Women in Jazz (4/4)

Annie Ross (born 25 July 1930, Mitcham, London, England, UK) is an English jazz singer, chanteuse and actress, best-known as a member of the trio Lambert, Hendricks & Ross. Ross is one of the early practitioners of a singing style known as vocalese, which involves the setting of original lyrics to an instrumental jazz solo. Her 1952 treatment of saxophonist Wardell Gray's "Twisted" is a classic example of vocalese.[4] "Twisted" has been recorded by Joni Mitchell, Bette Midler, Maria Friedman, and many others. Her first album, Singin' and Swingin' (1952) was recorded in New York with members of the Modern Jazz Quartet. Other albums include Annie By Candlelight (1956), Sings A Song With Mulligan (1958) with baritone saxophonist Gerry Mulligan and Chet Baker on trumpet, A Gasser! (1959) with Zoot Sims, In Hoagland (1981) with Georgie Fame and Hoagy Carmichael, and Music Is Forever (1995) featuring Tommy Flanagan on piano. In February 1956, the British music magazine, NME reported that Ross's song "I Want You to be My Baby" was banned by the BBC, due to the lyric, "Come upstairs and have some loving". She recorded seven albums with Lambert, Hendricks & Ross between 1957 and 1962. Their first, Sing a Song of Basie (1957), was to have been performed by a group of singers hired by Jon Hendricks and Dave Lambert with Ross brought in only as vocal consultant. When the first two tracks were recorded and deemed unsatisfactory, it was decided that the trio should attempt recording the material and overdub all the additional vocals themselves. The resulting album was a success, and the trio became an international hit. Over the next five years, Lambert, Hendricks & Ross toured all over the world and recorded such albums as Lambert, Hendricks, & Ross! (aka The Hottest New Group In Jazz, 1959), Sing Ellington (1960), High Flying (1962), and The Real Ambassadors (1962), written by Dave Brubeck and featuring Louis Armstrong and Carmen McRae. Ross left the group in 1962[4] and, in 1964, opened her own nightclub in London. Annie's Room featured performances by Joe Williams, Stuff Smith, Blossom Dearie, Anita O'Day, Jon Hendricks, and Erroll Garner, as well as Ross herself. A compilation album of Ross' 1965 performances from Annie's Room, was released on CD in 2006. (extract from Wikipedia 2011)