Raised in poverty in Pennsylvania's coal-mining country, Sheila Jordan today is a world-class and critically acclaimed jazz vocalist with more than 22 recordings and several jazz awards, including the 2006 MAC Lifetime Achievement Award, to her credit.
Jordan began singing and playing piano as a child, and by her early teens, she was performing in Detroit night clubs. Influenced by instrumentalists like Charlie Parker, she encountered the negativity of racism as she preferred to work with black musicians. But Jordan perservered and joined the vocal trio, Skeeter, Mitch and Jean (she was Jean). After moving to New York in the early '50's, she married Parker's pianist, Duke Jordan, and studied with Lennie Tristano, finally making her first recordings under her own name in the early '60's. Jordan is probably is best known for her 10-minute version of "You Are My Sunshine," which is featured on The Outer View with George Russell.
Over the next 30 years, Jordan built an audience while singing in churches and clubs, and her popularity grew as more and more people discovered her creative and uncompromising style. She is a wonder to behold as she showcases her improvisation, superb scat singing and emotional interpretations of jazz ballads. In 1977, she recorded a memorable duet album with bassist Arild Andersen, Sheila, and in 1983, she teamed up with bassist Harvie Swartz to produce Old Time Feeling, which includes several of the standards Jordan regularly features in her live repertoire today.
Named "Talent Deserving Wider Recognition" by Downbeat Magazine's Critic Poll nine times, Jordan is finally gaining the attention and appreciation she deserves. She recently celebrated her seventy-fifth birthday by releasing Little Song on Highnote Records.
For more information about Sheila Jordan, her music and her tour schedule, please visit www.sheilajordanjazz.com.
