Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Maxine Sullivan was born Marietta Williams on May 13, 1911 in Homestead, Pennsylvania who developed a subtle and lightly swinging jazz style. Maxine possessed an affable delivery that slighted no lyric.

Over the course of her long career Sullivan first moved to New York and sang during intermissions at the Onyx Club. It was here she was discovered by Claude Thornhill who recorded her in front of a septet singing standards and a couple of Scottish tunes in swinging fashion. One of those tunes “Loch Lomond” would become her big hit and her career signature song.

During the forties Maxine appeared in movies opposite Louis Armstrong, on Broadway in Swingin’ The Dream, with then husband John Kirby and his sextet, and starred a radio show “Flow Gently Sweet Rhythm” for two years receiving reasonable success with a solo career.

By the 50s she became trained as a nurse and over the next several years was absent from music. However, 1968 saw Sullivan’s comeback performing at festivals and even playing a little valve trombone and flugelhorn.

During the later years of her career she intermittently appeared with the World’s Greatest Jazz Band, sang with mainstream jazz groups and recorded in concert her first hit Loch Lomond. Passing away on April 7, 1987 in New York City, vocalist Maxine Sullivan was inducted into the Big Band Hall of Fame in 1998.

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