| Etta Jones is noted for her elegant interpretations of standards, ballads, and blues.Her characteristic inflections have sometimes prompted comparisons to stylistic devices employed by Billie Holiday and Dinah Washington.She had three Grammy nominations, for the Don't Go to Strangers LP in 1960, Save Your Love for Me in 1981, and My Buddy in 1999.He also produced her albums and served as her manager, after meeting in one of Johnny Hammond's bands.You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.An excellent singer who is always worth hearing, Etta Jones grew up in New York and at 16, toured with Buddy Johnson.White, singing four Leonard Feather songs, three of which (including "Evil Gal Blues") were hits for Dinah Washington.All Rights Reserved
ARTISTdirect is a federally registered service mark of ARTISTdirect, Inc.Ray Brown: Some Of My Best Friends Are ...Look to the right column to find helpful suggestions for your shopping session.World," the 107th floor of World
Trade Tower One."They aren't listening, I don't
think they like me."Etta Jones never became as famous as her
talent justified.She was also too much of
a friend to act the diva role.She concluded with her
trademark "Don't Go To Strangers."Etta knew that she kept her friends out
until the last note was played.That was her approach to living life to
the fullest.Etta Jones would say, "Life ain't no
dress rehearsal."There always seemed to be something indestructible about Etta Jones.The death of Etta Jones is first and foremost a terribly painful loss for her family and the many people who
personally knew and loved her.But it is also a loss for her fans and for people who care about the art of jazz
singing.And when we lose an artist,
we often find ourselves returning to our CD collection with ears sharpened by sadness.Jones's prodigious output, two things became clear: first, Etta Jones was a great artist, and, second, we
didn't say that out loud nearly often enough when we had the chance.But then Jones was never the kind of person who craved publicity or praise.On stage, she was a warm, considerate performer who genuinely tried to
please her audiences and generously shared time with the instrumentalists.Fortunately for us, she was able to accomplish a good deal more than that.Etta Jones was one of the most consistent singers in jazz.Unlike
some other singers, Jones's gifts largely survived the ravages of time.However, her sound and style in the 1960s were quite different from what they had been in the 1940s.White label under the supervision of
noted jazz writer Leonard Feather.Feather had produced Dinah Washington's first recording session, and he
was clearly hoping to mimic that success.Feather scheduled the session for December 29, 1944, exactly one
year to the day after Washington's first session.Washington had recorded at that first session.Lady Day became the young Etta's inspiration and
her greatest influence.It is hardly surprising that the teenage Etta Jones sang so much like her idol at that
first recording session.Of course, she admired other
singers as well.She also expressed great admiration for Thelma
Carpenter
and especially Nat Cole.It also appears on her final CD, Etta Jones Sings the
Songs of Lady Day, recorded earlier this year.Although she had a distinctive approach to vocal jazz, Etta Jones did not blaze new trails for jazz singing in
the way that Sarah Vaughan and Betty Carter did.Other singers of her generation, including Ernestine Anderson, Lorez
Alexandria, Ruth Brown, Della Reese and Dakota Staton, drew on these very same elements in various ways
and with varying degrees of success.In so many ways, Etta Jones occupied the middle ground between Billie Holiday and Dinah Washington.Like
Lady Day, Jones had an unusually tart vocal timbre.Also like her influences, Etta Jones did not intellectualize jazz.She sang from her heart (like Billie) and from her
gut (like Dinah) rather than from her head.Improvisation came as naturally to her as breathing, and she
probably had swing coded in her DNA.Etta Jones had an approach to phrasing that was wholly her own.Like Rosemary Clooney, she never had a
great deal of breath control.Both singers learned to circumvent that problem by breaking songs into short
phrases rather than sentences.Few singers have invested a song with the kind of gravitas that Jones brought to a lyric.Words meant a great
deal to Etta Jones.In interviews over the years, she always stressed the importance of good lyrics.In Etta Jones's
universe, happiness was well earned, sorrow deeply felt and love long lasting.Of course, her many gifts as a singer were largely embryonic when Etta Jones first stepped out onto a stage
in 1943.In what has become the jazz singing equivalent of pulling the sword from the stone, Jones's big
break came after she appeared in the amateur contest at Harlem's Apollo Theater.Johnson needed a girl singer to fill in for his
sister, who was temporarily leaving the band to have a baby.She was also only fifteen years old.Improvisation came as naturally to her as breathing, and she probably had swing coded in her DNA.After a year, Ella Johnson returned to her brother's band, and Etta Jones started her solo career.Heard, Barney Bigard, Luther Henderson
and Sonny Stitt.Unfortunately, determination alone doesn't pay the bills.Sings, Sings, Sings, released by
King
Records, came and went without notice.Don't Go to Strangers is a jazz album featuring a quintet of first class musicians and a collection of
very
good tunes.After polishing her craft for seventeen years, Etta Jones was ready to make the most of her new career
opportunities, artistically speaking, that is.In typical fashion, Jones made no real effort to return to the pop
charts.Over the next few years, she recorded a series of albums for Prestige all of which featured great
songs and great musicians.Even on her orchestral albums, So Warm and From the Heart,
Jones steered clear of the kind of schmaltzy arrangements and sterile choirs that Dinah Washington was
drowning in during the same period.While her Prestige records at times feel hastily assembled (a couple of
them were in fact cobbled together from different sessions), each album contains some definitive Etta Jones.Love Shout, to cite but two examples, stand with the best of Jones's work.Unfortunately, the 1960s turned out to be a difficult time for jazz musicians.However,
Jones had managed to build herself enough of a reputation that she was able to continue to work.In 1968, Etta Jones found herself booked into a Washington, DC nightclub on the same bill as the great tenor
saxophonist Houston Person.Person served as Jones's musical director, record
producer and manager.It is a testament to the
uniqueness of their partnership that most of the biographical sources and album guides including The
All Music Guide to Jazz and The Virgin Encyclopedia of Jazz incorrectly refer to Person as
Jones's husband.Fortunately, Person recovered his footing the following year
when he produced Jones to You, the first of Etta's dozen records for Joe Fields's Muse label.In many ways, her Muse catalog represents the core of Jones's body of work.Jones continued to make the same kinds of
records throughout the 1980s with Love Me With All Your Heart (1983), Fine and Mellow
(1986), I'll Be Seeing
You (1987) and Sugar (1989).Lacking the budget for a sea
of strings or a gaggle of horns, Person instead chose to recruit a band composed of young musicians.The injection of fresh blood was exactly what the singer needed.The same band formed the core of At Last, which featured some of Jones's finest latter day ballad
singing.Fans often confused the two Ettas, and, as a
result, both women chose to wait over three decades before recording the other's theme song.In 1994, Jones ventured into the studio to record the most intimate album of her career, a series of duets
with pianist Benny Green.Muse did not release My Gentleman Friend until 1996, and it would turn
out to be
the last Etta Jones record released on the label.It was a fitting end to an impressive and impressively
consistent string of records.Practically, label owner Joe Fields had
simply reopened Muse under a new name, HighNote (and its sister label, Savant).Yet, intentionally or not,
Etta Jones and Houston Person gave these final series of records for HighNote a unique character that sets
them apart from the Muse sets.Jones's CDs for HighNote will very likely stand the test of time as some of her most profoundly personal
work.Each of her final records served as something of a musical love letter.The Melody Lingers On
(1996) was a tribute to departed singers who had influenced Jones professionally and personally.Dinah
Washington, Nat Cole, Billy Eckstine, Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald were among the singers to whom
she paid her respects.The following year, she recorded My Buddy, a tribute to the bandleader and
songwriter Buddy Johnson, who had given Jones her big break some 54 years earlier.Easy Living, recorded in 2000, was partly a return to
the kind of themeless sets Jones had made for Muse.Etta Jones Sings the Songs
of
Lady Day was obviously a labor of love.Over the last 35 years, much of Etta Jones's career passed below the radar of the jazz press.Still, in her final
years, Jones
had begun to earn some of the honors and tributes she so richly deserved including the Eubie Blake Jazz
Award and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Women in Jazz Foundation.Jones never allowed the music
business to alter her values.She consistently chose love and loyalty over fame and fortune.She drew her strength not from sales
figures or awards but from the songs she sang and the musicians she sang them with.In the end, Etta Jones taught us all
that, at least some of the time, the good guys really do win.Rating affects your music played in LAUNCHcast and Music Videos.An excellent singer who is always worth hearing, Etta Jones grew up in New York and at 16, toured with Buddy Johnson.The Best Of Etta Jones: The Prestige Singles
Hollar!URIComponent(' Etta Jones, a great and permanently underrated jazz singer who for three decades toured constantly with her musical partner, the saxophonist Houston Person, died on Tuesday at her home in Mount Vernon, N.The cause was cancer, said Joe Fields, the manager of her record label, High Note.By BEN RATLIFF
Published: October 19, 2001
Etta Jones, a great and permanently underrated jazz singer who for three decades toured constantly with her musical partner, the saxophonist Houston Person, died on Tuesday at her home in Mount Vernon, N.The cause was cancer, said Joe Fields, the manager of her record label, High Note.Billie Holiday was the most obvious and famous precedent for her style, and she was capable of astonishingly close Holiday impersonations, though she rarely let her audiences hear them.Neither a shouter, a whisperer nor a bebopper, Ms.Jones clung fast to a set of jazz standards from the 1940's and 50's, and tunes by composers like Sammy Cahn, her favorite, whose songs are the subject of her 1999 album, ''All the Way.Person, her musical partner of more than 30 years, Ms.When Ella Johnson returned to the band, Ms.In performance they developed a conversational style of answering each other's lines.He knows exactly what I'm going to do,'' she once said.They were always billed equally, an unusual arrangement for any jazz singer.Person became her manager and record producer through 18 records.She had three Grammy nominations, for the ''Don't Go to Strangers'' LP in 1960, ''Save Your Love for Me'' in 1981 and ''My Buddy'' in 1999.Her new and final High Note album appeared in stores on the day she died, ''Etta Jones Sings Lady Day.What This Gadget Can Do Is Up to You
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