Sheila Jordan (born Sheila Jeanette Dawson; November 18, 1928) is an American jazz singer and songwriter. She has recorded as a session musician with an array of critically acclaimed artists in addition to recording her own albums. Jordan pioneered a bebop and scat jazz singing style with an upright bass as the only accompaniment. Jordan's music has earned praise from many critics, particularly for her ability to improvise lyrics; Scott Yanow describes her as "one of the most consistently creative of all jazz singers.” Charlie Parker often introduced Jordan as "the singer with the million dollar ears."
From humble beginnings to painstaking struggles and ultimately heroic triumphs, the jazz life of Sheila Jordan could inspire an epic play with a challenging lead to cast. Blessed with a haunting voice that is at once innocent and worldly, the animated jazz legend nicknamed Lady Bird was born in Detroit to unwed teenagers. As a toddler she was sent to live with her grandparents in Summerhill, a poverty-stricken coalmining town in rural Pennsylvania.
It was in Summerhill that she began singing regularly in the beer gardens for an inebriated crowd of coal miners. She returned to Detroit at fourteen where she sang and played piano in jazz clubs. Working chiefly with black musicians, she met with disapproval from the white community but persisted with her career. She later became a member of the trio Skeeter, Mitch, and Jean (Skeeter Spight, Leroi Mitchell, and Jordan was "Jean"), which wrote lyrics to music by Charlie Parker. They went to Parker's performances in Detroit, met him, and he would ask them to sing.
In 1951, Jordan moved to New York City and studied harmony and music theory with Lennie Tristano and Charles Mingus, but she concentrated on the music of Charlie Parker. Jordan and Parker became friends before his death in 1955. She refers to him as one of her teachers. From 1952–1962, she was married to Duke Jordan, who played piano in Parker's band. During that period, Jordan became pregnant with her daughter, Tracey. Duke left for good, and Jordan found emotional support from her mixed bag of friends—mostly artists and musicians—including Charlie Parker, who tragically passed away just a few months before Tracey’s birth.
Here's "Comes Love" from the recently found Olmsted test pressing.
In 1962, she worked with George Russell, with whom she recorded the song, "You Are My Sunshine" on his album The Outer View (Riverside). Later that year she recorded the album Portrait of Sheila which was released by Blue Note. Her long working relationship with Steve Kuhn began in the early 1960s. Following the release of that album, however, she retreated from the scene to concentrate on raising her daughter, working as a typist for the next two decades and not recording as a leader again for more than a dozen years.
However, she appeared on records, working with Don Heckman (1967–68), Lee Konitz (1972), and Roswell Rudd (1972–75), also with Carla Bley, and co-leading a group with Steve Kuhn in the late '70s. Jordan recorded a memorable duet album with bassist Arild Andersen for SteepleChase in 1977, and has since teamed up with bassist Harvie Swartz on many occasions. By the late 70s jazz audiences had begun to understand her uncompromising style a little more and her popularity increased.
By the 1980s, Sheila Jordan was finally performing jazz on a full-time basis and gaining the recognition she deserved 20 years earlier. She recorded as a leader (in addition to the Blue Note session) for East Wind, Grapevine, SteepleChase, Palo Alto, Blackhawk, and Muse, resurfacing in 1999 with Jazz Child.
In 2012, she received the NEA Jazz Masters Award. Her biography, Jazz Child: A Portrait of Sheila Jordan, written by vocalist and educator Ellen Johnson, was published in 2014. Now at ninety-three, she continues to perform regularly, if not frequently, most recently on 12th November 2021 at the Flushing Town Hall Theatre, New York.
(Edited mainly from Wikipedia & AllMusic)