Ernestine Anderson

Ernestine Anderson (November 11, 1928 – March 10, 2016) was an American jazz and blues singer. In a career spanning more than six decades, she recorded over 30 albums. She was nominated four times for a Grammy Award. She sang at Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, the Monterey Jazz Festival (six times over a 33-year span), as well as at jazz festivals all over the world. In the early 1990s she joined Qwest Records, the label of fellow Garfield High School grad Quincy Jones.

Life and career

Ernestine Irene Anderson (and her twin sister Josephine) were born in Houston, Texas, on November 11, 1928. Her mother, Erma, was a housewife, and her father, Joseph, a construction worker who sang bass in a gospel quartet. By the age of three, Anderson showed a talent for singing along with her parents' old blues 78 rpm records by the likes of Bessie "The Empress of the Blues" Smith. Anderson started singing at a local church, singing solos in its gospel choir.

Anderson tells of her early life in the 1998 book The Jazz Scene):

"I don't think jazz ever died. It suffered a setback during the sixties. I had to move to London in order to work because a jazz person couldn't work in the United States when rock 'n' roll became the music. I didn't think it would last this long, and I don't think the rock 'n' roll people thought it would last this long, but Quincy it had."

Her re-emergence in the mid-1970s (at which time Ray Brown was her manager) came as a result of a sensational appearance at the 1976 Concord Jazz Festival, a string of albums for Concord Records followed. The next 17 years sealed Anderson’s reputation as a top-tier jazz and blues singer. She performed headlining shows far and wide and recorded almost 20 albums for Concord, two of which—1981’s Never Make Your Move Too Soon and 1983’s Big City—earned GRAMMY Best Jazz Vocal Performance nominations. In the years that followed Anderson toured widely—a triumphant series of dates in Japan led to the release of a four-disc live set in 1988—and that same year she made her debut at the prestigious Carnegie Hall. In addition, Anderson has performed at the Hollywood Bowl, at the Women In Jazz event at the Kennedy Center in 1999, at Monterey (1959, 1982, 1984, 1987, 1990, 2007), and at numerous other jazz festivals from New Orleans to Brazil, Berlin, Austria, and all around the globe.

After leaving Concord Records in 1993, Anderson signed on with her old Seattle jazz scene pal, Quincy Jones, and his happening new label, Qwest, which issued two albums—1993’s Now and Then, and 1996’s Blues, Dues & Love News—that also both received GRAMMY nominations. By the late 1990s she was signed to the Koch International label which issued her Isn’t It Romantic album, in 2003 her High Note label CD, Love Makes the Changes was a breakout hit, and her 2004 JVC CD, Hello Like Before, brought further accolades.

Anderson was represented by Addeo Music International (AMI).

She died peacefully, surrounded by her family in Shoreline, Washington, on March 10, 2016, at the age of 87.

Honors and awards

Ernestine Anderson was featured in an article in Time magazine, August 4, 1958: "the voice belongs to Negro Singer Ernestine Anderson, at 29 perhaps the best-kept jazz secret in the land" after her first album release. She is inevitably compared to Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Billie Holiday. Ernestine invariably rejects the comparisons. "I wish," she says, "they would let me be just me."

Anderson was one of 75 women chosen for the book, I Dream a World: Portraits of Black Women Who Changed America (1999), by Pulitzer Prize winning photographer Brian Lanker. Within this book Ernestine Anderson joins such company as Rosa Parks, Coretta Scott King, Oprah Winfrey, Lena Horne, and Sarah Vaughan.

She won the Golden Umbrella award at the Bumbershoot Seattle arts festival in 2002. The award honors artists from the Northwestern United States "who have significantly contributed to the cultural landscape of our region."

Anderson was chosen by the Pacific Northwest Chapter of the Recording Academy (an organization best known for the Grammy Awards) to receive its 2004 IMPACT Award. The IMPACT Award honors Northwest music professionals whose creative talents and accomplishments have crossed all musical boundaries and who have been recognized as an asset to the music community.

In 2012, the Low Income Housing Institute named a housing project the "Ernestine Anderson Place" in her honor, noting Anderson's long residence in Seattle's Central District where the units are located.

Discography

As leader

• 1956 Ernestine Anderson (w/the Duke Jordan Trio; recorded June 1956 in Sweden) – (Metronome #MEP–190 [7" EP])
• 1958 Hot Cargo [AKA It's Time for Ernestine] – (Mercury #MG–20354)
• 1959 Ernestine Anderson (The Toast of the Nation's Critics) – (Mercury #MG–20400/SR–60074)
• 1960 The Fascinating Ernestine – (Mercury #MG–20492/SR–60171)
• 1960 My Kinda Swing – (Mercury #MG–20496/SR–60175)
• 1960 Moanin' Moanin' Moanin' – (Mercury #MG–20582/SR–60242)
• 1963 The New Sound of Ernestine Anderson – (Sue #LP–1015)
• 1967 Miss Ernestine Anderson – (Columbia [UK] Records #SX–6145)
• 1977 Hello Like Before – (Concord #4031)
• 1978 Live From Concord to London – (Concord #4054)
• 1979 Live at the Concord Jazz Festival 1979 (w/the Ray Brown Trio) – (Concord #4102)
• 1980 Sunshine – (Concord #4109)
• 1981 Never Make Your Move Too Soon – (Concord #4147)
• 1983 Big City – (Concord #4214)
• 1984 When the Sun Goes Down – (Concord #4263)
• 1986 Be Mine Tonight – (Concord #4319)
• 1987 Live at The Alley Cat (w/the Capp/Pierce Juggernaut Band) – (Concord #4336)
• 1988 Dexterity (Fujitsu-Concord Jazz Festival In Japan '87, Volume II) (w/George Shearing) – (Concord #4346)
• 1988 Ow! (Fujitsu-Concord Jazz Festival In Japan '87, Volume IV) (w/the Concord All Stars) – (Concord #4348)
• 1988 A Perfect Match (w/George Shearing) – (Concord #4357)
• 1989 Boogie Down (w/the Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra) – (Concord #4407)
• 1991 Live at the 1990 Concord Jazz Festival: Third Set – (Concord #4454)
• 1993 Great Moments with Ernestine Anderson (compilation) – (Concord #4582)
• 1993 Now and Then – (Qwest/WB #45249)
• 1996 Blues, Dues & Love News – (Qwest/WB #45900)
• 1998 Isn't It Romantic (w/Metropole Orchestra) – (Koch Jazz #6906)
• 1998 Ernestine Anderson: The Concord Jazz Heritage Series (compilation) – (Concord #4840)
• 2000 Ballad Essentials (compilation) – (Concord #4886)
• 2002 I Love Being Here with You (compilation) 2CD – (Concord #2126)
• 2002 Free Soul: The Classic of Ernestine Anderson (compilation) – (JVC Victor [Japan] Records)
• 2003 Love Makes the Changes – (HighNote #7118)
• 2009 A Song for You – (HighNote #7187)
• 2011 Nightlife: Live at Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola – (HighNote #7213)
• 2015 Ernestine Anderson Swings the Penthouse (recorded live February and October 1962 in Seattle, WA) – (HighNote #7273)

Grammy history

• Career Nominations: 4