PART I
An Artist Is Born, 1924â1947
On November 8, 1947, Sarah Vaughan waited in the wings of New Yorkâs historic Town Hall as saxophonist Lester Young, the âPresident of Jazzâ or simply âthe Prez,â tore it up onstage. He played his unique brand of high-energy swing that made him famous in the 1930s. Vaughan hummed along, occasionally shouting out encouragement to the band, as she clapped her hands, throwing in a jitterbug step here and there. The place was hopping with heady anticipation. Electricity filled the theater. It must have been thrilling for the young singer, but nerve-racking too. She was up next.
Since its inaugural concert in 1921, Town Hall had gained a reputation as one of the premier venues in New York City. Vaughanâs idol Marian Anderson, the African American opera singer turned civil rights activist, debuted there in 1924, then performed again in 1935 when she returned to the United States after years of touring abroad. Built by suffragists, Town Hall was known for its progressive programming and hosted a series of innovative jazz concerts, including a breakthrough performance by the then-unknown beboppers Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker in 1945. Tonight was Vaughanâs opportunity to shine. She had begun her life in music as a choir girl in Newark; paid her dues as a girl singer in the big bands of Earl Hines and Billy Eckstine, where she learned to become âone of the guysâ; and then ventured out on her own as a solo act. Although she had sung in New Yorkâs small clubs and cafes for several years, her Town Hall debut was a milestone. The concert was sold out, and according to the Pittsburgh Courier, a thousand fans had been turned away at the box office.1 After almost five years in the business, most of it in relative obscurity, Vaughan was immersed in the first crossover phase of her career, and her star was finally on the rise.
To the casual observer, Vaughan could have been mistaken for just another kid hanging around backstageâa fan rather than the eveningâs final performer. She looked younger than her twenty-three years. She wore a long, slim-fitting white gown with big puffy shoulders and a plunging neckline. It was a stylish dress that epitomized postwar fashion, and it was appropriate for the grandeur of the venue. But it fit poorly and overwhelmed Vaughan. The young vocalist seemed a little out of her element. Town Hall was a regal theater with high ceilings, a billowing red curtain, brass fixtures, and crystal chandeliers. Boasting one of the finest organs in the world and marvelous acoustics, it was on par with Carnegie Hall.
As the Prez launched into the final number of his set that Saturday night in 1947, Vaughan prepared for her Town Hall debut. Applause ushered Prez and his band offstage. Vaughan waited for her cue, then walked to center stage. A bare-bones rhythm section, with piano, guitar, bass, and drums, was clustered behind her. Only the microphone, teetering on its thin stand, stood between her and the fifteen hundred people in the audience. There was no place to hide. The glow of the spotlights illuminated the crowdâs expectant faces. Gowns and overcoats rustled as listeners shifted in their seats, leaning forward in anticipation as if to pose the question: Can this slip of a girl fill this cavernous hall?
From the piano came five simple chords, the introduction to âDonât Blame Me.â The audience waited until Vaughan, at last, began to sing. But she didnât sing the tuneâs opening like other vocalists or as it was writtenâthree brisk notes, one for each word in the title. Instead, she drew out these three syllables, expanding them to create an exquisite melismaâa cascade of sound that first went up, then down while punctuating each word with a new twist and turn. Within seconds the audience gasped, whistled, and cooed its approval. Momentum grew as Vaughan exploited every note of this slow ballad, effortlessly bending her voice to change keys and explore unexpected harmonies, all while displaying the impressive highs and lows of her four-octave contralto. Vaughanâs voice possessed a maturity, poise, and depth that belied her youthful appearance. It was full, rich, and sumptuous, yet crisp and clear as a bell. By the time she reached the final phrase of âDonât Blame Me,â a delightful series of embellished arpeggios, the audience could barely contain itself and burst into applause.
That night, number after number, Vaughan transformed the popular songs of the day with her fresh, innovative approach to singing. Listeners sighed with satisfaction when she launched into âThe Man I Loveâ and âI Cover the Waterfront,â her signature tune at the time, then cheered with excitement when she began the up-tempo âMean to Me.â As her set progressed, the audienceâs applause became more enthusiastic, louder and louder, with more whistles, hoots, and hollers. Vaughan struggled to be heard as she shouted her thanks and appreciation to the crowd between songs. In a surprising contrast to her singing voice, Vaughanâs speaking voice was high-pitched, almost squeaky, and unmistakably girlish. For a moment, glimpses of a much younger woman reappeared. But then she turned and shouted directions to the band with firmness and resolve, calling out, âOne chorus,â then more emphatically, âOne!â as the band began âTime After Time.â And when the pianist launched into âI Cover the Waterfront,â she instructed, âSlow, slower, slower,â insisting that the band reduce the tempo to a crawl. Vaughan commanded respect, and even though she was the only woman onstage, the band listened.
The evening came to a close when Prez and his sideman, the trumpeter Shorty McConnell, joined Vaughan onstage for the grand finale: âI Cried for You.â Vaughan called the tune and dove right into the first verse, and as Young took his extended solo, she enthusiastically clapped along and shouted her encouragement: âCome on, Lester!â then âGo on, go on, go on!â When Vaughan finally returned to sing the reprise, she let loose a flourish of seemingly impossible vocal turns and trills bolstered by brilliant harmonic changes. Her singing was a revelation. The elasticity of her voice rivaled that of the finest horn players. She was the perfect complement to Youngâs relaxed, deliciously lyrical tenor playing. Both had rich, deep, and exquisitely resonant tones; both added nuanced scoops and inflections to their crisp, clean phrasing; and both colored their sustained notes with just a touch of vibrato. Vaughan sang like an instrumentalist, and like the best horn players she played her voice with ease.2
The jazz press proclaimed the Town Hall concert a grand successâfor Vaughan, but not for Young. According to Michael Levin, a critic for Down Beat, âA great vocalist made a great saxophonist sound sick.â In contrast to Youngâs old-fashioned, almost pedestrian performance, âMiss Vaughan only drew raves, some of her astonishingly inventive ideas bringing gasps of amazement from a couple of girl vocalists sitting next to this reviewer. Her tone was impeccable, her taste immaculate, and her stage manner and dress much improved. This girlâs singing, after three years of musical if not popular prominence is still a breath of fresh air and a source of jazz inspiration to all who listen to her.â3
For Levin, his fellow critics, and many musicians, especially vocalists, Vaughan ushered in a changing of the guard. While Young represented the swing era, the soundtrack of the war years, the past, Vaughan embodied everything that was new and modern. Her cutting-edge singing epitomized the very essence of bebop, the avant-garde foundation for modern jazz that would transport the genre from a popular dance music into the realm of abstract, high art. And as Vaughan helped initiate this new chapter in jazz history, she reimagined the way this music would forever be sung. Disc jockeys dubbed her âthe new sound,â a testament to both the beauty of her voice and her innovations, and in the coming years she would become âthe most talked about voice in America.â
1
âThere Was No Sign of Any Kind of Voiceâ
Sarah Lois Vaughanâs story began twenty-three years earlier in Newark, New Jersey. She was born on March 27, 1924, to Ada and Asbury Vaughan, who had moved north from Virginia during World War I during the Great Migration. After the war, Newark represented a land of promise and prosperity. It was New Jerseyâs largest city and the embodiment of a bustling, modern metropolis. Tall buildings lined the streets of downtown. Trolleys ferried passengers through the busy commercial district; âthe tubeâ linked Newark with New York and Hoboken; and the airport, built in 1928, soon became one of the busiest in the world. This, along with a recently expanded harbor, ensured that Newark thrived as a hub of international manufacturing and trade.
Laborers from around the world, including southern blacks eager to escape the oppression of Jim Crow, flocked to the city. In addition to better paying jobs, they were drawn to Newark for its promise of desegregated schools, racially mixed neighborhoods, and a well-established, rapidly growing African American community. Between 1915 and 1930, Newarkâs black population nearly quadrupled, reaching almost thirty-nine thousandâ9 percent of the cityâs population.
Yet upon arriving in Newark, southern blacks learned that the city practiced its own particularly northern interpretation of Jim Crow. Although well north of the Mason-Dixon Line, New Jersey, in fact, had a long history of racial intolerance. It was one of the last northern states to abolish slavery, waiting until 1804 to enact legislation that began a gradual abolition. In 1860, eighteen slaves remained. During the next decade, the state legislature did not support Abraham Lincoln or the Emancipation Proclamation and failed to ratify the Reconstruction amendments to the Constitution guaranteeing equal citizenship and voter rights for all, regardless of race. The state legislature waited until 1875 to enfranchise black men and 1884 to pass laws prohibiting segregation in hotels, restaurants, and public transportation.
Despite the letter of the law, Newarkâs white community didnât comply, and for nearly eighty years, until the early days of the modern civil rights movement, whites deeply resented black citizenship, denying African Americans the most basic rights and opportunities. They did not have equal access to public services. Local swimming pools were only open to blacks during limited hours when whites were not present. Hospitals remained segregated. Many local department stores did not allow African American customers to try on garments before buying them. And within the workplace, aspiring, hardworking blacks encountered a glass ceiling that prevented them from advancing beyond the lowest paying jobs as unskilled laborers.1
Nonetheless, the Vaughans moved to Newark filled with optimism. Ada found work as a laundress. She was paid by the piece and likely earned $15 to $18 a week.2 Asbury worked as a carpenter for similar, or perhaps slightly higher, wages. Like so many before them, Ada and Asbury settled in the burgeoning African American neighborhood known as âthe Hill,â a part of the old Third Ward just west of Broad Street and the downtown commercial district. They lived on the top floor of a small duplex at 72 Brunswick Street and probably paid $8 or $10 a month in rent. By 1916, right around the time Ada and Asbury moved to Newark, much of the Third Ward was already a ghetto. Blighted cold-water tenements, many without private baths or toilets, were the norm. Despite these poor living conditions, a tight-knit, vibrant community emerged, one that included immigrants from Poland and Germany as well as Jewish families, remnants from the days when the Third Ward was a Jewish enclave.
Like many working-class African Americans, the Vaughansâ lives revolved around their church. They became longtime members of Mount Zion Baptist Church in the nearby Ironbound district and pillars of Newarkâs black religious community. Predictably, many of Vaughanâs first musical experiences took place at Mount Zion. As a toddler, she was so intrigued by the churchâs organ that she would sneak up to the front of the church to sit with the organist during services. Congregants remember a young Vaughan humming along as her mother sang in the choir. And when she began to peck out her own tunes on the familyâs piano at the age of seven, her parents turned to the churchâs organist and musical director for weekly piano lessons, paying twenty-five cents per lesson.
Music permeated the Vaughan household. âNot the kind of music I sing,â Vaughan explained in 1961. âThey sang the music of God.â3 Asbury also loved to play country songs and blues on his guitar after work. Ada was a talented pianist and singer, and before long she was playing duets with her daughter. When the family was not making music together, they listened to the radio and played records on their Victrola. Although money was tight, Ada managed to set aside enough spare change for her daughter to splurge on the occasional record, even during the height of the Depression. As Vaughan grew older, her family hosted Friday-night musicales for Vaughan and her friends from church and the neighborhood.
Childhood friend Phyllis Brooks remembers climbing the stairs each week to enter the Vaughansâ home through their tiny kitchen, then making her way into their equally small living room. Vaughanâs parents retreated to the kitchen as she and the other kids played records and jitterbugged the night away, often with Vaughan accompanying them on the piano tucked away in the corner. âI have no idea how her house became the center of our social life,â Brooks explained. âSarah was a shy girl, very shy, so I guess it just was because the kids were welcome. Her parents were very open and supportive of her and didnât mind the kids gathering there or being dispossessed every weekend.â4
In 1936, by the time Vaughan was twelve, she was active in music groups at school and played piano for the orchestra and boysâ glee club. She also began playing the organ with the junior and senior church choirs during rehearsals and accompanied the junior choir during services. She traded Sundays with Brooks, who studied with the same piano teacher.
Beyond her multi-instrument talent, however, Vaughan was determined to sing. âI always knew I could sing,â she told Dick Cavett in 1980. âBut when I was little, they always had me playing the organ in church or piano in schools for the choirs, and all that, and I always said, âI want to sing, yâall.ââ5 Eventually she did join the church choir, though she rarely soloed. âHer voice was very tiny,â said Brooks. âShe couldnât project much beyond six benches.â And Evelyn Greene, a fellow choir member who went on to become a professor of music at Rutgers University, remembered, âSarah just sang insignificant alto. There was no sign of any kind of voice.â6
Yet Vaughan persisted. Perhaps she was tired of being pigeonholed as the reliable pianist by friends and choirmasters. Perhaps she no longer wanted to be relegated to the supporting role of accompanist and alto. Unlike sopranos, altos almost never sing the melody; instead, they harmonize with the sopranos, the true focal point of the ensemble. And in the church, soloists were the stars. Vaughan wanted her turn to take the lead, to determine her own path and destiny. She sought more musical freedom and insisted on stretching her vocal cords. This all began when she started to expand her musical horizonsâfirst on piano, then with her voice.
Newark boasted a vibrant collection of regional musicians who played its many neighborhood clubs. In 1938, there were an estimated one thousand saloons in Newark, one for every 429 residents, and many of them offered live entertainment to draw patrons. There was a wealth of musical opportunities beyond the doors of Vaughanâs church, but the scene remained deeply segregated. The fancy clubs on Broad Street catered to ...
