“Sassy” Sarah Lois Vaughan – Pop Music with Jazz Infusion

“Sassy” Sarah Lois Vaughan – Pop Music with Jazz Infusion. Art by Frederick James Brown

Although many think of the incomparable Sarah Vaughan whose career spanned 1942 to 1989 as primarily a Jazz singer, she herself did not. She was quoted as saying: “Judy Garland was the singer I most wanted to sound like then…” and said she wanted to sing all kinds of music. Another quotation by “Sassy” Sarah states: “there is a category for me – a good singer of good songs in good taste.” I think one would be safe to say that Sarah Vaughan was a “good” singer.

Her career is said to have started in 1942 with winning an amateur night talent contest at the Apollo Theatre. Her prize? $10.00 and a week’s engagement at the theatre. By 1943, she was opening for Ella Fitzgerald, and promptly hired by bandleader Earl Hines as lead singer. She toured with his “big band” during 1943-1944 along with Billy Eckstine. Hine’s band was responsible for the birth of the “bebop” sound with trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, Saxophonist Charlie Parker and Trombonist Bennie Green.

When Eckstine formed his own band, Sarah went with him, which then opened the doors for her first recording contracts with both Deluxe and Columbia labels. She launched her solo career between the years of 1945 and 1948 which continued into the 1980s before she died of lung cancer. Sarah “Sassy” Vaughan had a three octave vocal range and got her start singing at age seven in the church choir. She also studied piano for eight years and organ for two.

She won an Emmy award for a tribute to George Gershwin in 1981 and a Grammy award in 1983 for “Gershwin Live.” She was called the “Divine One” long before the current title holder, Bette Midler. She was awarded the highest honor in Jazz music, the “Jazz Masters Award” in 1989 by the National Endowment for the Arts organization the year she died. She also was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and is listed as number 50 on VH1’s 100 greatest women of Rock and Roll. Rarely imitated because of her uniqueness, she has been credited with influencing modern singers after her like Teena Marie, Anita Baker, Chaka Khan and Amy Winehouse.

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