Sassy Swings the Tivoli (1963) is one of the key albums from the 1960s, a stunning live album recorded over four days in Copenhagen. Among Vaughan’s personal favourites is Vaughan with Voices (1964), similarly recorded in Copenhagen, produced by Quincy Jones, and arranged by Robert Farnon. Fans of Brazilian music should head straight for I Love Brazil (1977), where Vaughan collaborates with luminaries such as Milton Nascimento, Dori Caymmi, and Antônio Carlos Jobim, while the Grammy-winning Gershwin Live! (1982) features her accompanied by the LA Philharmonic under the baton of Michael Tilson Thomas, with arrangements by Marty Paich.

And the archives continue to offer up hidden gems. Originally recorded in New Orleans for the NPR show Jazz Alive!, the previously unreleased 1978 trio recording Live At Rosy’s (Resonance Records, 2016) presents almost 90 minutes of the most sublime jazz singing. From the whirlwind sprint through ‘I’ll Remember April’ to the luxuriant phrasing of one of her signature ballads, ‘The Man I Love’, Vaughan’s extraordinary range and effortless virtuosity shine throughout. She brings an almost gospel fervency to another signature song, Sondheim’s ‘Send in the Clowns’, and there are exceptionally beautiful interpretations of ‘I Fall In Love Too Easily’, ‘Poor Butterfly’ and ‘I Remember You’, each performed at Vaughan’s preferred ballad tempo: as slow as possible.

In the US, centenary concert tributes have included the legendary Count Basie Orchestra, erstwhile collaborators and friends of Vaughan’s with whom she recorded three albums – No Count Sarah (1958), Count Basie/Sarah Vaughan (1961) and Send in the Clowns (1981). In February, at the Madison Center for the Arts in Phoenix, Arizona, they celebrated Vaughan’s legacy in a concert directed by Scotty Barnhart and featuring vocalist Carmen Bradford.

On 19-20 April, ‘The Sarah Vaughan Centennial Hosted by Dee Dee Bridgewater’ show will take place in Jazz at Lincoln Center (JALC). The event will showcase past winners of the Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Vocal Competition, also known as ‘The Sassy Awards’, which has been hosted by the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, one of JALC’s community partners, since 2012. This competition has served as a springboard for some of today’s leading vocalists including Cyrille Aimée, Jazzmeia Horn, Ashleigh Smith and Quiana Lynell.

At the fifth edition of the awards in 2016, Deelee Dubé made history by becoming the first British vocalist to win the competition. Dubé will mark Vaughan’s centenary with a special performance entitled ‘Celebrating 100 Years of “Sassy” 1924–2024: Sarah Vaughan Reimagined’, at London’s Brasserie Zédel on 7 April.

Dubé offers her own practitioner’s perspective on Vaughan’s vocal style: “She had an incredible pair of lungs with brilliant breath management, support and technique. She dared to use her entire four-octave, nuanced vocal range with depth and intensity, which was a distinctive trait in line with an incredibly sonorous vibrato. She was so well versed with articulating each note and phrase with pitch-perfect accuracy, adeptness and soulful flair – shaping vowels with a vibrant and ringing agile timbre, bending and blending perfectly nuanced and intoned notes into swooping glissandi, and embellishing melodies with a coloratura quality. Everything about the authentic mastery of her own voice informed the instrument, and this continues to not only inspire, but also inform my own voice and vocal delivery as a vocal artist, musician and voice pedagogue.”

As Dubé rightly points out, we’re still awaiting a Vaughan biopic. I ask her about the ways in which she believes Vaughan’s legacy extends beyond her vocal prowess, particularly in terms of her role as a trailblazing woman in jazz.

“Being a leading African American woman in entertainment and showbusiness during the 1940s, 1950s and beyond came with extreme setbacks and obstacles that she definitely experienced. But she somehow overcame some of these serious racial adversities, which has in turn paved a way for those of us who are now on a similar trajectory within music and entertainment. Her mere existence as a black woman and luminary within her [male dominated] field speaks for itself. Throughout her career she somehow managed to maintain her integrity. She was outspoken in a respectful way and made it clear that she did not want to be pigeonholed. In addition, she demonstrated the art of taking showbusiness by its horns, playing the role, facing the music, singing, dancing and showing up with a smile in the best way she knew how as a leading black woman in music. And as for ‘jazz’, well, she came, conquered and continues to win the hearts of generations, and that in itself speaks trailblazing volumes.”

For another winner of the Sassy Awards, Samara Joy, it was hearing Vaughan singing ‘Lover Man’ – a YouTube video of a live performance from Sweden recorded in July 1958, in which the singer is accompanied by pianist Ronnell Bright, bassist Richard Davis and drummer Art Morgan – which first attracted her to jazz. Interviewing her for a Taking Off feature for Jazzwise in 2021, Joy told me: “First of all, I was like, this is incredible, how does anybody do that? It just really took me by surprise. I was captured, I was caught up. She just stands there, she doesn’t have to do anything else, but sing.”

Zara McFarlane, the UK-based singer-songwriter, will similarly honour Vaughan with performances at Ronnie Scott’s and the Cheltenham Jazz Festival on 3 and 5 May respectively. Reflecting on Vaughan’s legacy, she says: “Sarah was the first jazz singer I truly connected with vocally. The emotion she has in her performances really made me pay attention. To me she was more than a beautiful voice or virtuosic singer. She made me really listen to jazz standards and the American song book in a way that elevated the songs and made me truly feel something, which is ridiculously hard when dealing with such familiar material. ’Mean to Me’, ‘Baubles Bangles and Beads’, ‘Come Rain or Come Shine’, there are just so many great performances. There is something about her delivery that makes your ear cling desperately to the very end of each phrase. I think the records often do not do her justice. When you see her live performances, this is where you truly see how remarkable she was as a voice and musician. In the live performances I see a woman that was self-assured, in the moment, in the pocket and who had total command of the music. So playful and spontaneous yet articulate in her vocal choices.”

In January 1989, Vaughan was honoured with the prestigious NEA Jazz Masters Award by the National Endowment for the Arts, the highest recognition in jazz. The following month, she was further celebrated with a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. She died on 3 April 1990, at the age of 66. Her funeral took place at Mount Zion Baptist Church where she had once sang and played the organ. More than three decades later, Vaughan’s profound influence, indomitable spirit and incomparable voice have secured her status. In this, her centennial year, there’s no better time to rediscover the singular beauty of her music.

Lizz Wright on Sarah Vaughan

“There’s so much courage and so much wisdom. To think of what it meant to hold yourself, to dress yourself, to wear sound like garments to tell people who you are. To have a gift to be able to create an energy of magnificence around yourself that people could feel and not deny, for even a few moments, is such an act of power and grace. When I put her on in the kitchen at my little cafe now [Carver 47 Food & Wellness Market in Chicago], what reverberates through the room is what she knows and what we need to learn about her – and I love this power, I love this opportunity. I don’t think anyone exemplifies that better than Sarah Vaughan, this sound of who she really is and how she sees herself. And it was for us to learn. There were so many challenging times around her, but when she sang, that’s the real world that she had going on inside and we were in it.”

Susanna Aleksandra on Sarah Vaughan

“When I first started listening to jazz as a teenager, I fell in love with Julie London, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Nancy Wilson, and Diana Krall. It wasn’t until later that I discovered Sarah Vaughan. In connection with her 100th anniversary, I have listened to her almost nonstop over the past few months to prepare for the Sarah Vaughan 100/Chet Baker 95 concerts I am performing in March.

“My goal is not to replicate her singing style but to understand her technique and explore her vocal nuances. Imitation is a powerful tool for learning, a method deeply rooted in the jazz tradition, where musicians often learn from one another by transcribing solos. Mastering vibrato is a challenge. When younger, I gravitated towards a straight tone, only recently beginning to appreciate the complexity and beauty of vibrato. Listening to Sarah has been instrumental in this evolution. Attempting to emulate her sound has unlocked my confidence in allowing my voice to flow.

“My favourite Sassy era is the mid-1950s, particularly her albums Sarah Vaughan with Clifford Brown and Swingin Easy. I love the lightness of sound that she uses in tracks like ‘You Hit the Spot’ or ‘If I Knew Then’. I also adore her ability to sing ballads: ‘Vanity’, ‘Jim’, ‘Send in the Clowns’... they get me every time. She has impressive control over her voice and uses a lot of variation, from sounding light and playful to deep and round. She also plays with her larynx, suddenly dropping it at times. You can also hear Cécile Mclorin Salvant and Veronica Swift do that sometimes. I wonder if they picked it up from her!

“In 2024, where art leans towards the digital, her organic, profoundly human approach serves as a reminder of the power of pure expression. Contemporary singers can learn from her the importance of technical foundation, the courage to explore one’s voice, and the value of conveying genuine emotion”.

This article originally appeared in the April 2024 issue of Jazzwise. Never miss an issue – subscribe today