Janet Thurlow

American jazz singer (1926–2022)

voice
violin
piano

Years active1949–1967, 1983–2008Formerly of

Robert Blackwell's band
Lionel Hampton Orchestra
Charles Mingus Octet
Jimmy Cleveland's septet and octet

Musical artist

Janet Lorraine Thurlow (May 21, 1926 – October 4, 2022) was an American jazz singer.

Biography

Early life

Thurlow was born on May 21, 1926, in Seattle – the first of five children. She took violin, piano, and singing lessons as a teenager.^[1] As a child, she sang on the Major Bowes Amateur Hour hosted by Major Edward Bowes.^[2] She attended Broadway High School in Seattle, but had to drop out after ninth grade to care for her siblings after her parents' divorce. A few years later, Thurlow moved into her own apartment after her mother's death, befriended a young Ray Charles, and began cultivating an appreciation of jazz as well as jazz singing.^[2]

In 1949, she began as a "song stylist" with Robert "Bumps" Blackwell's Seattle-based band,^[3] which at that time had a 16-year old Quincy Jones as arranger and trumpet player and Ray Charles, then known as "R.C.", playing piano and alto sax.^[4]

Lionel Hampton Orchestra

In 1950, Lionel Hampton hired her to play with his band.^[1] Thurlow convinced Hampton to hire her friend Quincy Jones as a trumpeter.^[5] In the April 1951, Thurlow recorded the song "I Can't Believe You're in Love with Me" with Hampton's orchestra for Decca Records.^[6] Mike Barnes wrote that this recording made "her perhaps the first white singer to front an all-Black big band."^[1] In August 1951, Thurlow performed with Hampton's orchestra at the Paramount Theater in Hollywood.^[7] At the end of that month, they performed at the Trianon Ballroom in Seattle that featured Jones and Thurlow as "Two Seattleites".^[1]^[3]

That same year, Thurlow met trombonist Jimmy Cleveland, a fellow band member with Hampton's orchestra.^[8] They married on April 2, 1953 in Chicago.^[9]

After Hampton

In November 1952, Thurlow converted to the Jehovah's Witnesses.^[10]

By April 1953, Thurlow had left Hampton's orchestra and was performing solo in Chicago.^[11]

On October 28, 1953, she was the vocalist on "Eclipse," a song about interracial romance written by Charles Mingus, and recorded with his octet.^[12]

Thurlow during this time began to volunteer as a violinist at Jehovah's Witnesses' regional conventions at New York's Yankee Stadium, Philadelphia's Connie Mack Stadium, and Los Angeles' Dodger Stadium.^[10]

Later life

Thurlow and her husband moved in 1967 from New York to Lynwood, California.^[1] Thurlow began teaching vocal music^[2] but did not begin to perform jazz again until 1983,^[2] when she began occasional performing and recording with Cleveland^[8] until her husband's death in 2008.^[1]^[2]

Thurlow died of heart failure, aged 96, at St. Francis Medical Center in Lynwood in 2022.^[1] She was buried beside her husband at Riverside National Cemetery.^[13]

References

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g Barnes, Mike (October 24, 2022). "Janet Thurlow, Jazz Singer and Widow of Trombonist Jimmy Cleveland, Dies at 96". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved November 16, 2022.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e de Barros, Paul (November 8, 2022). "Janet Thurlow, who sang during Seattle's Jackson Street jazz heyday, dies at 96". The Seattle Times. Retrieved November 16, 2022.
^ ^a ^b Blecha, Peter (March 16, 1916). "Lionel Hampton Orchestra (with Quincy Jones) plays Seattle". HistoryLink.org. Retrieved November 16, 2022.
^ Crow, Bill (1992). "Coast to Coast". From Birdland to Broadway : scenes from a jazz life. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 20–21. ISBN 978-1-4294-0781-6. OCLC 252592422 – via Internet Archive.
^ "Quincy Jones: The Fresh Air Interview". NPR.org. May 27, 2013. Retrieved November 16, 2022.
^ Hampton, Lionel; Thurlow, Janet (1951), Lionel Hampton and his orchestra play, I can't believe that you're in love with me, New York, NY: M-G-M, OCLC 28842003
^ "Hampton Crew 31G in Week At H'w'd Para". Billboard. August 4, 1951. p. 14. OCLC 71364853. ISSN 0006-2510, 0006-2510.
^ ^a ^b "Jimmy Cleveland, with a scant fringe of goatee nesting..." UPI. March 2, 1991. Retrieved November 16, 2022.
^ "Janet Thurlow in the Cook County, Illinois Marriage Index, 1930-1960". Ancestry.com. Retrieved November 16, 2022.
^ ^a ^b Hill, Vada (2022). "Obituary Janet (Thurlow) Cleveland". canva.com. p. 4.
^ "Singer Leaves Hamp" (PDF). Down Beat. Vol. 19, no. 7. Chicago: Down Beat, Inc. April 4, 1952. p. 1. ISSN 0012-5768. OCLC 50240528.
^ Gabbard, Krin (2016). Better git it in your soul: an interpretive biography of Charles Mingus. Oakland, California. pp. 34, 268. ISBN 978-0-520-96374-0. OCLC 932064167 – via Internet Archive.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
^ "Janet L. Cleveland". Nationwide Grave Locator. National Cemetery Administration. Retrieved November 21, 2022.