A tribute to the late pioneering vocalist and NEA Jazz Master Sheila Jordan

On this episode of The Art of the Story, WBGO's Doug Doyle pays tribute to the late NEA Jazz Master Sheila Jordan

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I Doug Doyle with the art of the story. If
he could see me.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
Now, you know how blue.

Speaker 1 (00:17):
One looks any.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
To know Mouai.

Speaker 1 (00:25):
She was simply a jazz treasure who was recognized fifty
years after her beloved recording portrait of Sheila as Annya
jazz Master. Sheila Jordan has died at the age of
ninety six. Her longtime bassist Harvey s told NPR that
Jordan died yesterday at her apartment in New York City.

(00:45):
Sheila Jordan spoke with wbgo's Sheila Anderson back in twenty
seventeen as part of Salon Sessions. She heard Charlie Parker's
Now's the Time on the jukebox while growing up in Detroit.

Speaker 2 (00:58):
I love music. We sang from the time I was
a little kid, and I didn't know what kind of
music I wanted to sing. And I went across the
street and I saw Charlie Parker and his reboppers, not
even beboppers, reboppers, and I said, Charlie Parker is reboppers,
so that sounds interesting. So I put my nickel in
in bird five notes. I said, that's it. That's the music.

(01:21):
I'll dedicate my life too, whether I sing it, support it,
teach it whatever.

Speaker 3 (01:26):
Falling in love with love is falling for Maybee leeve,
falling in love with love is playing the food.

Speaker 2 (01:37):
Carry too much is such a juvenile fancy. Learning to
trust is just for children in school. I fell in
love with love one night when the moon was high.

Speaker 1 (01:54):
The feisty Jordan, who performed well into her nineties, was
a recent guest on Jazz Night in America, hosted my
bassist and friend Christian McBride.

Speaker 3 (02:04):
She'll tell our audiences what it was like, what you
really started to get into bebop and this little white
girl hanging out with all of the black bebop musicians.

Speaker 2 (02:15):
Yes, what was that like? It was not easy. Now
I'm living with my mother in Detroit to go to
high school. I was fourteen years old. I remember like
my principal called me into the office and said, why

(02:35):
do you hang out with colored girls? I said colored, purple, right, red, orange, blue, lilac.
She said, get out. I got her, man, I got her.

Speaker 1 (02:52):
You know, good for you.

Speaker 2 (02:53):
And I don't know where that came from, but you
know they were my friends. The music really saved me,
and the thing that helped me at that time was
there were great musicians coming up, young musicians. I grew
up with Barry Harris, Tommy Flanagan, Kenny Burrow, those were

(03:17):
the cats on the scene and they were like me young.
And I sang with these two young guys, Leroy Mitchell
and Skeeter Spike, and we had like a little trio
and we love to write lyrics to bird tunes and
we would do all. Charlie Parker Toombs.

Speaker 1 (03:37):
The pioneering Sheila Jordan dead at the age of ninety six.
She will be missed by all of us here at
WBGO and beyond. You can hear much more about her
career at wbgo dot org. I'm Doug Doyle. WBGO News