Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Janet Lawson was born on November 13, 1940 in Baltimore, Maryland to a Jewish father and Catholic mother from Eastern Europe. Her father was a jazz drummer and her mother was a singer and lyricist who sometimes sang in her father’s band. At home, they worked on songs together at the piano. She performed on the radio and regional television as a child.

Lawson began singing with a local big band in her teens. When she was eighteen, she moved to New York City and got a job as a secretary at Columbia Records. She appeared regularly on Steve Allen’s television show between 1968 and 1969 and worked in theater.

Living across the street from Al Jeter, the head of Riverside Records, gave her access to make contacts when she attended parties at his penthouse apartment. While going to jazz clubs she found inspiration from seeing Thelonious Monk and made her debut at the Village Vanguard with Art Farmer.

In 1976 she formed the Janet Lawson Quintet, which in 1983 included saxophonist and flutist Roger Rosenberg, pianist Bill O’Connell, Ratzo Harris on bass, and drummer Jimmy Madison. She became known as a scat singer and improviser.

Lawson has worked with Art Farmer, Chick Corea, Ron Carter, Bob Dorough, Duke Ellington, Tommy Flanagan, Sheila Jordan, Barry Harris, Milt Hinton, Eddie Jefferson, Barney Kessel, Dave Liebman, Joe Newman, Rufus Reid, Clark Terry, Ed Thigpen, Cedar Walton, Duke Pearson and David Lahm.

She has taught voice at New York University and the New School, given private lessons, taught elementary school children, and has made trips every year to Latvia to attend a youth music camp.

In 1977 she recorded with Eddie Jefferson and by the Eighties she recorded two albums as a leader. In 1982 she was nominated for a Grammy Award in the Best Female Jazz Vocal Performance, and in 2007 received a Hall of Fame nomination from the International Association for Jazz Education.

Vocalist Janet Lawson, who in the early 2000s was diagnosed with Lyme disease, Bell’s palsy, Parkinson’s disease and suffered damage to her vocal cords, transitioned on January 22, 2021 in New Jersey.

Confer a dose of a Baltimore vocalist to those seeking a greater insight about the musicians around the world who are members of the pantheon of jazz…

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