Sarah Vaughan - The Divine One by Gunther Schuller
A Remembrance on the 100th Anniversary of Her Birthday
© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.
This overwhelming tribute to Sarah Vaughan preceded a Vaughan concert at the Smithsonian Museum in 1980. Not surprisingly, Gunther Schuller — certainly the jazz authority most deeply rooted in classical music — places Vaughan in the entire context of twentieth-century singing.
Perhaps what is surprising is not that he finds her superior to every great opera singer of this period, but that he makes every effort to substantiate his claims, not merely assert them.
This feature is a tribute to the 100th anniversary of Sarah’s birth.
These remarks are drawn from the collection entitled Musings as they appear in Robert Gottlieb, editor, Readings in Jazz: A Gathering of Autobiography, Reportage, and Criticism from 1919 to Now [New York: Pantheon Books, 1996, pp. 986-991].
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