Sarah Vaughan

Sarah Lois Vaughan was born in Newark, New Jersey, on the twenty-seventh of March 1924, the only child of Asbury "Jake" Vaughan, a carpenter who played guitar and piano, and Ada Vaughan, a laundress who sang in the choir of Mount Zion Baptist Church. Music filled the household from the first. Sarah began piano lessons at the age of seven, sang in the church choir, and played organ for its rehearsals and services, so that the disciplines of harmony and keyboard were hers long before her voice reached the world.

By her mid-teens she slipped into Newark's night clubs, performing as pianist and singer. In 1942 friends dared her to enter the famed Wednesday amateur contest at Harlem's Apollo Theatre; her rendition of "Body and Soul" won first prize and turned a local talent toward the national stage. On the recommendation of Billy Eckstine, bandleader Earl Hines hired her in 1943 as a second pianist and vocalist, placing her at the very birth of a new music.

Amid the pioneers of bebop, Vaughan forged a style of unequaled harmonic sophistication — a voice of operatic range, molten warmth, and fearless improvisation. Known affectionately as "Sassy," "The Divine One," and the "Queen of Bebop," she recorded across four decades, from lush ballads to daring jazz. She was nominated for nine Grammy Awards, received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, and was honored as an NEA Jazz Master in 1989.

She died in Hidden Hills, California, on the third of April 1990, at the age of sixty-six. Alongside Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald, she stands among the architects of jazz singing, and generations of vocalists still reach toward the instrument she made of the human voice. May her sound endure, honored and unbroken.