Search - Artist/Band: Sheila Jordan

• Name: Sheila Jordan
• Birthday: 11/18/1928
• Birth Place: Detroit, MI
• Decades Active: 1940,1950,1960,1970,1980,1990,2000
• Genre: Vocal Music
• Styles: Bop, Post-Bop, Torch Songs, Vocal Jazz
• Moods: Elegant, Intimate, Laid-Back/Mellow, Nocturnal, Refined/Mannered, Sophisticated, Stylish, Delicate, Freewheeling

Title	Release
Little Song WA	01/21/2003
The Very Thought of Two	11/28/2000
From the Heart	08/01/2000
I've Grown Accustomed to the Bass WA	06/27/2000
Jazz Child WA	05/11/1999
Heart Strings	1993
One for Junior	09/1991
Songs from Within WA	03/1989
Lost and Found WA	1989
The Crossing WA	1984
Sheila WA	1977
Confirmation	1975
Portrait of Sheila Jordan WA	1963

One of the most consistently creative of all jazz singers, Sheila Jordan has a relatively small voice, but has done the maximum with her instrument. She is one of the few vocalists who can improvise logical lyrics (which often rhyme), she is a superb scat singer, and is also an emotional interpreter of ballads. Yet despite her talents, Jordan spent much of the 1960s and '70s working at a conventional day job. She studied piano when she was 11 and early on, sang vocalese in a vocal group. Jordan moved to New York in the 1950s, was married to Duke Jordan (1952-62), studied with Lennie Tristano, and worked in New York clubs. George Russell used her on an unusual recording of "You Are My Sunshine" and she became one of the few singers to lead her own Blue Note album (1962). However, it would be a decade before she appeared on records again, working with Carla Bley, Roswell Rudd, and co-leading a group with Steve Kuhn in the late '70s. Jordan recorded a memorable duet album with bassist Arild Andersen for SteepleChase in 1977, and has since teamed up with bassist Harvie Swartz on many occasions. By the 1980s, Sheila Jordan was finally performing jazz on a full-time basis and gaining the recognition she deserved 20 years earlier. She recorded as a leader (in addition to the Blue Note session) for East Wind, Grapevine, SteepleChase, Palo Alto, Blackhawk, and Muse, resurfacing in 1999 with Jazz Child. ~ Scott Yanow, All Music Guide