Carol Sloane


Carol Sloane was an American jazz singer.

Early life

Carol Morvan was born on March 5, 1937 in Providence, Rhode Island to Frank and Claudia Morvan. Morvan and her eldest sister, Lois, were raised in the Providence suburb of Georgiaville. Her family played music and enjoyed singing together. Raised a Catholic, Morvan's earliest musical experiences included singing in the church choir with her family. She also attended Catholic School in her elementary years where she was taught by nuns to be "a good girl", according to Morvan. Around age 12, her parents bought her a radio where she heard early rock and roll during the day time and jazz at night time.
At age 14, she obtained a job singing twice a week with local bandleader, Ed Drew. The group performed at the Rhodes-on-the-Pawtuxet Ballroom in Cranston, Rhode Island where she was paid $9 per gig and performed under the name, Carol Van. In high school, she also worked as a secretary and a babysitter. One of her babysitting clients was local songwriter, Jim Howe, who had co-written the song "So Long". She traveled to New York City where she recorded his composition. After finishing high school in 1955, she married Charlie Jefferds. When he was drafted into the US Army, she followed him to Germany in 1957. Overseas, she appeared in traveling military musical productions, beginning with Kiss Me Kate. Upon returning to the US, the couple lived in Providence where Morvan obtained a secretarial position at a law firm. She also performed at a local club part-time where she was heard by Bob Bonis, a representative for Les and Larry Elgart. Bonis had her audition for Larry Elgart's Orchestra and she was hired in 1958.

Career

1960–1964: Breakthrough

Morvan stayed with the Elgart's big band for two years where she spent time touring with the group throughout the US. She also recorded with the orchestra, including an appearance on his 1960 RCA Victor LP, Easy Goin' Swing. Elgart did not like her maiden name, Morvan, and insisted on changing it. They experimented with different names before settling on the last name "Sloane", after she saw the name on a furniture store. Sloane left Elgart after realizing big band orchestras were becoming increasingly out-of-fashion. Now a solo artist, she performed at a Pittsburgh jazz festival where she was heard by Jon Hendricks of the trio, Lambert, Hendricks & Ross. Sloane agreed to Hendricks' offer to substitute for Annie Ross when was unable to perform in their trio. According to Sloane, Hendricks helped her land a spot performing at the 1961 Newport Jazz Festival where she appeared as part of their "New Faces" show. She wanted to sing "Little Girl Blue", but the festival's pianist did not know the verse. Sloane instead sang it acapella, which impressed the crowd that day. In the audience were jazz critics, along with representatives from Columbia Records, who offered her a contract several weeks later.
Her Columbia contract yielded two albums, beginning with the 1962 LP, Out of the Blue. The album was mostly a collection of ballads arranged by Bill Finegan. It spawned a 45 RPM single, which was a cover of "I Want You to Be the First to Know". Out of the Blue received critical acclaim, including from Billboard, which named it one of their "Special Merit Albums" on May 19, 1962. Her second Columbia LP was Carol Sloane Live at 30th Street, titled for its recording sessions that were held at New York City's 30th Street studios. It was named Cash Box magazine's "Jazz Picks of the Week" on January 19, 1963 and was rated three out five stars by AllMusic. She also recorded a live album in 1964, but it went unreleased until 1977 when it was issued by the Honeydew label.
Sloane's career got further exposure on television during this period when she appeared on The Steve Allen Show and The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. Sloane recalled being given the title of the "Queen of First 15" for appearing as the first guest on The Tonight Show from 11:15-11:30. Because most markets only picked up the show at 11:30, she often missed exposure to a larger national audience. Sloane also held concerts at night clubs like San Francisco's the Hungry I, Chicago's Mister Kelly's and New York City's The Blue Angel. Also on the bill were fellow jazz musicians Coleman Hawkins and Ben Webster, along with comedians like Woody Allen, Lenny Bruce and Richard Pryor. She also joined The Beatles and The Rolling Stones on their early US tours in 1964 due to her association with the tour's manager, Bob Bonis.

1965–1985: Career setbacks and recordings in Japan

In 1965, Sloane's career was given a second go-round at Columbia. This time, she was pushed in a pop marketing direction that drew inspiration from the careers of Edyie Gorme and Peggy Lee. The 1965 single, "Music", received some airplay on US top 40 radio, according to Billboard. She was ultimately dropped from Columbia's roster, but continued performing in concert during the 1960s, including at Boston's Jazz Workshop. Occasionally, she wrote album reviews for Down Beat magazine between September 1967 and May 1968. Despite this, Sloane was just making ends meet and returned to secretarial work in New York to pay her bills. In 1969, an agent contacted Sloane and coaxed her into moving to Raleigh, North Carolina to headline at The Frog and Nightgown jazz club. Sloane performed monthly concerts centered around the music of Cole Porter and Noel Coward, while also working as a secretary for politician Terry Sanford during the weekday.
Around 1977, Sloane returned to New York City to fill-in for Dee Dee Bridgewater's concert with the New York Jazz Quartet. She also met pianist, Jimmy Rowles and the two became romantically involved for a brief period. At the same time, Japan's growing interest in jazz music was leading several artists recording overseas, including Sloane. In 1977, Japan's Trio label issued her first studio LP in over a decade titled Sophisticated Lady. The album was a collection of Duke Ellington tunes and would be one of several she would record in tribute to him. When asked about Japan's jazz inclusiveness, Sloane told The Washington Post, "Possibly the reason that country is so damn successful in what it does is because they're so open to everything," Sloane told The Washington Post in 1984.
Sloane made roughly ten studio or live albums in Japan and featured American jazz players. Following the Trio album came the LOBster-issued Spring Is Here and the Nadja-issued Cottontail. The latter was reissued by the US-based Choice label and was given a mixed review by Cash Box in 1980: "Although it sounds like it was recorded in her living room, the latest by singer Sloane is a joy." The American-based Progressive Records released Carol Sings in 1980. Sloane moved to Chapel Hill, North Carolina in 1981 where she booked jazz acts like Helen Merrill, George Shearing and Carmen McRae. She also hosted her own radio segment on Chapel Hill's WUNC FM in the mid 1980s. Despite a continued output of material, Sloane's albums yielded limited sales figures. Among her 1980s albums were 1982's As Time Goes By and 1984's Three Pearls.

1986–2019: Late career comeback

By the mid 1980s, Sloane was back to just making ends meet. In her documentary, she recalled that she just had enough money to buy "cat food and a bottle of Scotch". She made a last-ditch effort to reignite her career by calling Boston club owner, Buck Spurr, who got her a gig working in a room on the top floor of a Howard Johnson's hotel. Spurr and Sloane later married. Sloane began working more regularly beginning around 1985. In 1988, she was performing at the Milestone Club in San Francisco when she was approached by singer, Helen Keane, who helped her sign a recording contract with a US label called Contemporary Records. Her debut Contemporary release was 1989's Love You Madly, followed by 1990's The Real Thing. Both albums combined American standards with lesser-known songs and they were met with critical acclaim
The success of the Contemporary albums led to Sloane performing at the Concord-Fijitsu Festival where she was seen by label-head, Carl Jefferson. He then asked her, "So when am I gonna record you?". The invitation led to a contract with Jefferson's Concord Jazz label and a series of studio albums in the 1990s. Her label debut was 1992's Heart's Desire, which again featured a series of Great American Songbook tunes. It was followed in by the similarly-themed studio releases Sweet & Slow and When I [Look in Your Eyes (Carol Sloane album)|When I Look in Your Eyes]. Critics praised Sloane on the three discs for not over-singing any of the tracks and including more obscure American songbook selections.
The death of Carmen McRae inspired her to record a tribute album in memory of her which was titled The Songs Carmen Sang. The songs chosen for the album included some of McRae's signature tunes and personal favorites of hers. Sloane's Japanese fans then coaxed her into recording a tribute disc of Frank Sinatra's music and the result was 1996's The Songs Sinatra Sang. Sloane then collaborated with flugelhorn player, Clark Terry, on The Songs [Ella & Louis Sang], a tribute album inspired by the duets between Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong. Sloane's tribute studio discs were praised for their musicianship and for the individuality brought to each song to make them sound different from the originals. Her final album of the decade was a second Ellington tribute disc released by DRG Records titled Romantic Ellington.
Sloane continued appearing at clubs and performing into the 2000s, including an engagement at New York's Algonquin Hotel where she previewed the High-Note album, I Never Went Away. She also performed at New York's Village Vanguard and Frederick P. Rose Hall during the decade. The HighNote label released Sloane's next album in 2003 titled Whisper Sweet, an 11-track selection of ballads.
She then collaborated with instrumentalists Ken Peplowski and Brad Hatfield on a third Ellington album titled Dearest Duke. The same label issued her next album in 2010 titled We'll Meet Again, a 13-track studio album of lesser-remembered American standards. After the death of her husband in 2014, Sloane returned to performing occasionally. She also had a desire to make one final album in her career. In 2022, Sloane's final album titled Live at Birdland was released. The making of the album, along with Sloane's life and career, were filmed were the subject of her 2023 documentary Sloane: A Jazz Singer. The documentary was released following her death earlier the same year.

Legacy and death

In April 2016 Sloane was among the inductees into the Rhode Island Music Hall of Fame. She lived in Stoneham, Massachusetts. She died on January 23, 2023, due to complications from a stroke she had two years prior. Sloane: A Jazz Singer, a documentary feature film profiling her career, was released in 2023.

Discography

Studio albums