Ivie Anderson (sometimes Ivy) (January 16, 1904 – December 28, 1949) was an American jazz singer. Anderson was a member of the Duke Ellington Orchestra for more than a decade.
Anderson was born on January 16th, 1904 in Gilroy, California. Although her mother's name is unknown, her father was Jobe Smith. From 1914 to 1918 (age 9 to 13), Anderson attended St. Mary's Convent and studied voice. At Gilroy grammar school and Gilroy High School, she joined glee club and choral society. She also studied voice under Sara Ritt while in Nannie H. Burroughs Institution in Washington, D.C. From 1930 to 1945, Anderson lived at 724 East 52nd Place in Los Angeles, part of the 52nd Place Historic District.
Anderson's singing career began around 1921 with performances in Los Angeles. In 1924 she toured with the musical Shuffle Along. By 1925, she had performed in Cuba, the Cotton Club in New York City, and Los Angeles with the bands of Paul Howard, Curtis Mosby, and Sonny Clay. In 1928, she sang in Australia with Clay's band and starred in Frank Sebastian's Cotton Club in Los Angeles in April. Soon after, she began touring in the United States as a solo singer.
From 1930 to early 1931, with pianist Earl Hines's band, Anderson performed in a 20-week residency at the Grand Terrace in Chicago, Illinois. In 1931, she became the first full-time vocalist in the Duke Ellington orchestra. Her career for over a decade consisted of touring with Ellington. Her first appearance on record, "It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)", recorded in 1932, was a hit.
Anderson's second big hit for Ellington was the dark ballad “Stormy Weather.” Her performance of the song at the London Palladium in June of 1933, during a two-month tour of England, the Netherlands, and France, was especially memorable. She sang the song without a microphone while dressed in a white gown and leaning against a marble pillar. “She stopped the show cold,” Ellington recalled in his autobiography, Music Is My Mistress. “While she was singing ‘Stormy Weather’ the audience and all the management brass broke down crying and applauding.”
Anderson also sang the song in the film short Bundle of Blues, shot that year. Other early hits of hers included “Raisin' the Rent” and “I'm Satisfied,” also released in 1933. One of the rare occasions Anderson sang independently of Ellington in this period was her performance of "All God's Children Got Rhythm" in the Marx Brothers film A Day at the Races (1937) for MGM.
“Our Ivie wasn't a classic beauty, but how lovely she was as she sparkled through every scene, her small, shy smile unexpectedly quickening into an impish bump or dance step,” trumpeter Rex Stewart later wrote, quoted by Bradbury. “When she sang a melancholy refrain such as ‘Solitude’ or ‘Mood Indigo,’ oft times the fellows in the band would get caught up in the tide of her emotional portrayal and look sheepishly at each other in wonder at her artistry.”
Anderson's winning onstage persona contrasted with her still charming but rougher personality out of the spotlight. On the band's train rides, Anderson proved herself a talented poker player, often winning a lot of money from the musicians in no-betting-limit games. “Off stage our Miss Anderson was another person entirely, bossing the poker game, cussing out Ellington, playing practical jokes or giving some girl-advice about love and life,” Stewart recalled.
Anderson often received prominent billing on advertisements for Ellington's appearances in theatres, auditoriums, arenas, and ballrooms, wherever the Ellington band toured in the 1930s. She became the band's scat singer, imitating instrumental sounds and vocalizations. She sang pop tunes and ballads. She was said to be one of Ellington's finest and most versatile singers before Swedish vocalist Alice Babs performed with the band. Ellington wrote Music Is My Mistress (1973) with Anderson in mind.
Owing to her chronic asthma, Anderson left Ellington's band in 1942. She started the Chicken Shack restaurant in Los Angeles with Marque Neal after they married but sold the business when they divorced. She had a second marriage with Walter Collins who worked in real estate. Anderson performed in nightclubs in California and recorded eight solo songs in 1946 with top jazz musicians, including Charles Mingus, Willie Smith, and Lucky Thompson. But her poor health kept her from recording or touring regularly.
Before her untimely death she had been ill for almost three weeks and had spent six days in a hospital suffering from an asthmatic condition. She was sent home when her condition seemed to improve, but suffered a relapse and died at her apartment. Her doctor said her asthma was aggravated by the Los Angeles smog. Although her earliest obituary was dated December 27, 1949, later sources state her date of death as December 28, 1949.
(Edited from Wikipedia, ellingtonweb.ca & encyclopedia.com)