Jewel Brown (August 30, 1937 – June 25, 2024) was an
American jazz and blues singer. She performed alongside artists such as Dizzy
Gillespie and Louis Armstrong.
Jewel Brown was born in Houston’s Third and attended
Blackshear Elementary School and then Jack Yates High School. At an early age
she began singing in the choir at Rosehill Baptist Church and first perfomed at
the age of nine at the Masonic Temple in the Fourth Ward. Her first professional
singing job was at the age of 12 at the Manhattan Club in Galveston.
She continued singing professionally while in school,
however her singing was secondary in importance to her studies. Even before she
graduated, her vocals were in demand and she was cutting records by the time
she was a teenager. Brown recorded a handful of hit songs with Clyde Otis in
the mid-’50s for Liberty Records. During her senior year she turned down an
invitation to accompany Lionel Hampton’s group to tour Europe. Upon graduation
it was understood in Ms. Brown’s immediate family that she would pursue a
singing career full time, she had decided against college because she felt it
would be a burden on her parents. ![]()
Until that time she sang locally with her brother’s group,
performing at clubs with her mother accompanying. When she did begin singing
with (all male) groups on tour however, her career was almost stifled by the
concerns of an extended family member that the entertainment business was
unsavory. Ms. Brown’s mother relented against the cynicism and encouraged her
daughter toward her chosen goals. On a Los Angeles vacation in 1957 she sat in
with organist Earl Grant at the Club Pigalle. She was hired on the spot that
night for an engagement that lasted a whole year. From there Ms. Brown went on
to Dallas, Texas to work for Jack Ruby. (Yes, that Jack Ruby!) That too lasted
for more than a year.
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In 2022, with more than eighty years behind her, Brown
returned to the forefront of show business releasing an album that contained seven
of her own songs and three covers, Health issues, including scoliosis,
osteoporosis, and partial sight loss in one eye, limited her later career, but
she remained active in the Houston music scene. She had recently been treated
for colon cancer before her death on June 26, 2024, at the age of 86.
(Edted from Texas Archival Resources Online, Houston History
Magazine & AllAbout Jazz)
