Carmen McRae(1920-1994)

Carmen McRae was an acclaimed American jazz singer, pianist and songwriter of Jamaican and Costa Rican parentage. She studied piano from the age of eight and came to regard Billie Holiday as her greatest influence (Holiday went on to record McRae’s own composition "Dream of Life" in 1939). McRae’s first big break arrived as a result of winning an amateur talent contest at the Apollo Theater in Harlem, New York. Following a brief stint of secretarial work in Washington, McRae found work as a vocalist with various big bands, including those of Charlie Barnet, Benny Carter, Earl 'Fatha' Hines, Count Basie and Mercer Ellington. She also gigged as an intermission pianist at Minton’s Playhouse, a noted Harlem jazz venue. Between 1948 and 1952, she worked in a number of clubs on the Chicago jazz scene. Her subsequent return to New York was marked by a lucrative recording contract with Decca, resulting in 12 LP’s and some of her best musical numbers, including "Mad About the Boy", "Baltimore Oriole", "Good Morning Heartache", "Perdido", "Summertime" and "Star Eyes". She was voted Best New Female Singer by Downbeat magazine in 1954. Later, McRae switched her affiliation to the Kappa label (1958-60), then to Columbia (1960-62) and, finally, Concord (1980-88).

Throughout her career, McRae continued to pay homage to her stylistic role model Billie Holiday by including classic Holiday numbers in her own repertoire ("Them There Eyes", "Lover Man", "Don't Explain", many others). She performed alongside some of the greatest jazz musicians of the era, including Louis Armstrong, Dave Brubeck and George Shearing. Her smoky voice and intimate emotional phrasing were especially suited to ballads. Emphasizing the importance of lyrics, she was quoted saying "Lyrics come first, then the melody. The lyric of a song I might decide to sing must have something that I can convince you with."

By the mid-50’s McRae fronted her own small combos, regularly performing in Blue Note jazz clubs and at concert venues. She went on many international tours (attracting a particularly strong following in Japan) and sang at jazz festivals in Monterrey, Newport and Montreux. Her accolades have included seven Grammy Award nominations. Carmen McRae is regarded as one of the all-time great jazz singers.