Chris Connor

Along with June Christy, Helen O’Connell, and Julie London, Chris Connor epitomized great jazz singing in the 1950s. Inspired by Anita O’Day, the torchy, smoky vocalist wasn’t one for hostility. Like Chet Baker in the trumpet or Paul Desmond and Lee Konitz on alto sax, she utilized subtlety and restraint with their optimum advantage. In the University or college of Missouri, Connor (who experienced studied clarinet young) sang having a Stan Kentonish big music group led by trombonist Bob Brookmeyer before departing her indigenous Kansas Town for NY in 1947. Quite properly, she was presented in the lyrical pianist Claude Thornhill’s orchestra in the first ’50s. After departing Thornhill, Connor was employed by Kenton at Christy’s suggestion, and her ten-month association with him in 1952-1953 led to the strike “ABOUT Ronnie.” Connor debuted like a single designer in 1953, documenting three albums for Bethlehem before shifting to Atlantic in 1955 and documenting 12. Connor reached the elevation of her recognition in the 1950s, when she shipped her celebrated variations of Billy Strayhorn’s “Lush Lifestyle” and George Shearing’s “Lullaby of Broadway,” and documented such exceptional albums as The Wealthy Sound of Chris Connor and Lullabies of Birdland for Bethlehem and Chris Build and Ballads from the Sad Cafe for Atlantic. Connor produced a poor profession move around in 1962, the entire year she still left Atlantic and agreed upon using a label her supervisor was beginning, FM Information — Connor acquired recorded just two albums for FM if they folded. Connor’s documenting profession was rejuvenated in the 1970s, and she continued to record for Progressive, Stash, and Modern in the ’70s and ’80s. Connor preserved a devoted pursuing in the 1990s and continuing to tour internationally.