A Women’s History Month Moment: Sarah Vaughan

The magnificently gifted singer Sarah Vaughan, born on March 27, 1924 and raised in the jazz music tradition, sang jazz songs as well as pop and bluesy ones.  However, journalists, the music industry and many of her fans have referred to her strictly as a jazz singer. 

During her long career, Sarah Vaughan performed around the world, including in my native city of Washington, DC.   On the occasion of one of her last performances in the DC area (late May 1989), it was my privilege and pleasure as a writer for Intermission Magazine  to review Sarah Vaughan's performance at Blues Alley in Georgetown.  Vaughan was scheduled to sing a few days later (June 2) at Wolf Trap in nearby Virginia.  She was 65 years-old at the time.  

At Blues Alley, Sarah Vaughan wore a coral organza gown with sequins, and she seemed to float down the club’s staircase and move effortlessly towards the stage.   Her trio (George Gaffney on piano, Bob Mays on bass, and Hal Jones on drums) had been playing a few mellow numbers leading up to her joining them.

 Once she was on stage and seated on a stool, Sarah Vaughan greeted the audience and began singing in her smooth, super controlled voice, moving from soprano to contralto to bass and back as she performed signature songs and ballads for which she was known. 

During most of the hour and a half-long show, the legendary singer remained seated on the stool.  (I learned later she’d been dealing with health issues; so that night she might not have felt well enough to do the entire show standing and moving around on her feet.)

Perched on her stool and looking gracefully out at the audience, Sarah Vaughan sang fan favorites such as "Broken Hearted Melody," and "I’m Through with Love," treating us to her full rich vibrato.  She also sang "The Man I Love," the theme from The Summer of ‘42, and "Misty" among other ballads and songs. 

A generous performer, she told the audience they were a good group and she then opened her act to requests.  Perhaps the audience had not expected The Divine One, as she was called, to allow requests, or perhaps they did not want to interrupt her flow, because they responded to her by simply saying, “Whatever you want to sing.”  They knew she would not disappoint them.

During the same year of that Blues Alley performance (1989), Sarah Vaughan received an NEA Jazz Masters Award (the highest honor awarded to a jazz musician by the National Endowment for the Arts).
 
Sarah Vaughan had been on my list of legendary older artists to see in a live performance while there was still time.  How fortunate for me that I caught her appearance at Blues Alley that evening (even though I was working on assignment); because she died the next year, on April 3, 1990.

The world will always be able to enjoy Sarah Vaughan’s wonderful voice by listening to the many recordings she left with us.  The recordings, along with books and other literature about her life and career will forever preserve her memory and her place in history. 

Spring Love Affairs

Although the calendar tells us springtime begins in late March, some people think spring begins in late April; because in regions where four seasons occur, spring weather normally settles in and is mild to warm then.   But with the way Climate Change has been affecting the weather, causing winter to hang around much longer than we’d like, no one knows when spring will really arrive this year. 

Whenever spring does arrive and settle in, however, many people's thoughts will turn to romance or perhaps to a love affair.  The love affair could be with a favorite place or it could be with a person, or it could be with both simultaneously.  One’s thoughts might even turn to an ended affair and how wonderful it was while it lasted.

As most people know, a love affair with a favorite city is described in the song “April in Paris.”

An affair with a beautiful person in a beautiful city is considered in the poem April in Paris; which is included in the poetry book, The Sound of Dreams Remembered and also in Something about the Blues.  Both books are by African American novelist, essayist, and poet Al Young. 

An ended love affair is described in the song, “I’ll Remember April,” as the songwriter conveys the beauty of April and the loveliness of the affair he experienced during that month.  The writer also speaks of his contentment and about his gratefulness for having had the affair at all. 

Thinking about Gwendolyn Brooks

This morning I came across two items that made me think about the great but humble Gwendolyn Brooks, who was the first African American to receive a Pulitzer Prize for poetry, and who later in life was named Poetry Consultant to the Library of Congress. (I met her while she served in that post and saw that she was indeed humble.)

 

The first of the two items I came across this morning was a book titled The Essential Gwendolyn Brooks, edited by Elizabeth Alexander and published by the Library of America. 

 

The second item I came across was the poem below that I wrote years ago as a tribute to Gwendolyn Brooks.

 

Her many works describe African American city life.  In some works she spoke out against racism and the favored treatment of light-skinned Blacks.  In others she explored the roles of mother and father, and husband and wife. 

 

Gwendolyn Brooks taught poetry in universities and sponsored writers' workshops in Chicago,where she lived with her husband and children, and she sponsored poetry contests in prisons.  She read and spoke in taverns and other public places, as well as in academic circles.

 

 

TO GWENDOLYN BROOKS

(Poet and Writer, 1917 - 2000)

 

Amazing

graceful

long distance runner

you're a teller of truth

in your powerful works.

 

Regal pen woman

imperial bard

the lines in your poems

are purple rays.

Your works, so brilliant

are the sun.

 

Shine on me

oh purple sun.

Won't you shine on me?

 

         --- vwg