Duke Ellington’s compositions have been sung so often, particularly those that he wrote prior to the early 1950s, that it is surprising that it was not until 1931 when he hired Ivie Anderson that he had a regular singer with his orchestra. During the Swing Era, most big bands employed at least one female and one male singer, but it was not until 1940 when Herb Jeffries joined the world of Ellington that he had a male vocalist who was not also an instrumentalist.
While Ellington’s many great soloists have often been written about, much less has been said about his singers. That is understandable due to the high quality and individuality of his instrumentalists and the less significant output of his vocalists during his final 20 years, but there were some real talents.
The 1940s can be considered the golden age of Duke Ellington’s singers. In 1941 he employed not only Ivie Anderson (who during this period helped make “I Got It Bad” into a standard) and Herb Jeffries (who had a major hit with the non-Ellington song “Flamingo”) but Ray Nance who was a triple threat as a cornetist, violinist, and a personable singer. But despite the potential of this combination, it did not last long. Ivie Anderson suffered from asthma and left Ellington in mid-1942. For a time she ran the Chicken Shack restaurant in Los Angeles and sang locally, recording a dozen numbers during 1945-46. But asthma cut short her life at the age of 44 in 1949.
Herb Jeffries had a much longer career. In addition to “Flamingo,” he enjoyed a minor hit with “My Little Brown Book.” After leaving Ellington in late-1942, Jeffries kept busy as a solo artist, ran a nightclub, and was still active into his mid-nineties, somehow retaining his deep baritone voice. Jeffries passed away in 2014 at the age of 100.
Ivie Anderson’s first replacement was Betty Roche (1918-99). Roche, who made her initial recordings in 1941 with the Savoy Sultans, had two stints with Ellington but barely recorded at all with the band. Her first period with the orchestra was during 1942-44 but, due to the musicians’ recording strike, she did not make a single commercial recording with Ellington. She did perform the original version of “Blues” from Ellington’s Black, Brown and Beige suite at Carnegie Hall in 1943, a performance that was not released on records until many decades later. She can also be seen singing “Take The ‘A’ Train” in the 1942 film Reveille With Beverly, a version that is much different than her famous one from 1951 with Ellington.
After Herb Jeffries departed, his spot was taken by Jimmy Britton, a ballad singer from St. Louis who only lasted for around six months during 1942-43. Trumpeter Taft Jordan (1915-81) who had been a top soloist and occasional vocalist with the Chick Webb Orchestra during 1933-42 (including working with the band when it was headed by Ella Fitzgerald) was with Ellington during 1943-47 and regularly shared the vocal with Ray Nance on “It Don’t Mean A Thing” during 1943-45.
But Al Hibbler (1915-2001) was much more significant in the vocal department and was arguably Ellington’s most important male singer. Blind from birth, he had actually failed an audition with Duke in 1935. Hibbler gained important experience working in Memphis with Dub Jenkins and his Playmates and in 1942 he sang and recorded with Jay McShann’s orchestra. By 1943 he was ready for Ellington, becoming a mainstay with the band up until 1951. A bit of an eccentric who enjoyed employing a fake British accent in unexpected spots, Hibbler helped make “Do Nothin’ Til You Hear From Me,” “I Ain’t Got Nothin’ But The Blues,” and “I’m Just A Lucky So And So” into standards. He also had a successful post-Ellington solo career that included big selling records of “Unchained Melody,” “He,” “11th Hour Melody,” “Never Turn Back,” and “After The Lights Go Down Low.”
After Betty Roche left the band, she was replaced by no less than three singers: Joya Sherrill, Kay Davis and Marie Ellington. Joya Sherrill (1924-2010), who was just 20 at the time, was the strongest talent and the most jazz-oriented of the three. She was with Ellington during 1944-46 and rejoined him on many occasions in later years including for the 1957 production The Drum Is A Woman and the My People album in 1964. Among her recordings during her period with Ellington were “I’m Beginning To See The Light,” “I Didn’t Know About You,” “The Kissing Bug,” and “Everything But You.”
Kay Davis (1920-2012) had a semi-operatic voice that Ellington mostly used to perform wordless hornlike vocals a la Adelaide Hall 20 years earlier. Her singing on “Transbluency” and “On A Turquoise Cloud” is quite haunting and memorable and she debuted Billy Strayhorn’s “Lush Life” at Carnegie Hall in late 1948. Davis left Ellington in 1950, got married two years later, and permanently retired from music.
Unlike Joya Sherrill and Kay Davis, Maria Ellington (1922-2012) never really carved out a role for herself in the Ellington band. She was unrelated to Duke Ellington, having been born Maria Antoinette Hawkins and becoming the widow of Spurgeon Ellington. She was billed as Maria while with Duke so fans would not think that she was his daughter or wife. She inherited “The Blues” from Betty Roche for a couple of Carnegie Hall concerts and can be heard singing “Rocks In My Bed” and Billy Strayhorn’s “Something To Live For” on surviving radio broadcasts but did not record any solo features with the band. Ellington holds her own on classic recordings of “It Don’t Mean A Thing” and “Solitude” that have her interacting and harmonizing with Al Hibbler, Joya Sherrill and Kay Davis but that was the highpoint for her. In early 1946 she left the Ellington Orchestra and married Nat King Cole for a happy partnership that lasted 19 years.
With the departure of Joya Sherrill and Maria Ellington, Duke’s orchestra was down to two fulltime singers in 1946 although Ray Nance (who recorded “Tulip Or Turnip,” Ring Dem Bells” and other swinging numbers) was always available to help out. Marion Cox took Joya Sherrill’s place for a year starting in June 1946. She was mostly used to sing standards such as “Ghost Of A Chance,” “Lover Man,” and “St. Louis Blues” but failed to make much of an impression. Another singer who is long forgotten was Chester Crumpler who was tried out during June-Aug. 1947 and recorded just one number, “Maybe I Should Change My Ways.”
With the end of the big band era and the rise in popularity of singers, Ellington hired Dolores Parker (1919-2019) in the fall of 1947 with the hope of recording a new hit or two. She had previously worked with Fletcher Henderson (as part of the vocal group the Rhythm Debs) and the Earl Hines big band. Unfortunately no best sellers resulted from their short-time association although Parker did her doing her best on such numbers as “Put Yourself In My Place Baby,” “Take Love Easy,” “The Wildest Gal In Town,” and “It’s Mad, Mad, Mad!” Dolores Parker left music in 1956, making a brief comeback starting in the late 1980s, performing in Ohio.
Lu Elliott (1924-87) had a similar role as Dolores Parker for six months during 1949-50 recording “The Greatest There Is,” “Joog Joog,” “On The Sunny Side Of The Street,” and singing “The Hucklebuck” on the radio without much success. Eve Smith, who performed under the name of Yvonne Lanauze, was with Ellington during 1950-52 and had the opportunity to record three songs in 1950, sounding fine on “Love You Madly,” “Mood Indigo,” and “Sophisticated Lady.” After leaving the band, she had a much lower profile performing in Vancouver, British Columbia, but in 1998 (under her original name) she recorded an album on which she also played piano. Eve Smith is still alive today at the age of 99.
With Hibbler and Davis leaving during 1950-51, it could be argued that Duke Ellington never again employed a significant singer in his orchestra other than the part-time Ray Nance. Betty Roche returned to the Duke Ellington Orchestra for a short time in 1951-54 but again was barely documented. On June 30, 1952 she recorded “I Love My Lovin’ Lover” with Ellington, but much more important from the same session was her witty rendition of “Take The ‘A’ Train.” It was so popular that it would be sung by Nance after Roche’s departure. A fine bop singer who had recorded with Earl Hines and Gerald Wilson, Betty Roche would make three albums of her own during 1956-61. It is strange that she was so underutilized by Ellington.
A cousin of trumpeter Shorty Baker, Lloyd Oldham (1933-2010) was only 18 when he joined Duke in late 1951. Oldham sounds fine on “Blues At Sundown,” “Azalea,” and “Something To Live For.” But he soon became weary of traveling, voluntarily quit the band, and mostly performed in church after that.
By then, Jimmy Grissom (1928-75) was starting his long period with Duke Ellington. Grissom, the nephew of Jimmy Lunceford’s vocalist Dan Grissom, recorded 23 numbers as a leader during 1947-52. A decent if not particularly distinctive singer, Grissom worked with Ellington for seven years (1952-59) and filled the role of the band’s male vocalist, often performing dramatic versions of ballads. Most critics did not care for his predictable vocalizing. In 1963 he emerged from obscurity to be part of Ellington’s show My People recorded an album of his own. After that he largely disappeared from the music scene, passing away from cirrhosis of the liver in 1975 at the age of 46. Milt Grayson (1931-2005), who had a deep baritone voice and a somewhat inflexible semi-operatic style, was with Ellington during 1960-63, recording very little and without leaving much of an mark.
Lil Greenwood (1924-2011), who had worked with Roy Milton and recorded under her own name, was Ellington’s female singer during 1956-62 although few seemed to know it. The band’s 1958 Newport Jazz Festival recording has her singing “I Got It Bad” and “Bill Bailey,” a bootleg live recording from 1959 finds her performing “Solitude,” “Walkin’ and Singin’ The Blues,” and “Bill Bailey,” and she is featured on “St. Louis Blues” and a third version of “Bill Bailey” on a different 1959 bootleg. In 1963 for the My People project, Greenwood sounds fine on “I Love My Lovin’ Lover.” There may be some other live recordings but it does not add up to much of a legacy despite her talents.
Duke Ellington’s most important recordings with singers during the 1950s and ‘60s were largely one-time affairs or special occasions. These include collaborations with Rosemary Clooney (1956’s Blue Rose), Ozzie Bailey (who was part of A Drum Is A Woman and Such Sweet Thunder along with a few tours during 1957-59), Jimmy Rushing (three numbers during a 1958 record company party and a few later guest appearances), Mahalia Jackson (the 1958 version of “Black, Brown and Beige” including “Come Sunday”), pop singer Johnny Ray (two singles in 1958), Jane Harvey (a pair of numbers in 1959), Louis Armstrong (a classic double album in 1961 in which Ellington joined the Armstrong’s All-Stars), Della Reese (a set of radio transcriptions from 1962), Frank Sinatra (1967’s Francis A. and Edward K.), and Teresa Brewer (1973’s It Don’t Mean A Thing).
Ella Fitzgerald, who recorded part of the Duke Ellington Songbook in 1957 with the Ellington Orchestra and made Ella At Duke’s Place with the band in 1965, toured Europe with Ellington during 1966-67, resulting in The Stockholm Concert and several other mostly live recordings. While the chemistry behind Ella and the Ellington band was not quite as magical as her meetings with the Count Basie Orchestra, there are some great moments.
In Duke Ellington’s later years he utilized a few singers open to pop and rock music who were strongly criticized at the time and are now largely lost to history including Tony Watkins (1967-72), Trish Turner, and Nell Brookshire (1970-74). Trumpeter Money Johnson, in a similar role as Ray Nance, sang “Hello Dolly” like Louis Armstrong during 1971-73.
The last great singer to perform with Duke Ellington was one of his favorites, Alice Babs (1924-2014). A top star in Sweden since she was a teenager in the late 1930s and a superior jazz singer with a beautiful voice and a wide range, she first performed with Duke Ellington in Feb. 1963. Babs recorded the album Serenade To Sweden with Ellington and a small group in France, was part of Duke’s Second (1968-69) and Third (1973) Sacred Concerts (sounding wondrous on “Heaven”), and recording part of her 1973 Far Away Star album with the Ellington Orchestra. It is a pity that he did not simply employ her as a regular singer with his band.
Even though it is often thought of as a mere footnote in his huge legacy, Duke Ellington’s utilization of singers during his career is noteworthy and well worth exploring and enjoying.
Since 1975 Scott Yanow has been a regular reviewer of albums in many jazz styles. He has written for many jazz and arts magazines, including JazzTimes, Jazziz, Down Beat, Cadence, CODA, and the Los Angeles Jazz Scene, and was the jazz editor for Record Review. He has written an in-depth biography on Dizzy Gillespie for AllMusic.com. He has authored 11 books on jazz, over 900 liner notes for CDs and over 20,000 reviews of jazz recordings.
Yanow was a contributor to and co-editor of the third edition of the All Music Guide to Jazz. He continues to write for Downbeat, Jazziz, the Los Angeles Jazz Scene, the Jazz Rag, the New York City Jazz Record and other publications.
