Queen of Bebop

Starred review from May 29, 2017
Drawing on exclusive interviews with Sarah Vaughan’s friends and former colleagues, jazz-historian Hayes (a former editor of Earshot Jazz magazine) has written a lively and moving portrait of the passionate and tenacious jazz singer. Hayes gracefully narrates Vaughan’s life, from her childhood-church-choir days in 1930s Newark, N.J., and her first major performance at age 18 at Amateur Night at the Apollo Theater in Harlem to her career of singing bebop with Billy Eckstine, Earl Hines, Dizzy Gillespie, and Charlie Parker. Hayes traces Vaughan’s growth as a successful pop artist—which she dictated on her own terms—as well as her failed marriages and her canny ability to make a range of musical styles her own. Vaughan dealt with shady business managers and unscrupulous producers who wanted to shape her in their image, but she held strong and continued to focus on her singing, which, as Hayes astutely explains, represented for her “autonomy, independence, and an opportunity for self-realization... it was her salvation.” Hayes’s blending of the cultural history of the 1950s, ’60s, and ’70s with his lucid critical insights into Vaughan’s recordings and her life makes this book a detailed look at a fearless singer who constantly moved into new musical territories and left a legacy for younger musicians.

May 15, 2017
A biography of the great jazz singer whose commercial success seldom equaled her enormous gifts.Sarah Vaughan (1924-1990) was generally acknowledged to possess the most magnificent voice in jazz, and her instrument-playing colleagues paid her the ultimate tribute of considering her a fellow musician, not just another "girl singer." Her one-of-the-boys attitude earned her the nickname Sassy, and she was a lone female in the macho world of bebop, present at the creation as a teenager with Billy Eckstine, Dizzy Gillespie, and Charlie Parker in Earl Hines' band in 1943. Going solo in 1945, Vaughan made more mainstream records with Musicraft and by 1947 had broken through to an audience beyond the jazz cognoscenti in Chicago, thanks partly to the enthusiastic championing of local DJ Dave Garroway, who dubbed her "the Divine One." Hayes' labored explanation of how Garroway "broke the rules" by describing Vaughan's voice in terms usually reserved for white women is regrettably typical of her tendency to shoehorn academic analysis of race and gender issues into a text supposedly aimed at general readers. Her points are perfectly valid, but the way she makes them is dreary. However, Hayes does a capable job of outlining Vaughan's career, hampered both artistically and financially by her unfortunate predilection for letting the men in her life manage her. If Vaughan had received the kind of sustained support that Ella Fitzgerald got from Norman Granz, Hayes convincingly argues, her legacy on disc would not be so spotty. Instead, she did her best work in performance, and the magic of her concerts is nicely captured in well-chosen quotes from her sidemen. They also capture the prickly personality of a musical perfectionist who could be a harsh taskmaster but also a warm mother figure to her band members. Vaughan continued singing after her diagnosis of terminal lung cancer, giving her final performance less than six months before her death. Informative and well-intentioned but sometimes pedestrian and lacking the elegant effervescence of Vaughan's singing.

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Starred review from July 1, 2017
Music historian Hayes elucidates with expertise and finesse the precise nature of Sarah Vaughan's artistic genius. No mere girl singer, Newark-born Vaughan was a serious, hard-working, gutsy musician with a dazzling four-octave range, perfect pitch, and technical prowess matched by an unfettered musical imagination. Vaughan dropped out of high school to school herself in jazz, graduating with a triumphant performance on amateur night at the Apollo Theater, which delivered her to Earl Hines' band in 1943, a group that included Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, and Billy Eckstine. At 18, Vaughan was on the road at the dawn of bebop, holding her own on and off the stage as the only woman with 16 men as they faced brutal racial discrimination. Cussing and battling, Vaughan earned the nicknames Sailor and Sassy. Two years later she launched her roller-coaster solo career. Tireless researcher Hayes chronicles with passionate precision Vaughan's galvanizing performances around the world, her recording successes and debacles, and her musical innovations, from her forays into pop to her singing with symphonies. Hayes' interviews with musicians, meticulous jazz history, incisive coverage of the ridiculous publicity campaigns the performer endured, and frank coverage of Vaughan's emotionally and financially disastrous marriages and her repeated rising from the ashes cohere in a deeply illuminating and unforgettable biography of a true American master.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)

February 15, 2017

Sure, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker, and Bud Powell had everything to do with the creation and promulgation of bebop, but let's not forget husky-honey-voiced Sarah Vaughan, whose powerful influence resonated then and continues to resonate now. Vaughan expert Hayes offers a thoroughgoing life-and-art study of one of the jazz greats, who was also a mover and shaker in women's and civil rights. With a 40,000-copy first printing.

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 15, 2017

Performer Sarah Vaughan (1924-90), born in Newark, NJ, set the course for modern jazz singing. At 18, she won amateur night at the Apollo singing "Body and Soul," which launched her career. She spent the rest of her life in music, touring early on with musicians such as Earl "Fatha" Hines, Billy Eckstine, Dizzy Gillespie, and Charlie Parker, who were on the verge of changing jazz and creating bebop. Throughout her career, she maintained her creativity and fearlessness about venturing into new musical conversations, pushing herself and others to be constantly innovative. This title treads some of the same ground as Leslie Gourse's Sassy: The Life of Sarah Vaughan, but music historian and Vaughan expert Hayes focuses more on the music and looks at the role racism and imposing notions of femininity played. The author combines research and interviews, deftly outlining that by becoming a "crossover" artist, Vaughan helped create spaces for others and shifted perceptions of "how white America heard, understood, and interacted with the black female voice." VERDICT This inspiring book about an artist who disliked being labelled traces Vaughan's life and its intersection of music with race and gender. [See Prepub Alert, 1/23/17.]--Lani Smith, Ohone Coll. Lib., Fremont, CA

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.