Sarah Vaughan

With a voice so powerful and and an attitude so fierce that she was known to her contemporaries as "Sassy," Sarah Vaughan was one of the best known and loved jazz vocalists of the 20th century. Born in Newark, New Jersey in 1924, Vaughan's talent was apparent by the time she hit her mid-teens, when she could often be found singing and playing piano at local jazz clubs. She was 19 when she won the amateur night competition at Harlem's Apollo Theater, earning her a spot at the venue opening for Ella Fitzgerald. That gig led to Vaughan touring the country Earl Hines' big band for much of 1944, finally settling down the following year to record "Lover Man" on the Guild label with a lineup that included greats like Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie. Vaughan soon signed to Musicraft and later Columbia and Mercury, where she sang both commercial ballads and jazz tunes. After performing at the first ever Newport Jazz Festival and later with the Count Basie Orchestra at Carnegie Hall-at a concert that also included Billie Holiday, Charlie Parker, Lester Young, and the Modern Jazz Quartet-Vaughan embarked on a landmark tour of Europe and the United States that lasted through 1955. As musical tastes began to change, Vaughan evolved with them, recording the intimate jazz album After Hours in 1959, which found her accompanied only by guitar and double bass. She would later release the live album Sassy Swings the Tivoli in 1963, recorded with Quincy Jones in Denmark. The '70s found Vaughan exploring a new era in her career, joining conductor Michael Tilson Thomas and the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra for an all-Gershwin concert at the Hollywood Bowl in 1974. The show was such a success that Vaughan turned it into a touring production, performing it in various cities with a number of different orchestras. During the '80s, after signing to Pablo Records, Vaughan experimented with Brazilian musicians for a string of highly acclaimed albums including the Grammy Award winning I Love Brazil! and her final album, 1987's Brazilian Romance. Fittingly, one of Vaughan's final recordings is an appearance on Quincy Jones' Back on the Block in which she scats with Ella Fitzgerald, the woman she fatefully opened for almost 50 years earlier. Vaughan died in 1990 at the age of 66.