Janet Thurlow
Janet Lorraine Thurlow (May 21, 1926 – October 4, 2022) was an American jazz singer.
Janet Thurlow | |
|---|---|
| Born | 21 May 1926 Seattle |
| Died | 4 October 2022 (aged 96) Lynwood |
| Occupation | Jazz singer |
| Spouse(s) | Jimmy Cleveland |
| Musical career | |
| Instrument(s) |
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| Years active | 1949–1967, 1983–2008 |
| Formerly of |
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Biography edit
Early life edit
Thurlow was born on May 21, 1926, in Seattle – the first of five children. She took violin, piano, and singing lessons as a teenager.[1] As a child, she sang on the Major Bowes Amateur Hour hosted by Major Edward Bowes.[2] She attended Broadway High School in Seattle, but had to drop out after ninth grade to care for her siblings after her parents' divorce. A few years later, Thurlow moved into her own apartment after her mother's death, befriended a young Ray Charles, and began cultivating an appreciation of jazz as well as jazz singing.[2]
In 1949, she began as a "song stylist" with Robert "Bumps" Blackwell's Seattle-based band,[3] which at that time had a 16-year old Quincy Jones as arranger and trumpet player and Ray Charles, then known as "R.C.", playing piano and alto sax.[4]
Lionel Hampton Orchestra edit
In 1950, Lionel Hampton hired her to play with his band.[1] Thurlow convinced Hampton to hire her friend Quincy Jones as a trumpeter.[5] In the April 1951, Thurlow recorded the song "I Can't Believe You're in Love with Me" with Hampton's orchestra for Decca Records.[6] Mike Barnes wrote that this recording made "her perhaps the first white singer to front an all-Black big band."[1] In August 1951, Thurlow performed with Hampton's orchestra at the Paramount Theater in Hollywood.[7] At the end of that month, they performed at the Trianon Ballroom in Seattle that featured Jones and Thurlow as "Two Seattleites".[1][3]
That same year, Thurlow met trombonist Jimmy Cleveland, a fellow band member with Hampton's orchestra.[8] They married on April 2, 1953 in Chicago.[9]
After Hampton edit
In November 1952, Thurlow converted to the Jehovah's Witnesses.[10]
By April 1953, Thurlow had left Hampton's orchestra and was performing solo in Chicago.[11]
On October 28, 1953, she was the vocalist on "Eclipse," a song about interracial romance written by Charles Mingus, and recorded with his octet.[12]
Thurlow during this time began to volunteer as a violinist at Jehovah's Witnesses' regional conventions at New York's Yankee Stadium, Philadelphia's Connie Mack Stadium, and Los Angeles' Dodger Stadium.[10]
Later life edit
Thurlow and her husband moved in 1967 from New York to Lynwood, California.[1] Thurlow began teaching vocal music[2] but did not begin to perform jazz again until 1983,[2] when she began occasional performing and recording with Cleveland[8] until her husband's death in 2008.[1][2]
Thurlow died of heart failure, aged 96, at St. Francis Medical Center in Lynwood in 2022.[1] She was buried beside her husband at Riverside National Cemetery.[13]
References edit
- ^ a b c d e f g Barnes, Mike (October 24, 2022). "Janet Thurlow, Jazz Singer and Widow of Trombonist Jimmy Cleveland, Dies at 96". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved November 16, 2022.
- ^ a b c d e de Barros, Paul (November 8, 2022). "Janet Thurlow, who sang during Seattle's Jackson Street jazz heyday, dies at 96". The Seattle Times. Retrieved November 16, 2022.
- ^ a b Blecha, Peter (March 16, 1916). "Lionel Hampton Orchestra (with Quincy Jones) plays Seattle". HistoryLink.org. Retrieved November 16, 2022.
- ^ Crow, Bill (1992). "Coast to Coast". From Birdland to Broadway : scenes from a jazz life. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 20–21. ISBN 978-1-4294-0781-6. OCLC 252592422 – via Internet Archive.
- ^ "Quincy Jones: The Fresh Air Interview". NPR.org. May 27, 2013. Retrieved November 16, 2022.
- ^ Hampton, Lionel; Thurlow, Janet (1951), Lionel Hampton and his orchestra play, I can't believe that you're in love with me, New York, NY: M-G-M, OCLC 28842003
- ^ "Hampton Crew 31G in Week At H'w'd Para". Billboard. August 4, 1951. p. 14. OCLC 71364853. ISSN 0006-2510, 0006-2510.
- ^ a b "Jimmy Cleveland, with a scant fringe of goatee nesting..." UPI. March 2, 1991. Retrieved November 16, 2022.
- ^ "Janet Thurlow in the Cook County, Illinois Marriage Index, 1930-1960". Ancestry.com. Retrieved November 16, 2022.
- ^ a b Hill, Vada (2022). "Obituary Janet (Thurlow) Cleveland". canva.com. p. 4.
- ^ "Singer Leaves Hamp" (PDF). Down Beat. Vol. 19, no. 7. Chicago: Down Beat, Inc. April 4, 1952. p. 1. ISSN 0012-5768. OCLC 50240528.
- ^ Gabbard, Krin (2016). Better git it in your soul: an interpretive biography of Charles Mingus. Oakland, California. pp. 34, 268. ISBN 978-0-520-96374-0. OCLC 932064167 – via Internet Archive.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - ^ "Janet L. Cleveland". Nationwide Grave Locator. National Cemetery Administration. Retrieved November 21, 2022.