OPEN POST: With That Other Fabulous Etta!

J'adore jazz, don't you? Which brings me to Etta Jones - who is not, it should be noted, Etta James. Have you heard of her? She's another one of those remarkable vocalists who was popular with mass-market audiences for a brief second, then tragically forgotten. She was never forgotten by jazz aficionados, though. They've been devoted all along.

Born in the 1920's and coming into her own professionally in the 40's and 50's, Etta endured grim years of struggle, performing at night with a 'who's who' of jazz performers at NYC nightclubs like The Baby Grand and Onyx, then toiling during the day at factory jobs, as an elevator operator and a seamstress. Later in life, she partnered with sax legend Houston Person for nearly thirty years on the road, primarily for appreciative Black audiences, with a non-stop schedule that took her all over the world until a mere two weeks before her death. Never the diva, she was just as devoted to her fans as they were to her. Yet lasting mass-market fame eluded her. 

Etta once stated that she drew most of her inspiration not from other singers, but from horn players, and you can hear this in almost every song she performs. Even from the start, on her 1960 debut album, "Don't Go To Strangers," her luxuriant, bluesy tones are in full bloom in numbers like "Something to Remember You By," which sounds so in-the-moment that you'd swear she's experiencing every sensation and feeling in the song for the first time. It's just gorgeous.

As All About Jazz notes: "Etta Jones did not intellectualize jazz. Her radical bending of pitch and her 'when I get there' approach to the beat were not calculated devices. She sang from her heart (like Billie Holiday) and from her gut (like Dinah Washington) rather than from her head. Improvisation came as naturally to her as breathing, and she probably had swing coded in her DNA. While there were many improvisers who took a tune further out than Jones, few were as economical in their phrasing. She did not waste notes or needlessly embellish a melody."

Upon her death in 2001 - the same day that her last original LP was released - Person said, "It hurts me that she didn't get what she deserved. She was out there for so many, many years."