Adelaide Louise Hall (20 October 1901 – 7 November 1993) was an American - born U.K. - based jazz singer and entertainer.^{[1][2][3][4][5][6]}

Adelaide was born in Brooklyn, New York to Elizabeth and Arthur William Hall and was taught to sing by her father. She began her stage career on Broadway in 1921 in the chorus line of the Broadway musical "Shuffle Along" ^{[7][8][9][10][11][12]} and went on to appear in a number of similar black musical shows including "Runnin' Wild" ^[13] on Broadway in 1923, "Chocolate Kiddies" in 1925 (European tour) that included songs written by Duke Ellington,^[14][15] "My Magnolia" on Broadway in 1926,^[16] "Tan Town Topics" with songs written by Fats Waller ^[17] and in "Desires of 1927" American tour in 1927.^[18]

Marriage, 1924[link]

In 1924, Adelaide married a British sailor, Bertram Errol Hicks. Soon after their marriage he opened a short-lived club in Harlem, New York called 'The Big Apple' and became Adelaide's official business manager.^[19]

Adelaide Hall and Duke Ellington[link]

In October, 1927, Adelaide recorded her wordless vocals on "Creole Love Call", "The Blues I Love To Sing" and "Chicago Stomp Down" with Duke Ellington and his Orchestra.^[20] The recordings were worldwide hits and catapulted both Adelaide's and Ellington's careers into the mainstream.^[21][22] On January 7, 1933, Adelaide and Duke Ellington and his Famous Orchestra recorded "I Must Have That Man" and "Baby".^[23]

Blackbirds of 1928[link]

In 1928, Adelaide starred on Broadway with Bill "Bojangles" Robinson ^[24] in "Blackbirds of 1928".^[25][26] The show became the most successful all-black show ever staged on Broadway at that time and made Adelaide and Bojangles into household names.^[27] "Blackbirds of 1928" was the idea of impresario Lew Leslie, who planned to build the show around Florence Mills in New York after her success in the hit show "Blackbirds" in London in 1926, but she died of pneumonia in 1927 before rehearsals started. Adelaide was chosen to replace her. The revue originally opened at Les Ambassadeurs Club in New York in January, 1928, under the title "Blackbird Revue", but in May, 1928, it transferred to Broadway's Liberty Theatre and was re-titled "Blackbirds of 1928" where it ran for 518 performances. After a slow start, the show became the hit of the season. It was this revue that secured Adelaide's success, both in the U.S.A. and in Europe when the production was taken to Paris, France, in 1929, where it ran for three months at the Moulin Rouge.^[28][29] With music by Jimmy McHugh and lyrics by Dorothy Fields, Adelaide's performances in it included the hit songs "I Can't Give You Anything but Love, Baby", "Diga Diga Do", and "I Must Have That Man", which continued to be audience favourites throughout her career.

1931/32 World Concert Tour[link]

In 1931, Adelaide embarked on a World Concert Tour that visited two continents (America and Europe). The tour was estimated to have performed to over one million people. She was accompanied on stage by two pianists who played white grand pianos. It was during this tour that Adelaide discovered and employed the blind pianist Art Tatum, whom she brought back to New York with her at the end of the tour.^{[30][31][32][33]} In August, 1932, Adelaide recorded "Strange as it Seems", "I'll Never Be The Same", "This Time it's Love" and "You Gave Me Everything but Love" using Art Tatum as one of her pianists on the recordings.^[34][35][36]

The Cotton Club Parade, 1934[link]

In 1934 Adelaide starred for nine months in "The Cotton Club Parade" 24th Edition, at Harlem's Cotton Club (New York City)^[37] in the largest grossing show that was ever staged there.^[38][39][40] In the show she introduced the songs "Ill Wind" ^[41] and "As Long As I Live" which Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler wrote especially for her.^[42][43][44]

European career 1935/38[link]

Adelaide arrived in Paris, France, in the fall of 1935 and remained living there until 1938. Her husband Bert opened a nightclub for her in Paris called 'La Grosse Pomme' where she entertained.^[45][46]

British career 1938/93[link]

After many years performing in the U.S.A. and Europe, Hall went to the United Kingdom in 1938 in order to take a starring role in a musical version of Edgar Wallace's The Sun Never Sets at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane.^[47][48][49] She was so successful, and became so popular with British audiences, that she stayed, becoming one of the most popular singers and entertainers of the time. She lived in London from 1938 until her death.

Hall's career was an almost uninterrupted success. She made over seventy records for Decca,^[50] had her own radio series (the first black artist to have a long-term contract with the BBC), and appeared on the stage, in films, and in nightclubs (of which she owned her own, in New York, London and Paris).^[51] In the 1940s, and especially during World War II, she was hugely popular with both civilian and ENSA audiences ^[52] and became one of the highest paid entertainers in the country (despite the destruction in an air raid of the London nightclub owned by her and her husband, the Florida Club). Hall has a cameo appearance as a singer in the 1940 Oscar winning movie The Thief of Bagdad.^[53][54][55]

Adelaide Hall appears in the earliest post-war BBC telerecording; a record of her performance at RadiOlympia in October 1947.^[56]

During an extremely long career (Adelaide entered the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's most enduring recording artist), Hall has performed with major artists such as Art Tatum ^[57] Ethel Waters, Josephine Baker, Louis Armstrong, Lena Horne, Cab Calloway, Fela Sowande^[58] and Jools Holland, and has recorded as a jazz singer with Duke Ellington (with whom she made her most famous recording, "Creole Love Call" in 1927) ^[59] and with Fats Waller.^[60][61]

She appeared in the London run of Kiss Me, Kate, starred with Lena Horne in Jamaica on Broadway in 1957, and made two jazz recordings with Humphrey Lyttelton in 1969–1970. This was followed by theatre tours and concert appearances; she sang at Duke Ellington's memorial service at St Martin-in-the-Fields in 1974, and presented a one-woman show at Carnegie Hall in October, 1988.^[62] She is one of the very few performers to have made two guest appearances (2 December 1972^[63] & 13 January 1991 ^[64]) on the BBC's radio programme Desert Island Discs.^[65] Her final U.S. concert appearances took place in 1992 at Carnegie Hall, in the "Cabaret Comes to Carnegie" series. She died in 1993, aged 92, at London's Charing Cross Hospital.^[66]

Legacy[link]

Adelaide Hall was one of the major entertainers of the Harlem Renaissance. Along with Louis Armstrong, she pioneered scat singing and is widely acknowledged as one of the world’s first Jazz singers. Indeed, Ella Fitzgerald regarded her as such.^[67] Adelaide was the first female vocalist to sing and record with Duke Ellington. Adelaide holds the accolade of being the 20th centuries most enduring female recording artist, her recording career spanned eight decades. In 1941, Adelaide replaced Gracie Field's as Britain's highest paid female entertainer.^[68] Adelaide Hall was loosely portrayed as the nightclub chanteuse in the Francis Ford Coppola 1984 movie ‘The Cotton Club’.

Sources[link]

• Ian Carr, Digby Fairweather, & Brian Priestley. Jazz: The Rough Guide. ISBN 1-85828-528-3
• Iain Cameron Williams. 'Underneath a Harlem Moon ... the Harlem to Paris years of Adelaide Hall. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Underneath-Harlem-Moon-Paris-Adelaide/dp/0826458939 ISBN 0-8264-5893-9

External links[link]

• Adelaide Hall — 100 Great Black Britons
• Adelaide Hall marked at the Cuming Museum exhibition on black Londoners wartime contributions, April 2008
• IMDb entry
• Underneath A Harlem Moon ... the Harlem to Paris years of Adelaide Hall by Iain Cameron Williams - biography at Amazon.com

References[link]