Sheila Jordan
Sheila Jeannette Jordan (nee Dawson, born November 18, 1928 in Detroit, Michigan) is an American jazz singer.
Life and work
Dawson began singing as a child and performed in various clubs of Detroit. Later she was a member of the vocal trio Skeeter, Mitch and Jean. In the early 1950s she moved to New York City. There she married Duke Jordan, pianist of Charlie Parker's band, and studied with Charles Mingus and Lennie Tristano.
In the early 1960s, their first recordings, including The Outer View of George Russell with a famous version of the song You Are My Sunshine and her Blue Note albums Portrait of Sheila with Barry Galbraith, Steve Swallow and Denzil originated Best on which they a standard program from titles such as I'm a Fool to Want You, Let's Face the Music and Dance or Bobby Timmons ' Dat Dere interpreted.
Later, she often performed in churches with liturgical jazz chants could be heard in groups of trombonist Roswell Rudd and - partly as a duo with Jeanne Lee - Carla Bley's Escalator Over the Hill involved. The mid-1970s she regularly works with Roswell Rudd. In 1977, she played an album with Arild Andersen; 1982 was the duo album Old Time Feeling as in collaboration with bassist Harvie Swartz. In the late 1970s she was accompanied by the trio of pianist Steve Kuhn, with whom she recorded several albums. George Gruntz she took as a singer for many of his projects regularly to Europe; also Egil Kapstad they preferred as a singer. In 1998, she took the Steve Kuhn Trio ( with Kuhn, David Finck and Billy Drummond, also with the participation of Theo Bleckmann ) Album Jazz Child, dedicated to the memory of Charlie Parker and Miles Davis. In the 2003's debut album of Cameron Brown Here and How is it clear that her singing is still marked experimental.
Jordan was from 1978 jazz workshops at the City College of New York, participated with Jay Clayton on summer programs Jazz in July at the University of Massachusetts and taught at Stanford University. Her students include, inter alia, the singer Judi Silvano, Marya Lawrence and Sabine Kühlich. In 2011 she received the Jazz Masters Fellowship of the state NEA Foundation.