“It was always hard to believe, for most of us who worked with Barbara, that any jazz singer could be that sweet and that uncomplicated.She didn’t have a cynical or a snide molecule in her.”
-- Richard Hadlock, Annals of Jazz, KCSM-FM, 1992
Singer Barbara Lashley (1935-1992) was a bright light in San Francisco Bay Area jazz during the 1980s. This article is an introduction via her best but long out-of-print 1983 record album and three newly recovered live performances. Those live sessions are not polished enough for commercial publication yet recall her love affair with song and celebrate the music of a beloved and gifted singer who departed too soon.
For a few years Lashley sang primarily with piano player Ray Skjelbred (b. Chicago 1940), a skilled accompanist who was most influenced by Joe Sullivan and Earl Hines. The love they shared for popular song of the 1930s and ‘40s was the foundation of a tight musical partnership. Skjelbred was well ensconced in Bay Area jazz, bringing Barbara into the orbit of Bob Mielke (trombone), Richard Hadlock (reeds), Leon Oakley (cornet) and Bob Helm (reeds). Heard below, they all became her good friends and musical colleagues.
A Late-Blooming Jazz Flower
Lashley had already had a career in media at Voice of America and film ed
