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The profundity of the Black female jazz voice

On being a Jazz chick.

By Stefanie AugustPublished 3 years ago 3 min read
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Sarah Vaughn & Ella Fitzgerald circa 1950

In 1980, this writer attended the University of Bridgeport, in Connecticut to study the finer points of jazz and cocktails. Not that this was a new endeavor for me. I had been singing jazz in night-clubs in NYC as an aspiring jazz-vocalist prior to my being pulled out of the limelight by my mother, who deemed that if I were going to pursue a career in music, I had to have a degree (of some sort) as a backup.

Sharing my sad leaving-the-scene news with my adopted-by-proxy grandfather, the omnipotent saxophonist, Pharoah Sanders, whom I have had the honor of being mentored by as a teenager, my granddaddy Pharoah told me that my mother right. He also stated that by attending a great jazz school like UB I be would certainly set straight in my yearning to be part of the larger universal jazz scene. Paris, London, Rome, Amsterdam, those places where jazz was hot, and where one could be welcomed as an American kid with jazz-chops, beckoned to me as large and bright as any lighthouse on Bridgeport's shore.

So began my foray into advanced jazz studies, including composition, piano, orchestration, and of course singing. This also included courses in German and French language arts, as well as some classical vocal studies in the event I wanted to orchestra an opera at some point in my lifetime. While I enjoyed and still enjoy classical singing, and after being dubbed the Jazz Chick by one of my great guitar player friends in this bastion of musical education, I couldn’t help but hold dear the Great American Songbook and Realbook as my bibles to the heart and soul of swinging like we jazz sisters are wont to do!

On weekend's I took the train from Connecticut back into NYC for my steady gig at Gregory's, a jazz joint of high renown. There, I was the opening act, singing for the love of those women in the picture above this writing, the great Sarah "Sassy" Vaughn and Ella Fitzgerald, who had inspired my love of jazz and singing in the first place.

As a child I would dress in my grandmother's 1950's attire to practice along with these uber-goddess's of music, listening to old vinyl, making up scat licks, and finding my unique sense of sound. Jazz came naturally to me and because of this naturalness, I felt a kinship with these women far beyond that even of the women in my birth family.

Black women in music have seemed to orchestrate many events in my life: I even dreamed the other night that Tina Turner and I were friends. Given the music industry's odious penitent for segregation by color and genre, it is somewhat miraculous that Sassy and Ella had any standing in the hall of jazz-greats; there but for their bandleaders and fantastic vocal ability, since they too were relegated to the back-entrances of clubs and theaters they performed in given the time they lived in.

Now at age 60, I revel in the fact that my lower register is mellow and sonorous while reeling off by memory, those songs also rendered by great black Jazz and Pop artists: Billie Holiday, Betty Carter, Nancy Wilson, Tina and Whitney, and Toni Braxton, too.

So to those ladies of song who have been constant companions on my musical journey, watching from some distant place as Master Music has had his way with me, I continue to offer my heartfelt song as a testament to the one thing that makes us all equal.

For great music sung by beautiful black women is to be shared by all, with a legacy as deep as those oceans of time and remembrance, where the color of one’s skin is erased and all that is left behind is the sound of glorious angels.

humanity
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About the Creator

Stefanie August

A writer of novels, memoirs, screen, and theater plays, poems, short stories, and songs.

I also assist other authors in producing their best work.

www.saugustcreative.com

www.saugustcreative.contently.com

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