Mildred bailey red norvo biography

One of the first female singers to make a name for herself in the American pantheon of jazz, Mildred Bailey managed to capture the subtleties of the era's African American blues and ragtime music. Bailey early on developed her own unique way to underline the meaning of the words she sang. She performed with some of the finest musicians of the swing era--including Benny Goodman, Paul Whiteman, Coleman Hawkins, and Red Norvo, her husband for most of the s.

Plagued by health problems for much of her life, she died when she was only 44 years old in Many jazz lovers had a hard time reconciling Bailey's high, dulcet tones with her rather corpulent body. During the hey-days of the Swing Era, she and Norvo, her husband at the time, were dubbed "Mr. Although she is perhaps best remembered for her work in jazz, Bailey enjoyed a good deal of success in popular music as well.

Although she appeared with some of the most successful bands of the Swing Era, she ended her career as a solo performer, drawing thousands of appreciative fans to her appearances at some of New York City's most popular jazz clubs. While she was still quite young, Bailey moved with her mother and three brothers to nearby Spokane.

Her mother, who was part Native American, schooled Bailey and her brothers in Native American traditions, and the family often visited relatives on the Coeur d'Alene Indian Reservation in nearby Idaho. Bailey learned music from her mother and began performing at an early age, playing the piano and singing in movie theaters in the early s.

Her interest in jazz was shared by older brother Al and a neighborhood friend, Harry Lillis Bing Crosby.

After leaving Whiteman, Bailey sang on the radio shows of George Jessel and Willard Robison.

In writing the liner notes for one of her early albums, Crosby recalled, as quoted in Dictionary of American Biography: "Mildred Bailey gave me my start. She took off Hollywood for newer and broader fields, and a year or so later, Al and I followed her there. She introduced us to Marco [Wolff], at that time a very big theatrical producer, and we were on our way--with a lot of her material, I might add.

She was mucha mujer, with a heart as big as Yankee Stadium. In quick succession she worked as a "song demonstrator," toured with the dance revue of Fanchon and Marco Wolff, and was a solo vocalist on Los Angeles radio station KMTR.