NEED TO KNOW
Sheila Jordan, who helped pioneer a bebop and scat jazz singing style, as well as a bass-voice duo in the genre, has died. She was 96.
Jordan died peacefully on Monday, Aug. 11, in New York City, her daughter Tracey Jordan confirmed in an Instagram post.
“Her friend Joan Belgrave was playing her a bebop tune called Bill for Bennie, by her late husband Marcus Belgrave…my mom fell asleep listening to the music she loved and helped define,” Tracey wrote in the Instagram post, which included a photo of her holding her mother’s hand.
“Thank you for your support and generosity, the money raised on her GoFundMe page will be used to pay off medical debt and secure a plot for her at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Jazz Corner…a memorial service will be planned in the future at Saint Peter’s Church in New York City. Love, Tracey,” she wrote.
Jordan was born in Detroit on Nov. 18, 1928 and was raised by grandparents who struggled with alcoholism in Pennsylvania’s coal region. The singer told NPR in 2014 that she was “unhappy” as a child — and singing was her way of escaping. She later discovered her love for jazz by hearing Charlie Parker on a jukebox.
“I put my nickel in and up came Bird and his Re-Boppers playing ‘Now’s The Time.’ I’ll never forget it. Changed my whole life,” she told the National Endowment for the Arts in 2012.
In the early ’50s, Jordan moved to New York and married Duke Jordan, who was a pianist for Parker’s band. Jordan welcomed Tracey with Jordan — but his heroin addiction eventually tore them apart. At the time, Jordan got a job as a typist at an advertising agency — which she stayed in for 25 years — and raised Tracey as a single mom. Still, she made time for her musical passions.
“You find a way because the music is very important. That’s how I survived, knowing that once or twice a week I’d get a sitter for Tracey, and I’d go and sing in this club, and then I’d get up the next morning and go do my day gig,” she told NPR in 2009.
While she was in New York, she appeared on George Russell’s album The Outer View by lending her vocals to “You Are My Sunshine.” The following year, Jordan released her debut album Portrait of Sheila via Blue Note Records.
She never stopped performing, either, and would often tour with bassist Harvie S, Cameron Brown and composer Steve Kuhn. Her last performance was on Valentine’s Day at The Green Mill in Chicago, which is the same day she released her latest studio album, Portrait Now.
Jack Vartoogian/Getty
In 1978, Jordan began teaching at the City College of New York and continued teaching jazz vocal workshops until 2005. In 2012, she received the National Endowment of the Arts as a Jazz Master award, the genre’s highest honor.
“It’s been a beautiful experience for me. And I don’t know, I just try to teach from my heart and give them the support that I think that they need. I love to see young people out there keeping this music alive. It just thrills me,” she told the National Endowment for the Arts of teaching in 2012.
Despite not becoming a household name, Jordan took great pride in her contribution to the jazz community.
“The people that respect what I do and hire me, that’s all I need, you know? I just need to keep doing this music as long as I live,” she told NPR in 2014. “And in your 80s, to be able to still perform this music, and get on an airplane and go all over the world, which I’ve done in the last couple of months — I was on a tour in Norway and I just got off of a tour of Germany — so I’m doing okay.”
