DAVID BIANCULLI, HOST:
This is FRESH AIR. We're going to remember jazz singer Sheila Jordan, who had a devoted following among jazz fans, though she was less well-known to wider audiences. She died Monday at the age of 96 and was recording and performing nearly until her death. Jazz critic Bob Blumenthal once wrote, quote, "Jordan unmistakably conceives of her voice as an instrument, and she is a great musician," unquote.
Jordan grew up in a coal mining town in Pennsylvania. When she was 14, she moved to Detroit. And after listening to a jukebox recording by saxophonist Charlie Parker, she decided instantly she had found her music - the music she wanted to sing. Not too many years later, she met Parker, who, after hearing her sing one of his songs, said, you have million-dollar ears, kid. Eventually, she sat in with his band and became part of the jazz scene in Detroit in the 1940s.
In the 1950s, she moved to New York, where she was part of a club and jazz session scene that included Thelonious Monk, Bud Powell, Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins and Max Roach. She also married Duke Jordan, the pianist in Parker's original quartet, and they had a daughter. But the marriage didn't last. In 1962, Sheila Jordan made her first recording with the George Russell Sextet - an avant-garde rearrangement of the ballad "You Are My Sunshine," a song Jordan had learned as a child.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "YOU ARE MY SUNSHINE")
SHEILA JORDAN: (Singing) You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. You make me happy when skies are gray.
BIANCULLI: The next year, Jordan became the first vocalist to record on the famous Blue Note label. Her album "Portrait Of Sheila Jordan" was critically acclaimed, but she was a single mother, and it was difficult to support herself and her daughter with her music. She took a day job as a secretary in an advertising agency, where she worked until 1988. Jordan was influential on younger singers through her records, performances and workshops. And in 2012, she was named a jazz master by the National Endowment for the Arts. Before we listen to Terry's 1981 interview with Sheila Jordan, let's listen to Sheila singing on the song "If You Could See Me Now" from her debut album.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "IF YOU COULD SEE ME NOW")
JORDAN: (Singing) If you could see me now, you'd know how blue I've been. One look is all you'd need to know the mood I'm in. Perhaps then you'd realize I'm still in love with you. If you could see me now, you'd find me being brave and trying awfully hard to make my tears behave, but that's quite impossible. I'm still in love with you. You'll happen...
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR CONTENT)
TERRY GROSS: Pretty early on in your singing, I think you got turned on to Charlie Parker's music and got to meet him and sing with him, too, I believe.
JORDAN: Yes, I did. I sat in a lot with Bird. I met Bird in Detroit when I was a teenager. I moved from Pennsylvania with my grandmother and went to live with my mother for the three years or four years of high school. But at that time, they had a fantastic jukebox downstairs. And it had all of these great, great records, you know, Braz and - but Bird was the one that did it for me. I heard this thing, and I said, oh, who is this man? What is this music? I mean, I really felt that it was just there for me; it was just planned that way, that I was going to hear this music, and I just got right into it. Well, of course, I couldn't move after that into anything else except jazz. Even though I'd been singing, never gave up singing and always had to sing, this was it for me. So after hearing these Bird records and finding out where music like this was heard, I had to be there - even if it was a matter of life and death, which in Detroit at that time, it was.
GROSS: What do you mean?
JORDAN: Well, it was very prejudiced. And here I am, a young white girl trying to get to this music. So in order to get to that music - it was in Black neighborhoods, and the police were very rough. I mean, we had the race riots there, which didn't help matters. And so I was sort of torn between this terrible racial tension and wanting to be near these people who did this music and not even thinking in terms of Black, white, purple, green, hey, I just wanted to be where this music was. So I suffered a lot from constantly being taken down to police stations, quizzed about what I was doing with these Black people. And, of course, that's not what they call them. And having to defend my relationship and my friendship with these wonderful people who taught me the art of jazz singing. I mean, they were my roots. All of these wonderful musicians and just people who were learning like myself, like Tommy Flanagan, Barry Harris. I mean, Kenny Burrell, we all grew up together. We were kids and we were growing up and we were - we would have died for one another.
GROSS: What was your way of interpreting what Parker was doing with - sworn into a vocal style?
JORDAN: Well, I started out singing with two young Black guys who wrote a lot of words to Bird hits, and I wanted to be part of their trio. I wanted to sing with them, and they accepted me. And we used to rehearse all the time. And that turned me on to more listening to what Bird was doing. But, of course, I had done that before I met them. I don't know. I just - as I said, I felt very drawn to Bird's music, and I could hear it. I could hear, hey, that's "Embraceable You" or that's "I Got Rhythm." But what does he do with a bridge? Or that's "Honeysuckle Rose," but he plays another thing in the middle. I mean, I had very good ears, and I could hear all that. I really - I didn't deliberately set out to learn Bird. I was drawn to it. I really felt that I was - there was a stronger force than myself pushing me into this need to learn this man's music to know all I could.
GROSS: You came to New York 31 years ago, about 30, 31 years ago.
JORDAN: Yeah, 1952.
GROSS: '52?
JORDAN: Uh-huh.
GROSS: What are some of the differences in the jazz scene in New York when you came and now?
JORDAN: Well, when I first came here, naturally, Bird was on the scene and Monk and Bud Powell and Miles and Sonny was just coming up and Jackie McLean, and I sort of hung out with them. It was exciting to go into these clubs, these 52nd Street clubs and hang out there and hear this - you know, you could go across the street and hear Bud. You could go across the street and hear Bird. I mean, Max, they were all on the scene. Oh, it was thrilling. And, of course, for a kid, you know, at that time, especially if you were into jazz, like I - totally into jazz and dedicated to it. It was very exciting.
BIANCULLI: Sheila Jordan speaking with Terry Gross in 1981. Seven years later, Jordan returned to FRESH AIR to perform with bassist Harvie S. Here they are in the studio, performing the song, "Body And Soul."
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR CONTENT)
HARVIE S: (Playing bass).
JORDAN: (Singing) My heart is sad and lonely. For you, I pine. For you, dear only. Why haven't you seen it? I'm all for you, body and soul. I spend my days longing, and I'm wondering why it's me you're wronging. I tell you, I mean it. I'm all for you, body and soul.
HARVIE S: (Playing bass).
GROSS: When you were in Detroit and you were listening to Parker, he would invite you - and in New York, too, he would frequently invite you to sit in....
JORDAN: Yes.
GROSS: ...With the band. It occurs to me that really a lot of the beboppers didn't have nearly as much respect for singers as they did for instrumentalists. Was that not the case with Parker?
JORDAN: With Bird, it wasn't the case, no. He was very, very open. And, you know, sometimes, saying that I sat in with him sometimes turns into worked with him, which has never been true, you know?
GROSS: Turns into what?
JORDAN: Worked with him.
GROSS: Oh, oh, oh, I see what you mean. Yeah, yeah.
JORDAN: You know? Like - yeah, they get that, you know, that sort...
GROSS: Yeah.
JORDAN: ...Of thing all turned around, which is not true. No, he was very, very supportive to me.
GROSS: But did you feel you were up against that, the idea that a lot of the musicians didn't take singers as seriously as they took people who could play piano or bass or tenor?
JORDAN: I think maybe a little bit in Detroit at first because everybody was out there trying to do his thing, and it got a little bit like that. But I must say that the jazz musicians have been wonderful with me and have always supported what I've done and always encouraged what I've been doing. But I know it's - I know it was there, but it just didn't get too much to me.
GROSS: I remember when I first found out that you had been working day job for years...
JORDAN: (Laughter).
GROSS: ...In an advertising agency.
JORDAN: All my life.
GROSS: Yeah, I thought, like, how could this be possible? How could this singer possibly be spending her days typing? But for years, up until earlier this year, that's how you primarily made a living. Why did you have to do that?
JORDAN: Well, because I couldn't sing the music that I wanted to sing. And I really wanted to keep the music that - the way I sing pure, and I didn't want to have to go out and hassle gigs that were weddings and, you know, bar mitzvahs and different things, club dates, top 40s, 'cause I can't do that. I don't do it well. There's people that do it so much better. So I didn't really mind that, and I couldn't take a chance on when I was going to work next 'cause I didn't want to bring my daughter up the way I had been brought up. I wanted that financial security of food and rent being there.
GROSS: Well, a funny thing happened earlier this year. You were laid off (laughter).
JORDAN: I was laid off. I was devastated, but I prayed that I would - hey, now that I'm almost 60, please let me sing more. And then, one day, I was called in after 21 years at this particular place and told, well, we're merging and we're getting rid of the department. Do you know, I really was devastated. And then I thought, well, be careful what you pray for. You might get it. And I've been working ever since in music.
GROSS: Well, this has freed up time for you to do more concerts.
JORDAN: It's fantastic. I don't know how I ever did it before.
GROSS: (Laughter).
JORDAN: Sang and worked the day job.
BIANCULLI: Sheila Jordan visited the studio with bassist Harvie S. during an interview with Terry Gross in 1988. The influential jazz singer died Monday. She was 96 years old. This fall, the Blue Note label plans to reissue her debut album, "Portrait Of Sheila."
Coming up, Justin Chang reviews the new Spike Lee film "Highest 2 Lowest." This is FRESH AIR. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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