Anita Gravine (born April 11, 1946) is an American jazz singer and music teacher An elegant interpreter of ballads anda voice with an elegant and professional cut, who too likes to discover songs not too popular from the vast American repertoire.
The world's greatest unheralded jazz singer? A merely great jazz vocalist? Few American singers are as lavishly gifted or as unfairly neglected as Anita Gravine. One hardly knows where to begin when writing about her. Part of the problem might arise from the fact she has recorded only four albums and also there is very scant information about her on the web. She did have her own web site but unfortunately that has now gone. And while she still continued to perform and teach regularly in such foreign locales such as Italy and Germany, her quartet of releases was accomplished between 1983 and 1999.
Anita Gravine grew up Carbondale, Pennsylvania and moved to New York City in the mid-1960s where she studied singing. Both Gravine’s parents played musical instruments, while her brother Mickey became a studio trombonist.. She also took piano and composition lessons from Tony Aless. She began her professional career in Larry Elgart's orchestra and has also worked with Warren Covington , Buddy Morrow and Urbie Green. As a freelance artist, she performed with Vinnie Burke, Roy Eldridge, Milt Hinton, Hank Jones, Chick Corea and Eddie Gomez in the years that followed.
Here’s “The Magic Window” from above L.P.
Around 1980 she lived in Germany for a while, teaching e.g. at the Jazz & Rock schools in Freiburg and only performed occasionally. Her debut album Dream Dancing (Progressive) was released in the early 1980s. After returning to the United States, she worked with Michael Abene and taught at Mannes College of Music. In 1985 she presented her album I Always Knew. A year later she recorded Welcome to My Dream, which was released by Jazz Alliance in 1993. In the early 1990s she founded the film and video production company Sargasso.
Her last release was in 1999 titles “Lights, Camera, Passion: Jazz & Italian Cinema” in which she sings English translations to 13 songs from filmmakers De Sica, Fellini, ect. Backed by just about the finest players around, led by Mike Abene it is introspective, thoughtful and, imaginative. Painstakingly researched and assembled, Gravine’s project is a labour of love and makes a valuable contribution to the stagnant jazz-vocal repertoire.
(Edited from Wikipedia, AllMusic & Dr.Chilledair)