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Mary Stallings

"I had a huge voice when I was just eight years old," says Mary Stallings about her beginnings as a singer. It was a voice too big to ignore - spanning almost four octaves. Few could. By the time she was 11, she had made her first solo recording and while still in high school she joined Louis Jordan's Tympani Five. She came of age in the big band era, and was invited to tour as vocalist with most of the major names of the time. "It was the best musical education I could have had," explains Mary, "I was fired from lessons for playing everything from memory." Instead, her education came a bit more unconventionally, including stints with the Grover Mitchell - Earl "Father" Hines band, three years touring the U.S. and Europe with Count Basie, and sharing the bill with Joe Williams, Tony Bennett and Ella Fitzgerald. "I met all the heroes of the music and then got a chance to work with them," she says.

Although Mary took time off from touring and recording during the '70's, she never stopped singing. So when she re-emerged back onto the jazz scene reinvigorated, with a sound that gave homage to her past but held a freshness and vigor, she immediately caught the attention of the music press, who called her "stunning" and a "jazz vocal sensation." During this period, she released several critically acclaimed CDs, one which made many of the year-end "best-of" lists, another that went to the top 10 on the Gavin Jazz Chart. Today, Mary Stallings combines the grace and grandeur of experience with an undiluted passion for performing in her Live At The Village Vanguard release. With its blend of old and new, smoky standards and take-your-breath-away ballads, the CD, in many ways, reflects this current milestone in Mary's career. "This is the right time for me to be singing these songs," she says. "I pick songs that feel delicious to me, songs that I relate to at the time, songs that I love. That's what you'll find here."

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7
Album Review

Mary Stallings: Songs Were Made to Sing

Read "Songs Were Made to Sing" reviewed by Dave Linn


One of eleven children, Mary Stallings was born in San Francisco in 1939. In her teens, she began singing in San Francisco night clubs and performed with Ben Webster, Earl Hines, Red Mitchell, Teddy Edwards, and Wes Montgomery. Before graduating from high school, she joined R&B singer Louis Jordan's Tympani Five. In the early '60s, she performed with Dizzy Gillespie at both the Black Hawk nightclub and the 1965 Monterey Jazz Festival. Her debut album was Cal Tjader ...

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Radio & Podcasts

New Releases from Geoffrey Keezer, Billy Drummond, Sonica, Plus Birthday Celebrations For Carolyn Leigh, Iola Brubeck, Trudy Pitts, Mary Stallings & More

Read "New Releases from Geoffrey Keezer, Billy Drummond, Sonica, Plus Birthday Celebrations For Carolyn Leigh, Iola Brubeck, Trudy Pitts,  Mary Stallings & More" reviewed by Mary Foster Conklin


This broadcast presents new releases from Geoffrey Keezer, Billy Drummond & Freedom of Ideas, plus singles from Carol Albert and new group Sonica (Thana Alexa, Nicole Zuraitis & Julia Adamy), with birthday shoutouts to lyricists Carolyn Leigh, Iola Brubeck, organist Trudy Pitts, vocalist Mary Stallings and trombonist Naomi Moon Siegel among others. Thanks for listening and please support the artists you hear by purchasing their music during this time of pandemic so they can continue to distract, comfort, provoke and ...

207
Album Review

Mary Stallings: Remember Love

Read "Remember Love" reviewed by Andrew Rowan


Starting with Concord Jazz in the '90s and continuing with MaxJazz and now Half Note Records, Mary Stallings's talents have finally been revealed. On Remember Love, she is abetted by a stellar band, including pianist Geri Allen (who also provides arrangements and serves as producer), drummer Billy Hart, Frank Wess on tenor and flute, trumpeter Wallace Roney, and alto saxophonist Vincent Herring. Stallings sings well and stays focused, avoiding a distracting habit of singing the wrong words. ...

278
Album Review

Mary Stallings: Live at the Village Vanguard

Read "Live at the Village Vanguard" reviewed by Mathew Bahl


Mary Stallings belongs to that lost generation of jazz singers whose careers imploded when the rock/folk/pop explosion of the mid-1960s sucked all of the oxygen out of jazz. From the early 1970s onward, Ms. Stallings generally confined her activities to the San Francisco Bay area so that she could raise her daughter. She returned to full-time singing at the end of the 1980s and finally came to the attention of the national jazz audience with the 1994 release of the ...

163
Album Review

Mary Stallings: Live At the Village Vanguard

Read "Live At the Village Vanguard" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey


Veteran vocalist with Dizzy Gillespie, Billy Eckstine, and The Count Basie Band steps out on her own into the spotlight of Jazz's most sacred club with an interesting set of Standards.

In New York's most venerated jazz club, San Francisco native Mary Stallings fires her ten-gauge contralto at a dizzying array of the American Songbook, hitting those pages not previously dog-eared by other artists. Fronting Eric Reed's fine tenor-lead quartet, Ms. Stallings steps up and just opens her mouth, expelling ...

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5

Performance / Tour

World-Renowned Smoke Jazz Club Announces March Concert Line-Up From One For All’s Album Release Celebration To Leading Female Artists Allison Miller And Mary Stallings

World-Renowned Smoke  Jazz Club Announces March Concert Line-Up From One For All’s Album Release Celebration To Leading Female Artists Allison Miller And Mary Stallings

Source: AMT Public Relations

Rated the #1 jazz club in New York City (Secret NYC), SMOKE Jazz Club welcomes both legendary and emerging jazz artists in March. The month begins with two of the great jazz artists of the past 50 years: pianist George Cables leads his Quartet (March 6-10) followed by tenor saxophonist George Coleman performing as special guest and influence of One of All’s new album Big George (March 14-17) on the club’s eponymous label SMOKE Sessions Records. Women’s History Month culminates ...

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Performance / Tour

Smoke Jazz Club Announces June Line-Up With NEA Jazz Master George Coleman, Vocal Great Mary Stallings, A New Project From Vincent Herring, An Album Release By Orrin Evans All-Star Quintet, And More

Smoke Jazz Club Announces June Line-Up With NEA Jazz Master George Coleman, Vocal Great Mary Stallings, A New Project From Vincent Herring, An Album Release By Orrin Evans All-Star Quintet, And More

Source: AMT Public Relations

George Coleman Quintet (Jun 1-4); Orrin Evans All-Star Quintet record release (Jun 8-11); Vincent Herring and Something Else! (Jun 15-18); Mary Stallings (Jun 22-25); and more… Rated the #1 Jazz Club in New York City (Secret NYC), Smoke Jazz Club kicks off the start of summer with some of today’s living legends. NEA Jazz Master George Coleman returns with his special quintet (Jun 1-4), soulful saxophonist Vincent Herring gets inspired by the classic Blue Note album Something Else! (Jun 15-18), ...

1

Recording

Mary Stallings: Songs Were Made to Sing

Mary Stallings: Songs Were Made to Sing

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers

Mary Stallings is one of the finest living jazz singers. Her voice is deep, hip and swinging. Most of all, she has soul—lots of knowledge and experience built into her phrasing. Born in San Francisco in 1939, Stallings developed her singing chops in church before branching out to the citys' many clubs as a teen. These included the Purple Onion, the Hungry i and El Matador. Along the way, she preformed with many jazz legends, including Cal Tjader, Red Mitchell, ...

1

Performance / Tour

Jazz this week: Mary Stallings, Erin Bode, Dalton Ridenhour, and more

Jazz this week: Mary Stallings, Erin Bode, Dalton Ridenhour, and more

Source: St. Louis Jazz Notes by Dean Minderman

With Valentine's Day and the annual Mardi Gras parade falling on the same Saturday this year, there's a bountiful selection of jazz and creative music performances on tap this weekend in St. Louis. Let's go to the highlights... Thursday, February 12 Guitarist Tim Fischer will lead a quartet in a free concert for the Jazz at Holmes series at Washington University; and bassist Willem von Hombracht and saxophonist Eric Schugren will duet at Thurman Grill. Friday, February 13 Singer Erin ...

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Recording

Dave Bass Quartet Featuring Ernie Watts, Babatunde Lea, Mary Stallings, and Gary Brown Release "Gone"

Dave Bass Quartet Featuring Ernie Watts, Babatunde Lea, Mary Stallings, and Gary Brown Release "Gone"

Source: All About Jazz

David Bass on Gone

The word Gone has several meanings for me...

There's the 20-plus years I was away from the music scene, then there's the feeling when your lover leaves and your heart breaks... alone and empty, and finally, the beatnik/hipster notion of an irrevocably cool person.

I have returned to music and am proud to present these original compositions brought wonderfully alive by the musicianship of Ernie Watts, Babatunde Lea, Gary Brown, Harold Muniz, and especially Mary Stallings ...

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Music Industry

Mary Stallings Felt "Predestined" to Sing Jazz

Mary Stallings Felt "Predestined" to Sing Jazz

Source: All About Jazz

The sound started even before Ma Rainey and Ethel Waters and Bessie Smith came along. It grew and set new artistic standards in the work of Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan and Dinah Washington. And it's still going strong. The sound of women's voices has always been close to the heart of jazz. So it's fitting that the American Jazz Museum celebrates women in jazz by inviting two first-class singers, Mary Stallings and Karrin Allyson, to perform Saturday at the Gem ...

“Perhaps the best jazz singer alive today is a woman almost everybody seems to have missed. Her name is Mary Stallings." —New York Times

“Stallings’ voice is supple and timeless... encompassing the whole history of music." —San Francisco Chronicle

“Stallings sounds like Carmen McRae with some Dinah Washington sass thrown in. Stallings doesn't flit around or complicate her singing with oblique swirls and curlicues like many younger jazz singers. She stays closer to the blues, laying down the ballad ‘Sunday Kind of Love’ with fine, feminine ardor.” —Philadelphia Inquirer

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Photos

Concerts

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Songs Were Made to...

Smoke Sessions Records
2019

buy

Remember Love

Half Note Records
2005

buy

Live At The Village...

Sony Urban Music
2001

buy

Manhattan Moods

Sony Urban Music
1997

buy

Fine And Mellow

Sony Urban Music
1990

buy

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