Lorez, Gloria, and Dakota: On being black, female, and ‘underrated’ in jazz singing
Are you familiar with the music of Lorez Alexandria, Gloria Lynne and Dakota Staton? If so, you are probably over 70+ and/or a hardcore vocal jazz lover. Joking aside, we need to interrogate how this knowledge gap came to be. Based on the evidence, if you wanted to succeed as a jazz-oriented solo vocalist in the 1950s you needed a good manager, a record label with resources, and the potential to gain exposure from television and film. It helped immensely if you were white. While Nat “King” Cole, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, and Dinah Washington reached several commercial peaks in the 1950s they were more exceptional than representative of the commercial racial divide in vocal jazz and related forms.
Lorez Alexandria (1929-2001) is one of the most skilled jazz vocalists to emerge in the mid-1950s but she is largely forgotten today.
Vocal jazz histories commonly focus on pioneers and innovators such as Louis Armstrong, The Boswell Sisters, Billie Holiday, Fitzgerald, Washington, and Vaughan, to name a few obvious choices. The path of singers outside of the pantheon are, of course, far more representative of the pathways of jazz-oriented singers especially as R&B, rock ‘n’ roll, rock, soul, and hip-hop reshaped mainstream popular music. Three singers whose careers overlapped the transition of vocal jazz to the rock era were Alexandria, Lynne, and Staton. Though different in style and impact they are African-American women whose careers spanned from the mid-1950s through the 1990s and one of the more common terms used to describe their careers is “underrated” or “overlooked.” Though these terms are commonly understood as the ultimate of compliments they also mask, and even distort, the systematic aspects of how singers gain access to the cultural mainstream.
Dakota Staton (1930-2007) made a big impression with her Capitol Records debut album The Late Late Show which reached #4 on the albums chart in 1958. Though she recorded until 1999 contemporary listeners may be less familiar with her swinging, blues steeped vocal style.
When we compare their careers to many of their peers the importance of professional management, access to major record labels, and perceived multimedia marketability—including television and film—illuminates how the career of many “underrated” jazz performers reflect deeply ingrained cultural biases. Because jazz has only constituted one to three percent of record sales annually since the 2000s one could argue that most jazz oriented artists are “underrated” in terms of lacking major mainstream exposure. Aside from Jon Batiste’s role as a bandleader on The Stephen Colbert Show you rarely see jazz musicians perform on talk shows (daytime or evening). Mainstream publications such as Time or Rolling Stone also tend to exclude jazz from their music coverage which has not always been the case. Though the magazine business has also lost readers in the digital era they still have a popularizing function. The notion of a jazz crossover seems increasingly elusive, however.
Gloria Lynne (1931-2007) became famous in the early 1960s for her Everest Records albums and her 1964 signature hit “I wish you love.” She appealed to listeners of jazz, pop, and R&B at her height.
Truthfully, jazz has increasingly separated itself from mainstream popular music, so the declining coverage is less surprising. Further, this gap continually shines attention on what popular music was like when jazz played a larger role. This nostalgia partially explains the early 2000s success of Rod Stewart’s (mediocre) Great American Songbook albums, the marketability of tribute albums to figures like Holiday, Frank Sinatra, and Peggy Lee, and the media’s infatuation with survivors like Tony Bennett.
Though Alexandria, Lynne, and Staton are included in several surveys of jazz and popular singing including 2008’s The Jazz Singers (Scott Yanow) and 2011’s A Biographical Guide to the Great Jazz and Pop Singers (Will Friedwald), and have a selection in 1998’s box set The Jazz Singers, compiled by The Smithsonian Collection of Recordings, their profiles remain in the shadows.
Shrewd professional management helped popular interpretive singer Tony Bennett secure a major label contract with Columbia Records in the late 1980s and sparked a media comeback including his triumphant performance on the series MTV Unplugged in 1994. Few of his black counterparts in vocal jazz benefited from the media’s renewed interest in jazz and traditional pop singing in the 1990s.
The notion of underrated or overlooked implies happenstance but America’s complex racial and gender climate belies this innocence. As talented as Bennett, Lee, and Sinatra are, they are popular singers who have worked with jazz musicians often but are best known to sing melodies straight. Pop singing and jazz singing are not opposites they’re relatives so another way to frame this is the difference between performances driven by an adherence to melody and those where vocalists distort melodies including reharmonizing songs, altering time signatures, and/or scatting among other techniques. Bennett, Lee and Sinatra have long had dual citizenship and exposure accessible enough to appeal to the mainstream of their time (read: white) but prestigious by association. For example, writers seeking to amplify Bennett’s jazz credibility emphasizes his recordings with Count Basie and Bill Evans. Their other commonality is that they are white.
Though jazz is understood as a racially progressive creative field, signified by the spate of interracial recordings that happened well before Jim Crow era segregation was made illegal, these interactions did not disturb the structure of the music industry. Since its genesis record companies have deemed music associated with Broadway and Hollywood as “popular music,” notably music with appeal to white listeners. They have tended to ghettoize music associated with blacks (blues and gospel) and rural whites (country) as niche music. Jazz, based on its cultural roots and connotations, was stigmatized in the 1920s and 1930a, despite its innovations and influence. Even as it gradually gained social acceptance the accomplishments of white bandleaders (e.g., Paul Whiteman, Stan Kenton) were routinely touted above black innovators and it was tainted by associations with louche behavior especially drug abuse.
Racism explains why white interpreters such as Bing Crosby, Mildred Bailey, and The Boswell Sisters were pivotal in getting pop audiences to see jazz as palatable. This does not imply that their performances were deficient or compromised but speaks to the cultural mindset of the time. Racism also speaks to why singers like Holiday and Fitzgerald were routinely given novelty songs at the beginning of their careers rather than quality standards that would permit a wider range of emotional depth and expression. Racism cannot be discounted from the common knowledge that a figure as talented as Billy Eckstine never garnered the commercial or exposure or the film or television opportunities offered to white peers because the society rejected a black man as a cross-racial romantic icon. As one of the first vocalists to lead a bebop orchestra and to integrate bebop techniques into his singing his contribution to vocal jazz is monumental. Yet Perry Como, Andy Williams, and Dean Martin, whose musical innovations are slight comparatively, became television staples and massively popular recording artists. Each recorded for major pop record labels throughout their careers.
Black vocalists lacked equal access to television variety shows compared to white singers the era such as Perry Como, Rosemary Clooney, and Dinah Shore. Nat “King” Cole’s television show had only a one season run (1956-57) because Southern stations would not air the series.
Similarly, racism confined Johnny Hartman, who possesses one of popular music’s richest voices, and is responsible for one of vocal jazz’s definitive albums (1963’s John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman), to the specialty bin. His struggle to maintain a consistent recording career and gain access to the most lucrative venues does not reflect the depth of his talents. During his lifetime he spoke of how being a black artist that record labels and promoters classified as “jazz” was a convenient way for to confine him to smaller record labels and specialized audiences. The inclusion of some several of his recordings on The Bridges of Madison County soundtrack revived popular interest in Hartman in the mid-1990s. When you listen to 1980’s Once in Every Life, 1980’s This One’s for Tedi, and Thank You for Everything (recorded in 1976-77 but released in 1998) it’s immediately clear that his voice and interpretive gifts remained intact.
Chicagoan Alexandria, New Yorker Lynne, and Pittsburghian Staton each grew up in urban black communities and were exposed to gospel music, which informs their technique in various ways. Alexandria, who sang sacred music with various group in the 1950s but never considered herself a gospel belter, cut her teeth with the King Fleming Group before becoming a solo vocalist. Lynne and Staton were also trained formally during their teen years. All three debuted circa 1957-58, at the height of the vocal albums era, and their commercial recording peaks ended roughly around 1963-65. Notably, they began recording post Brown v. Board of Education and Montgomery Bus Boycott, and near the Little Rock Nine desegregation, all markers signifying a society changing mostly by activism and judicial decisions not just by nature or default. As such the society was still very segregated and “black music” encompassed singers affiliated with pop, R&B, blues, and jazz. As revealed in Joel Whitburn’s Hot R&B Songs, which shows chart rankings and sales of singles from 1942-2010, Cole, Washington, and Nancy Wilson, acts largely perceived as jazz singers co-existed on the R&B charts alongside Jackie Wilson and Motown acts.
Like the better known Nancy Wilson, Alexandra, Lynne, and Staton fit under the moniker of “black music” which encompassed jazz, R&B, and pop, rather than one single category during the 1950s and 1960s.
Alexandria recorded for Chicago’s King Records label; Staton debuted on major label Capitol with 1957’s The Late Late Show; Lynne, debuted on 1958’s via the Everest label. Staton’s album peaked at #4 and stayed on the album chart for a year. 1958’s Dynamic! peaked at 22 and 1959’s Crazy He Calls Me peaked at #23. Her final charting album was 1959’s Time to Swing (#47). Lynne waited for three years before her albums reached the pop charts. From 1961-65 seven of her Everest albums and one of her Fontana Records albums made the chart. Gloria, Marty & Strings which spawned her signature hit “I Wish You Love” was her commercial peak with the album reaching #27 and the song peaking at #28 on the single chart. Lynne was a bigger artist on the R&B charts—in addition to “I Wish” which reached #3 in 1964, she had four hits from 1961-65 (“Impossible,” “Be Anything [But Mine],” “I Should Care,” and “Watermelon Man”). More on this later. None of Alexandria’s albums, all recorded for indie labels, reached the top 200 album sellers nor did she have pop or R&B hit singles.
Because of record industry politics and social segregation black vocalists of the pre-rock generation had to speak multiple musical languages. They needed a sound that resonated with the consumers who purchased records at independent black owned record stores. This sound did not necessarily need to be gospel, blues, or jazz-oriented—attested to by the popularity of Johnny Mathis on the R&B charts, for example—but it meant the black audience was typically the first stop before black artists could hope to cross over. This versatility meant that black artists had their feet in multiple places to cover their bases and build an audience. This explains why black audiences seem less skeptical of “jazz” singers recording material beyond the Songbook canon compared to a lot of jazz and traditional pop music critics.
For example, on Staton’s 1961’s ballads album ‘Round Midnight she sings the Abbey Lincoln and Nina Simone tune “Hey Lawdy Mama,” a blues ballad urging a woman to leave an abusive man, alongside Cole Poter’s “So in Love” and Jerome Kern’s “The Folks Who Live on the Hill.” Given her blues chops the inclusion of this song is as logical in her musical universe as the Songbook standards and such jazz songs as Billie Holiday’s “Don’t Explain” and Thelonious Monk’s title tune. She was a jill-of-all-trades; a quality she shares with Alexandria and Lynne that is underrecognized. Comparatively, critics sometimes fawn over white singers who sing a blues tune. For proof, read Friedwald’s frequent gushing over Peggy Lee, who is not much of an R&B or blues singer, or his praise for Jo Stafford’s tepid 1959 album The Ballad of the Blues. The underlying presumption is that black singers are more “naturally” comfortable singing blues songs, so it bears no mention, whereas it is lauded as unique achievement for white singers.
Despite the tendency of vocal jazz and cabaret critics and Great American Songbook advocates to posit R&B and its offshoot rock as opposing forces to jazz this is not necessarily the perspective of artists themselves. Especially when we consider how they had to be versatile to survive a segregated music industry.
Staton was part of Alan Freed’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Party tour in the mid-1950s and she was as adept at R&B pieces as she was at swing, scat, and more traditional blues tunes. On 2019’s Dakota Staton: Early Years 1955-58 she exhibits jazz chops and interpretive skills comparable to R&B associated singers LaVern Baker, Ruth Brown, Etta James, and, of course, Dinah Washington, who was her clearest inspiration. Similarly, her R&B oriented recordings for the Groove Merchant record label from 1972-74 (sampled on 2002’s Congratulations to Someone compilation) are convincing. It’s also telling that her final recordings for the Muse and HighNote record labels featured a helping of R&B tunes.
Lynne shared this conversancy with different musical languages. Listening to her sing urban blues like “Stormy Monday” and R&B fare such as “This Little Boy of Mine” (compiled on the 1963 compilation Gloria “Blue”) she was clearly steeped in more than one vocal tradition. Her late 1960s and early 1970s albums, such as 1970’s Happy and in Love (Canyon Records) tend to be ignored or dismissed but she was much more comfortable with contemporary idioms, including funk and soul, than most of her jazz-oriented peers.
Music critics sometimes look at the R&B and blues oriented performances of jazz singers as mere accents or seasoning in their toolboxes that simply add “variety” to their presumably “primary” jazz recordings. This underplays the twin influence of gospel and R&B in their music. The artists don’t seem to view their more R&B and soul oriented recordings as compromises in their discographies. The fundamental problem is that jazz and “traditional pop” critics are often chauvinistic about their genres’ superiority to other popular forms. This extends to their perspectives about songs. Because they devalue R&B, they fail to appreciate what excellence sounds like within these genres.
Related to this is a tacit assumption that for gospel trained black singers R&B is effortless or a “natural” outgrowth so they’re presumed to be coasting. This is a misbegotten assumption especially when you compare Staton and Lynne’s late 1960s-early 1970s recordings to Eckstine, Fitzgerald, Hartman, and Vaughan’s strained efforts to interpret R&B songs. R&B and soul are idioms that also require skill—perhaps different techniques than jazz—but valid techniques, nonetheless. Many of their recordings suggest a hybrid of soul and jazz that remains underrated but significant for keeping jazz in touch with pop music.
Staton’s final album 1996’s A Packet of Love Letters, recorded for the specialty label HighNote, showcased her still appealing instrument.
Historicizing the place of this trio in vocal jazz accurately requires attention to the access to gospel and R&B techniques they had, their skills cultivating this aspect of their talent, and how it helped them navigate the demands on black musicians. If Staton had not been adept at R&B her 1970s recording career would have suffered as would Lynne’s.
Because Alexandria never crossed over her story is a bit different. She defies the archetypes usually assigned to black jazz singers. She is not a blues oriented belter like Washington though she can infuse her music with blues shading. While adept at torch songs she is not as emotionally intense as Holiday and lacks a signature ballad. Finally, she is a skillful improviser, but her soloing is less flashy than Fitzgerald, who is more of a crowd pleasing entertainer, and more restrained than Vaughan.
1964’s Alexandria The Great is a classic set of “cool jazz” though she is rarely included alongside other singers in this sensuous style.
The closest type is the “cool” style critics associate with white singers like June Christy, Chris Connor, and Julie London. Alexandria is a superior improviser and projects more warmth than these singers but there’s a suaveness and leanness to her 1960s recordings that conveys the essence of “cool.” Other than Shirley Horn black singers are rarely thought of this way which might also explain the challenge of placing her. Whereas Friedwald’s classification of Staton and Lynne under the “Dinah’s Daughters” section of A Biographical Guide, Alexandria makes less sense to me. Like Horn, but also Andy Bey, Freddy Cole, and Jimmy Scott she’s a sensualist—someone with a highly individualized approach that is uniquely affecting in a manner that defies the generic. There has often been less room for this kind of black performer in American pop music. Its unsurprising that Bey, Cole, and Scott did not garner proper recognition for their vast talents until the early 1990s—three to four decades after they appeared initially. This seems partially a hazard of the commercial nature of the pre-rock industry. Crooners, bopsters, and belters were easier to classify rendering some major talents as commercial outsiders.
In terms of the music industry issues like artist representation and multimedia platforms are also pertinent to the careers of vocal artists. It is well known, for example, that Bennett’s son Danny managed his return to Columbia Records in the late 1980s and has taken a lead role in helping him become an icon for new generations through shrewd appearances. Black performers of the pre-rock generation rarely had the kind of advocates and representatives who could garner them similar visibility. Norman Granz, for example, was central to Ella Fitzgerald becoming an international star. Though Sarah Vaughan was comparable in talent to Fitzgerald, as biographer Elaine Hayes notes in The Queen of Bebop, she struggled for three decades to find a proper manager who could get her prime gigs and financial compensation commensurate to her talents. The late jazz critic and lyricist Joel E. Siegel, who served as Shirley Horn’s manager was also a key advocate for her re-emergence in the 1980s. Betty Carter had to open and manage her own record label for years to build and sustain an audience before signing with Verve.
It’s not clear that Alexandria, Lynne, and Staton had representation during their peak and post-peak years that was able to provide strong platforms for their enduring talents. Muse Records and HighNote Records were homes for all three singers toward the end of their careers. From 1993-96 Alexandria recorded three albums on Muse; Lynne recorded 1989 and 1993 albums for Muse and 1998 and 2007 sets for HighNote Records; and Staton recorded three on Muse from 1991-95, and a 1999 set for HighNote. These are specialty labels known for targeting jazz audiences so unsurprisingly none garnered them much attention from the jazz press beyond reviews here and there.
This is not necessarily a condition of them signing with smaller labels though. Rosemary Clooney recorded for Concord Jazz from 1977-2002 and got considerable coverage for her comeback which included an autobiography, a TV movie, and a series of re-appraisals. In addition to appearing on national talk shows and radio programs series like Marian McPartland’s Piano Jazz, Clooney even acted on the series ER (co-starring her nephew George Clooney) which garnered her an Emmy nomination. Such visibility is priceless and gives a performer resonance well beyond jazz.
Similarly, Carol Sloane, who debuted as a leader on Columbia Records in 1961, struggled before making a triumphant return on Contemporary Records in 1989 and then Concord Jazz from 1992-97. She received glowing notices in The Village Voice and The New York Times during the late 1980s and 1990s. These did not make her a household name but speak to the perception that there is an audience interested in her and her story. In the jazz and cabaret worlds, Maxine Sullivan and Alberta Hunter experienced celebrated comebacks in the 1970s and 1980s, and Abbey Lincoln’s signing to Verve Records in the 1990s also stirred up the jazz world. This wave of attention did not come to Alexandria, Lynne, and Staton in the pop or jazz worlds despite remaining viable recording artists.
The impact of race remains relevant here. Ms. Clooney recorded pop hits for Columbia in the 1950s that have been repackaged and used on soundtracks signifying the post-war era. During the mid-1950s she also had a popular TV variety series, regularly appeared on various variety series of the time, and appeared in films during the mid-1950s. Black singers of her generation were simply not afforded this kind of access. Cole, perhaps the most successful black crossover artists since Louis Armstrong, couldn’t keep his NBC variety show on the air beyond a season because of trouble with sponsors and being broadcast in the south.
Lacking a long track record of major crossover “pop” hits, the verisimilitude of TV and film appearances, influential industry representatives and advocates, and careers informed by racially exclusionary practices, which persists in the entertainment industry, the careers of these artists are neglected rather than simply underrated over overlooked. They were overlooked because people did not want to see them. The music industry’s structures, mirroring biases of the greater society, had limited slots for black female artists and treated them disposably. The notion of the “black tax”—notably that blacks must be extraordinary to get their foot in the door seems apt in understanding the trio’s careers. While white artists with similar or lesser talents than the underrated trio have multiple opportunities to access the public’s attention only the very top black artists with the biggest name recognition receive consistent coverage and attention and avoid the “overlooked” category. This term is no longer endearing it’s merely an excuse for discrimination.
The good news is that in the digital era, including CDs and streaming services, the bulk of the music these artists have recorded is accessible.
· Alexandria’s albums for King are available individually or on a double CD compilation by Fresh Sound Records. It also features her four recordings with the King Fleming Group. Her 1960s era Impulse! albums are available via CD and streaming, as are her Pzazz albums of (mostly) 60s pop songs. 1977’s From Broadway to Hollywood is streamable, however the albums she recorded for Discovery and Trend Records from 1978-87 are out of print and have not been digitized except for a set of Johnny Mercer albums which are rare, expensive and hard to find on CD.
· All of Lynne’s Everest albums and her two HighNote albums are available via CD and streaming services. Some of her Fontana Records recordings are available on CD; The Starry Eyes Collection featuring some of her records from this era can be streamed. The Muse Records are harder to find but available on CD. Her pop and soul albums Happy and In Love and 1977’s Love’s Finally Found Me (recorded with saxophonist Stanley Turrentine) are streamable. Missing is 1972’s A Very Gentle Sound (Mercury Records) and 1975’s I Don’t Know How to Love Him (ABC Records).
· Staton’s Capitol recordings are readily available on CD and via streaming, as are her LRC recordings. Missing are her three United Artists albums and some of the one-offs she recorded from various labels from the late 1960s through the mid-1980s. Her Muse and HighNote albums are available on CD usually in used condition.
In the 1990s and 2000s several organizations including the Rhythm & Blues Foundation and New York’s MAC Awards recognized Lynne’s contributions. Accolades have been slower for Alexandria and Staton despite exemplary careers. Lynne’s classic version of “I Wish You Love” and her lyricized version of “The Watermelon Man” should inducted in the Grammy Hall of Fame for notable recordings as should Staton’s 1958 debut album The Late Late Show album. Though Alexandria lacked a signature “hit” her albums are exemplary. Most notable among them is her dazzling tribute to Lester Young Lorez Sings Prez which showcases advanced improvisational skills. The track “D. B. Blues” is featured in the Smithsonian collection but the album is quite unique and worthy of the Hall of Fame. Similarly, The Great Lorez Alexandria and More of the Great Alexandria are stone cold classics. People in the jazz field know these albums and hopefully the broader world will as well.
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