Pierre Mignard, Clio, muse of heroic poetry and history, 17th century

Western art is the art of the North American, South American, Oceanian and European countries, and art created in the forms accepted by those countries.

Written histories of Western art often begin with the art of the Ancient Middle East, Ancient Egypt and the Ancient Aegean civilisations, dating from the 3rd millennium BC. Parallel with these significant cultures, art of one form or another existed all over Europe, wherever there were people, leaving signs such as carvings, decorated artifacts and huge standing stones. However a consistent pattern of artistic development within Europe becomes clear only with the art of Ancient Greece, adopted and transformed by Rome and carried; with the Empire, across much of Europe, North Africa and the Middle East.

The influence of the art of the Classical period waxed and waned throughout the next two thousand years, seeming to slip into a distant memory in parts of the Medieval period, to re-emerge in the Renaissance, suffer a period of what some early art historians viewed as "decay" during the Baroque period,^[1] to reappear in a refined form in Neo-Classicism and to be re-born in Post-Modernism.

The other major influence upon Western art has been Christianity, the commissions of the Church, architectural, painterly and sculptural, providing the major source of work for artists for about 1400 years, from 300 AD to about 1700 AD. The history of the Church was very much reflected in the history of art, during this period.

Secularism has influenced Western art since the Classical period, while most art of the last 200 years has been produced without reference to religion and often with no particular ideology at all. On the other hand, Western art has often been influenced by politics of one kind or another, of the state, of the patron and of the artist.

Western art is arranged into a number of stylistic periods, which, historically, overlap each other as different styles flourished in different areas. Broadly the periods are, Classical, Byzantine, Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, Modern and Postmodern. Each of these is further subdivided.

Art history series

Prehistoric art Ancient art history Western art history Eastern art history Islamic art history Western painting History of painting Art history (study) History of art

v t e

Ancient Classical art[link]

The western side of the Parthenon on the Acropolis of Athens.

Bust of "Mondragone" Antinous, c. 130 AD

Egypt, Greece, Rome, Early Christian

The art of Ancient Egypt represented the dominant high culture in the Mediterranean and exerted a strong influence on Minoan art. Egypt was a civilization with very strong traditions of architecture and sculpture (both originally painted in bright colours) also had many mural paintings in temples and buildings, and painted illustrations on papyrus manuscripts. Egyptian wall painting and decorative painting is often graphic, sometimes more symbolic than realistic. Artists as contemporary as Pablo Picasso have been directly inspired by Egyptian painting and sculpture. Egyptian painting depicts figures in bold outline and flat silhouette, in which symmetry is a constant characteristic. Egyptian painting has close connection with its written language - called Egyptian hieroglyphs. The Egyptians also painted on linen, remnants of which survive today. In fact painted symbols are found amongst the first forms of written language, and religion. However it is Ancient Egypt's mysterious and compelling architecture that has had the most impact on modern art historians. The Great Pyramids, the Great Sphinx of Giza, and the smaller pyramids and tombs of Ancient Egypt are among the Seven Wonders of the World.

To the north of Egypt was the Minoan civilization on the island of Crete. The wall paintings found in the palace of Knossos are similar to those of the Egyptians but much more free in style. Around 1100 BC, tribes from the north of Greece conquered Greece and the Greek art took a new direction.

Ancient Greece had great painters, great sculptors, and great architects. The Parthenon is an example of their architecture that has lasted to modern days. Greek marble sculpture is often described as the highest form of Classical art. Painting on the pottery of Ancient Greece and ceramics gives a particularly informative glimpse into the way society in Ancient Greece functioned. Black-figure vase painting and Red-figure vase painting gives many surviving examples of what Greek painting was. Some famous Greek painters on wooden panels who are mentioned in texts are Apelles, Zeuxis and Parrhasius, however no examples of Ancient Greek panel painting survive, only written descriptions by their contemporaries or by later Romans. Zeuxis lived in 5-6 BC and was said to be the first to use sfumato. According to Pliny the Elder, the realism of his paintings was such that birds tried to eat the painted grapes. Apelles is described as the greatest painter of Antiquity for perfect technique in drawing, brilliant color and modeling.

Roman art was influenced by Greece and can in part be taken as a descendant of ancient Greek painting and sculpture, but was also strongly influenced by the more local Etruscan art of Italy. Roman sculpture, is primarily portraiture derived from the upper classes of society as well as depictions of the gods. However, Roman painting does have important unique characteristics. Among surviving Roman paintings are wall paintings, many from villas in Campania, in Southern Italy, especially at Pompeii and Herculaneum. Such painting can be grouped into 4 main "styles" or periods^[2] and may contain the first examples of trompe-l'oeil, pseudo-perspective, and pure landscape.^[3]

Mummy portrait of a young girl, 2nd century AD, Louvre.

Almost the only painted portraits surviving from the Ancient world are a large number of coffin-portraits of bust form found in the Late Antique cemetery of Al-Fayum. They give an idea of the quality that the finest ancient work must have had. A very small number of miniatures from Late Antique illustrated books also survive, and a rather larger number of copies of them from the Early Medieval period. Early Christian art grew out of Roman popular, and later Imperial, art and adapted its iconography from these sources.

Medieval[link]

Saint Matthew from the Lindisfarne Gospels.

Most surviving art from the Medieval period was religious in focus, often funded by the Church, powerful ecclesiastical individuals such as bishops, communal groups such as abbeys, or wealthy secular patrons. Many had specific liturgical functions — processional crosses and altarpieces, for example.

One of the central questions about Medieval art concerns its lack of realism. A great deal of knowledge of perspective in art and understanding of the human figure was lost with the fall of Rome. But realism was not the primary concern of Medieval artists. They were simply trying to send a religious message, a task which demands clear iconic images instead of precisely rendered ones.

Time Period: 6th century to 15th century

Byzantine[link]

Byzantine art overlaps with or merges with what we call Early Christian art until the iconoclasm period of 730-843 when the vast majority of artwork with figures was destroyed; so little remains that today any discovery sheds new understanding. After 843 until 1453 there is a clear Byzantine art tradition. It is often the finest art of the Middle Ages in terms of quality of material and workmanship, with production centered on Constantinople. Byzantine art's crowning achievement were the monumental frescos and mosaics inside domed churches, most of which have not survived due to natural disasters and the appropriation of churches to mosques.

Early Medieval Art[link]

Migration period art is a general term for the art of the "barbarian" peoples who moved in to formerly Roman territories. Celtic art in the 7th and 8th centuries saw a fusion with Germanic traditions through contact with the Anglo-Saxons creating what is called the Hiberno-Saxon style or Insular art, which was to be highly influential on the rest of the Middle Ages. Merovingian art describes the art of the Franks before about 800, when Carolingian art combined insular influences with a self-conscious classical revival, developing into Ottonian art. Anglo-Saxon art is the art of England after the Insular period. Illuminated manuscripts contain nearly all the surviving painting of the period, but architecture, metalwork and small carved work in wood or ivory were also important media.

Romanesque[link]

Romanesque art refers to the period from about 1000 to the rise of Gothic art in the 12th century. This was a period of increasing prosperity, and the first to see a coherent style used across Europe, from Scandinavia to Switzerland. Romanesque art is vigorous and direct, was originally brightly coloured, and is often very sophisticated. Stained glass and enamel on metalwork became important media, and larger sculptures in the round developed, although high relief was the principal technique. Its architecture is dominated by thick walls, and round-headed windows and arches, with much carved decoration.

Gothic[link]

Gothic art is a variable term depending on the craft, place and time. The term originated with Gothic architecture in 1140, but Gothic painting did not appear until around 1200 (this date has many qualifications), when it diverged from Romanesque style. Gothic sculpture was born in France in 1144 with the renovation of the Abbey Church of S. Denis and spread throughout Europe, by the 13th century it had become the international style, replacing Romanesque. International Gothic describes Gothic art from about 1360 to 1430, after which Gothic art merges into Renaissance art at different times in different places. During this period forms such as painting, in fresco and on panel, become newly important, and the end of the period includes new media such as prints.

Renaissance[link]

The Renaissance is characterized by a focus on the arts of Ancient Greece and Rome, which led to many changes in both the technical aspects of painting and sculpture, as well as to their subject matter. It began in Italy, a country rich in Roman heritage as well as material prosperity to fund artists. During the Renaissance, painters began to enhance the realism of their work by using new techniques in perspective, thus representing three dimensions more authentically. Artists also began to use new techniques in the manipulation of light and darkness, such as the tone contrast evident in many of Titian's portraits and the development of sfumato and chiaroscuro by Leonardo da Vinci. Sculptors, too, began to rediscover many ancient techniques such as contrapposto. Following with the humanist spirit of the age, art became more secular in subject matter, depicting ancient mythology in addition to Christian themes. This genre of art is often referred to as Renaissance Classicism. In the North, the most important Renaissance innovation was the widespread use of oil paints, which allowed for greater colour and intensity.

From Gothic to the Renaissance[link]

During the late 13th century and early 14th century, much of the painting in Italy was Byzantine in Character, notably that of Duccio of Siena and Cimabue of Florence, while Pietro Cavallini in Rome was more Gothic in style.

In 1290 Giotto began painting in a manner that was less traditional and more based upon observation of nature. His famous cycle at the Scrovegni Chapel, Padua, is seen as the beginnings of a Renaissance style.

Other painters of the 14th century were carried the Gothic style to great elaboration and detail. Notable among these painters are Simone Martini and Gentile da Fabriano.

In the Netherlands, the technique of painting in oils rather than tempera, led itself to a form of elaboration that was not dependent upon the application of gold leaf and embossing, but upon the minute depiction of the natural world. The art of painting textures with great realism evolved at this time. Dutch painters such as Jan van Eyck and Hugo van der Goes were to have great influence on Late Gothic and Early Renaissance painting.

Early Renaissance[link]

The ideas of the Renaissance first emerged in the city-state of Florence. The sculptor Donatello returned to classical techniques such as contrapposto and classical subjects like the unsupported nude — his second sculpture of David was the first free-standing bronze nude created in Europe since the Roman Empire. The sculptor and architect Brunelleschi studied the architectural ideas of ancient Roman buildings for inspiration. Masaccio perfected elements like composition, individual expression, and human form to paint frescoes, especially those in the Brancacci Chapel, of surprising elegance, drama, and emotion.

A remarkable number of these major artists worked on different portions of the Florence Cathedral. Brunelleschi's dome for the cathedral was one of the first truly revolutionary architectural innovations since the Gothic flying buttress. Donatello created many of its sculptures. Giotto and Lorenzo Ghiberti also contributed to the cathedral.

High Renaissance[link]

High Renaissance artists include such figures as Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo Buonarroti, and Raffaello Sanzio.

The 15th-century artistic developments in Italy (for example, the interest in perspectival systems, in depicting anatomy, and in classical cultures) matured during the 16th century, accounting for the designations “Early Renaissance” for the 15th century and “High Renaissance” for the 16th century. Although no singular style characterizes the High Renaissance, the art of those most closely associated with this Period—Leonardo daVinci, Raphael, Michelangelo, and Titian—exhibits an astounding mastery, both technical and aesthetic. High Renaissance artists created works of such authority that generations of later artists relied on these artworks for instruction. These exemplary artistic creations further elevated the prestige of artists. Artists could claim divine inspiration, thereby raising visual art to a status formerly given only to poetry. Thus, painters, sculptors, and architects came into their own, successfully claiming for their work a high position among the fine arts. In a sense, 16th- century masters created a new profession with its own rights of expression and its own venerable character. .

Northern art up to the Renaissance[link]

Early Netherlandish painting developed (but did not strictly invent) the technique of oil painting to allow greater control in painting minute detail with realism - Jan van Eyck (1366–1441) was the a figure in the movement from illuminated manuscripts to panel paintings.

Hieronymus Bosch (1450?-1516), a Dutch painter, is another important figure in the Northern Renaissance. In his paintings, he used religious themes, but combined them with grotesque fantasies, colourful imagery, and peasant folk legends. His paintings often reflect the confusion and anguish associated with the end of the Middle Ages.

Albrecht Dürer introduced Italian Renaissance style to Germany at the end of the 15th century, and dominated German Renaissance art.

Time Period:

• Italian Renaissance — Late 14th century to Early 16th century
• Northern Renaissance — 16th century

Mannerism, Baroque and Rococo[link]

Differences between Baroque and Rococo art

Baroque art was characterised by strongly religious and political themes; common characteristics included rich colours with a strong light and dark contrast. Paintings were elaborate, emotional and dramatic in nature.

Rococo art was characterised by lighter, often jocular themes; common characteristics included pale, creamy colours. Paintings were more ornate than the Baroque, and usually feminine, playful and light-hearted in nature.

In European art, Renaissance Classicism spawned two different movements— Mannerism and the Baroque. Mannerism, a reaction against the idealist perfection of Classicism, employed distortion of light and spatial frameworks in order to emphasize the emotional content of a painting and the emotions of the painter. The work of El Greco is a particularly clear example of Mannerism in painting during the late 16th, early 17th centuries. Northern Mannerism took longer to develop, and was largely a movement of the last half of the 16th century. Baroque art took the representationalism of the Renaissance to new heights, emphasizing detail, movement, lighting, and drama in their search for beauty. Perhaps the best known Baroque painters are Caravaggio, Rembrandt, Peter Paul Rubens, and Diego Velázquez. A rather different art developed out of northern realist traditions in 17th century Dutch Golden Age painting, which had very little religious art, and little history painting, instead playing a crucial part in developing secular genres such as still life, genre paintings of everyday scenes, and landscape painting. While the Baroque nature of Rembrandt's art is clear, the label is less use for Vermeer and many other Dutch artists. Flemish Baroque painting shared a part in this trend, while also continuing to produce the traditional categories.

Baroque art is often seen as part of the Counter-Reformation— the artistic element of the revival of spiritual life in the Roman Catholic Church. Additionally, the emphasis that Baroque art placed on grandeur is seen as Absolutist in nature. Religious and political themes were widely explored within the Baroque artistic context, and both paintings and sculptures were characterised by a strong element of drama, emotion and theatricality. Famous Baroque artists include Caravaggio or Rubens.^[4] Baroque art was particularly ornate and elaborate in nature, often using rich, warm colours with dark undertones. Pomp and grandeur were important elements of the Baroque artistic movement in general, as can be seen when Louis XIV said, "I am grandeur incarnate"; many Baroque artists served kings who tried to realize this goal. Baroque art in many ways was similar to Renaissance art; as a matter of fact, the term was initially used derogatively as a way of describing post-Renaissance art and architecture which was gaudy, over-sentimental and of poor taste.^[5] Baroque art can be seen as a more elaborate and dramatic re-adaptation of late Renaissance art. By the 18th century, however, Baroque art was falling out of fashion as many deemed it too austere and dramatic, and it developed into the Rococo, which emerged in France. Rococo art was even more elaborate than the Baroque, but it was less serious and more playful.^[6] Whilst the Baroque used rich, strong colours, Rococo used pale, creamier shades. The artistic movement no longer placed an emphasis on politics and religion, focusing instead on lighter themes such as romance, celebration, and appreciation of nature. Rococo art also contrasted the Baroque as it often refused symmetry in favor of asymmetrical designs. The 18th century style flourished for a short while; nevertheless, it soon fell out of favor, being seen by many as a gaudy and superficial movement emphasizing aesthetics over meaning. Neoclassicism in many ways developed as a counter movement of the Rococo, the impetus being a sense of disgust directed towards the latter's florid qualities.

Time Period:

• Mannerism — 16th century
• Baroque — early 17th century to mid-early 18th century
• Rococo — Mid-18th century

Neoclassicism, Romanticism, Academism and Realism[link]

Neoclassical art was characterised by an emphasis on simplicity, order and idealism. It was inspired by different classical themes.

Throughout the 18th century, a counter movement opposing the Rococo sprang up in different parts of Europe, commonly known as Neoclassicism. It despised the perceived superficiality and frivolity of Rococo art, and desired for a return to the simplicity, order and 'purism' of classical antiquity, especially ancient Greece and Rome. The movement was in part also influenced by the Renaissance, which itself was strongly influenced by classical art. Neoclassicism was the artistic component of the intellectual movement known as the Enlightenment; the Enlightenment was idealistic, and put its emphasis on objectivity, reason and empirical truth. Neoclassicism had become widespread in Europe throughout the 18th century, especially in the United Kingdom, which saw great works of Neoclassical architecture spring up during this period; Neoclassicism's fascination with classical antiquity can be seen in the popularity of the Grand Tour during this decade, where wealthy aristocrats travelled to the ancient ruins of Italy and Greece. Nevertheless, a defining moment for Neoclassicism came during the French Revolution in the late 18th century; in France, Rococo art was replaced with the preferred Neoclassical art, which was seen as more serious than the former movement. In many ways, Neoclassicism can be seen as a political movement as well as an artistic and cultural one.^[7] Neoclassical art places an emphasis on order, symmetry and classical simplicity; common themes in Neoclassical art include courage and war, as were commonly explored in ancient Greek and Roman art. Ingres, Canova, and Jacques-Louis David are among the best-known neoclassicists.^[8]

Just as Mannerism rejected Classicism, so did Romanticism reject the ideas of the Enlightenment and the aesthetic of the Neoclassicists. Romanticism rejected the highly objective and ordered nature of Neoclassicism, and opted for a more individual and emotional approach to the arts.^[9] Romanticism placed an emphasis on nature, especially when aiming to portray the power and beauty of the natural world, and emotions, and sought a highly personal approach to art. Romantic art was about individual feelings, not common themes, such as in Neoclassicism; in such a way, Romantic art often used colours in order to express feelings and emotion.^[10] Similarly to Neoclassicism, Romantic art took much of its inspiration from ancient Greek and Roman art and mythology, yet, unlike Neoclassical, this inspiration was primarily used as a way to create symbolism and imagery. Romantic art also takes much of its aesthetic qualities from medievalism and Gothicism, as well as mythology and folklore. Among the greatest Romantic artists were Eugène Delacroix, Francisco Goya, J.M.W. Turner, John Constable, Caspar David Friedrich, Thomas Cole, and William Blake.^[8]

Most artists attempted to take a centrist approach which adopted different features of Neoclassicist and Romanticist styles, in order to synthesize them. The different attempts took place within the French Academy, and collectively are called Academic art. Adolphe William Bouguereau is considered a chief example of this stream of art.

In the early 19th century the face of Europe, however, became radically altered by industrialization. Poverty, squalor, and desperation were to be the fate of the new working class created by the "revolution". In response to these changes going on in society, the movement of Realism emerged. Realism sought to accurately portray the conditions and hardships of the poor in the hopes of changing society. In contrast with Romanticism, which was essentially optimistic about mankind, Realism offered a stark vision of poverty and despair. Similarly, while Romanticism glorified nature, Realism portrayed life in the depths of an urban wasteland. Like Romanticism, Realism was a literary as well as an artistic movement. The great Realist painters include Jean Baptiste Siméon Chardin, Gustave Courbet, Jean-François Millet, Camille Corot, Honoré Daumier, Édouard Manet, Edgar Degas (both considered as Impressionists), and Thomas Eakins, among others.

The response of architecture to industrialisation, in stark contrast to the other arts, was to veer towards historicism. Although the railway stations built during this period are often considered the truest reflections of its spirit – they are sometimes called "the cathedrals of the age" – the main movements in architecture during the Industrial Age were revivals of styles from the distant past, such as the Gothic Revival. Related movements were the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, who attempted to return art to its state of "purity" prior to Raphael, and the Arts and Crafts Movement, which reacted against the impersonality of mass-produced goods and advocated a return to medieval craftsmanship.

Time Period:

• Neoclassicism — mid-early 18th century to early 19th century
• Romanticism — late 18th century to mid-19th century
• Realism — 19th century

Modern art[link]

Impressionism was known for its usage of light and movement in its paintings.

Out of the naturalist ethic of Realism grew a major artistic movement, Impressionism. The Impressionists pioneered the use of light in painting as they attempted to capture light as seen from the human eye. Edgar Degas, Édouard Manet, Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir, were all involved in the Impressionist movement. As a direct outgrowth of Impressionism came the development of Post-Impressionism. Paul Cézanne, Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, Georges Seurat are the best known Post-Impressionists.

Following the Impressionists and the Post-Impressionists came Fauvism, often considered the first "modern" genre of art. Just as the Impressionists revolutionized light, so did the fauvists rethink color, painting their canvases in bright, wild hues. After the Fauvists, modern art began to develop in all its forms, ranging from Expressionism, concerned with evoking emotion through objective works of art, to Cubism, the art of transposing a three-dimensional reality onto a flat canvas, to Abstract art. These new art forms pushed the limits of traditional notions of "art" and corresponded to the similar rapid changes that were taking place in human society, technology, and thought.

Surrealism is often classified as a form of Modern Art. However, the Surrealists themselves have objected to the study of surrealism as an era in art history, claiming that it oversimplifies the complexity of the movement (which they say is not an artistic movement), misrepresents the relationship of surrealism to aesthetics, and falsely characterizes ongoing surrealism as a finished, historically encapsulated era. Other forms of Modern art (some of which border on Contemporary art) include:

• Abstract expressionism
• Art Deco
• Art Nouveau
• Bauhaus
• Color Field painting
• Conceptual Art
• Constructivism
• Cubism
• Dada
• Der Blaue Reiter
• De Stijl
• Die Brücke
• Body Art
• Expressionism
• Fauvism
• Fluxus
• Futurism
• Happening
• Surrealism
• Lettrisme
• Lyrical Abstraction
• Land Art
• Minimalism
• Naive art
• Op art
• Performance art
• Photorealism
• Pop art
• Suprematism
• Video art

Time Period: First half of the 20th century

Contemporary art and Postmodern art[link]

Modern art foreshadowed several characteristics of what would later be definied as postmodern art; as a matter of fact, several modern art movements can often be classified as both modern and postmodern, such as pop art. Postmodern art, for instance, places a strong emphasis on irony, parody and humour in general; modern art started to develop a more ironic approach to art which would later advance in a postmodern context. Postmodern art sees the blurring between the high and fine arts with low-end and commercial art; modern art started to experiment with this blurring.^[11] Recent developments in art have been characterised by a significant expansion of what can now deemed to be art, in terms of materials, media, activity and concept. Conceptual art in particular has had a wide influence. This started literally as the replacement of concept for a made object, one of the intentions of which was to refute the commodification of art. However, it now usually refers to an artwork where there is an object, but the main claim for the work is made for the thought process that has informed it. The aspect of commercialism has returned to the work.

There has also been an increase in art referring to previous movements and artists, and gaining validity from that reference.

Postmodernism in art, which has grown since the 1960s, differs from Modernism in as much as Modern art movements were primarily focused on their own activities and values, while Postmodernism uses the whole range of previous movements as a reference point. This has by definition generated a relativistic outlook, accompanied by irony and a certain disbelief in values, as each can be seen to be replaced by another. Another result of this has been the growth of commercialism and celebrity. Postmodern art has questioned common rules and guidelines of what is regarded as 'fine art', merging low art with the fine arts until none is fully distinguishable.^[12][13] Before the advent of postmodernism, the fine arts were characterised by a form of aesthetic quality, elegance, craftsmanship, finesse and intellectual stimulation which was intended to appeal to the elite or educated classes; this distinguished high art from low art, which, in turn, was seen as tacky, kitsch, easily made and lacking in much or any intellectual stimulation, art which was intended to appeal to the masses. Postmodern art blurred these distinctions, bringing a strong element of kitsch, commercialism and campness into contemporary fine art;^[14] what is nowadays seen as fine art may have been seen as low art before postmodernism revolutionised the concept of what high or fine art truly is.^[15] On addition, the postmodern nature of contemporary art leaves a lot of space for individualism within the art scene; for instance, postmodern art often takes inspiration from past artistic movements, such as Gothic or Baroque art, and both juxtaposes and recycles styles from these past periods in a different context.^[16]

Some surrealists in particular Joan Miró, who called for the "murder of painting" (In numerous interviews dating from the 1930s onwards, Miró expressed contempt for conventional painting methods and his desire to "kill", "murder", or "rape" them in favor of more contemporary means of expression).^[17] have denounced or attempted to "supersede" painting, and there have also been other anti-painting trends among artistic movements, such as that of Dada and conceptual art. The trend away from painting in the late 20th century has been countered by various movements, for example the continuation of Minimal Art, Lyrical Abstraction, Pop Art, Op Art, New Realism, Photorealism, Neo Geo, Neo-expressionism, and Stuckism and various other important and influential painterly directions.

See also[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Western art

• Western painting
• History of painting
• Modernism
• Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects
• Painting in the Americas before Colonization
• Western European paintings in Ukrainian museums

References[link]

External links[link]

• Web Gallery of Art
• Postmodernism
• European artists community
• Panopticon Virtual Art Gallery

Sarah Vaughan
Sarah Vaughan, c. 1946
Background information
Birth name	Sarah Lois Vaughan
Also known as	"Sassy" "The Divine One" "Sailor"
Born	(1924-03-27)March 27, 1924 Newark, New Jersey, United States
Died	April 3, 1990(1990-04-03) (aged 66) Hidden Hills, California
Genres	Vocal jazz, bebop, cool jazz, traditional pop
Occupations	Singer
Years active	1942–1989
Labels	Columbia, Mercury, Roulette, Pablo

Sarah Lois Vaughan (March 27, 1924 – April 3, 1990) was an American jazz singer, described by Scott Yanow as having "one of the most wondrous voices of the 20th century."^[1]

Nicknamed "Sailor" (for her salty speech),^[2] "Sassy" and "The Divine One", Sarah Vaughan was a Grammy Award winner.^[3] The National Endowment for the Arts bestowed upon her its "highest honor in jazz", the NEA Jazz Masters Award, in 1989.^[4]

Biography[link]

Early life[link]

Beginnings: 1942–1943[link]

Biographies of Vaughan frequently stated that she was immediately thrust into stardom after a winning Amateur Night performance at Harlem's Zeus Theater. In fact, the story that biographer Renee relates seems to be a bit more complex. Vaughan was frequently accompanied by a friend, Doris Robinson, on her trips into New York City. Sometime in the fall of 1942 (when Sarah was 18 years old), Vaughan suggested that Robinson enter the Apollo Theater Amateur Night contest. Vaughan played piano accompaniment for Robinson, who won second prize. Vaughan later decided to go back and compete herself as a singer. Vaughan sang "Body and Soul" and won, although the exact date of her victorious Apollo performance is uncertain. The prize, as Vaughan recalled later to Marian McPartland, was US$10 and the promise of a week's engagement at the Apollo. After a considerable delay, Vaughan was contacted by the Apollo in the spring of 1943 to open for Ella Fitzgerald.

Sometime during her week of performances at the Apollo, Vaughan was introduced to bandleader and pianist Earl Hines, although the exact details of that introduction are disputed. Billy Eckstine, Hines' singer at the time, has been credited by Vaughan and others with hearing her at the Apollo and recommending her to Hines. Hines also claimed to have discovered her himself and offered her a job on the spot. Regardless, after a brief tryout at the Apollo, Hines officially replaced his existing male singer with Vaughan on April 4, 1943.

With Earl Hines and Billy Eckstine: 1943–1944[link]

Vaughan spent the remainder of 1943 and part of 1944 touring the country with the Earl Hines big band that also featured baritone Billy Eckstine. Vaughan was hired as a pianist, reputedly so Hines could hire her under the jurisdiction of the musicians' union (American Federation of Musicians) rather than the singers union (American Guild of Variety Artists), but after Cliff Smalls joined the band as a trombonist and pianist, Sarah's duties became limited exclusively to singing. This Earl Hines band is best remembered today as an incubator of bebop, as it included trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, saxophonist Charlie Parker (playing tenor saxophone rather than the alto saxophone that he would become famous with later) and trombonist Bennie Green. Gillespie also arranged for the band, although a recording ban by the musicians union prevented the band from recording and preserving its sound and style for posterity.

Eckstine left the Hines band in late 1943 and formed his own big band with Gillespie, leaving Hines to become the new band's musical director. Parker came along too, and the Eckstine band over the next few years would host a startling cast of jazz talent: Miles Davis, Kenny Dorham, Art Blakey, Lucky Thompson, Gene Ammons, Dexter Gordon, among others.

Vaughan accepted Eckstine's invitation to join his new band in 1944, giving her an opportunity to develop her musicianship with the seminal figures in this era of jazz. Eckstine's band also afforded her first recording opportunity, a December 5, 1944 date that yielded the song "I'll Wait and Pray" for the Deluxe label. That date led to critic and producer Leonard Feather to ask her to cut four sides under her own name later that month for the Continental label, backed by a septet that included Dizzy Gillespie and Georgie Auld.

Band pianist John Malachi is credited with giving Vaughan the moniker "Sassy", a nickname that matched her personality. Vaughan liked it and the name (and its shortened variant "Sass") stuck with colleagues and, eventually, the press. In written communications, Vaughan often spelled it "Sassie".

Vaughan officially left the Eckstine band in late 1944 to pursue a solo career, although she remained very close to Eckstine personally and recorded with him frequently throughout her life.

Early solo career: 1945–1948[link]

Vaughan began her solo career in 1945 by freelancing in clubs on New York's 52nd Street such as the Three Deuces, the Famous Door, the Downbeat and the Onyx Club. Vaughan also hung around the Braddock Grill, next door to the Apollo Theater in Harlem. On May 11, 1945, Vaughan recorded "Lover Man" for the Guild label with a quintet featuring Gillespie and Parker with Al Haig on piano, Curly Russell on double bass and Sid Catlett on drums. Later that month she went into the studio with a slightly different and larger Gillespie/Parker aggregation and recorded three more sides.

After being invited by violinist Stuff Smith to record the song "Time and Again" in October, Vaughan was offered a contract to record for the Musicraft label by owner Albert Marx, although she would not begin recording as a leader for Musicraft until May 7, 1946. In the intervening time, Vaughan made a handful of recordings for the Crown and Gotham labels and began performing regularly at Cafe Society Downtown, an integrated club in New York's Sheridan Square.

While at Cafe Society, Vaughan became friends with trumpeter George Treadwell. Treadwell became Vaughan's manager and she ultimately delegated to him most of the musical director responsibilities for her recording sessions, leaving her free to focus almost entirely on singing. Over the next few years, Treadwell also made significant positive changes in Vaughan's stage appearance. Aside from an improved wardrobe and hair style, Vaughan had her teeth capped, eliminating an unsightly gap between her two front teeth.

Many of Vaughan's 1946 Musicraft recordings became quite well known among jazz aficionados and critics, including "If You Could See Me Now" (written and arranged by Tadd Dameron), "Don't Blame Me", "I've Got a Crush on You", "Everything I Have Is Yours" and "Body and Soul". With Vaughan and Treadwell's professional relationship on solid footing, the couple married on September 16, 1946.

Vaughan's recording success for Musicraft continued through 1947 and 1948. Her recording of "Tenderly" became an unexpected pop hit in late 1947. Her December 27, 1947, recording of "It's Magic" (from the Doris Day film Romance on the High Seas) found chart success in early 1948. Her recording of "Nature Boy" from April 8, 1948, became a hit around the same time as the release of the famous Nat King Cole recording of the same song. Because of yet another recording ban by the musicians union, "Nature Boy" was recorded with an a cappella choir as the only accompaniment, adding an ethereal air to a song with a vaguely mystical lyric and melody.

Stardom and the Columbia years: 1948–1953[link]

The musicians union ban pushed Musicraft to the brink of bankruptcy and Vaughan used the missed royalty payments as an opportunity to sign with the larger Columbia record label. Following the settling of the legal issues, her chart successes continued with the charting of "Black Coffee" in the summer of 1949. During her tenure at Columbia through 1953, Vaughan was steered almost exclusively to commercial pop ballads, a number of which had chart success: "That Lucky Old Sun", "Make Believe (You Are Glad When You're Sorry)", "I'm Crazy to Love You", "Our Very Own", "I Love the Guy", "Thinking of You" (with pianist Bud Powell), "I Cried for You", "These Things I Offer You", "Vanity", "I Ran All the Way Home", "Saint or Sinner", "My Tormented Heart", and "Time", among others.

Vaughan also achieved substantial critical acclaim. She won Esquire magazine's New Star Award for 1947 as well as awards from Down Beat magazine continuously from 1947 through 1952, and from Metronome magazine from 1948 through 1953. A handful of critics disliked her singing as being "over-stylized", reflecting the heated controversies of the time over the new musical trends of the late 40s. However, the critical reception to the young singer was generally positive.

Recording and critical success led to numerous performing opportunities, packing clubs around the country almost continuously throughout the years of the late 1940s and early 1950s. In the summer of 1949, Vaughan made her first appearance with a symphony orchestra in a benefit for the Philadelphia Orchestra entitled "100 Men and a Girl." Around this time, Chicago disk jockey Dave Garroway coined a second nickname for her, "The Divine One", that would follow her throughout her career. One of her early television appearances was on DuMont's variety show Stars on Parade (1953–54), in which she sang "My Funny Valentine" and "Linger Awhile".

With improving finances, in 1949 Vaughan and Treadwell purchased a three-story house on 21 Avon Avenue in Newark, occupying the top floor during their increasingly rare off-hours at home and relocating Vaughan's parents to the lower two floors. However, the business pressures and personality conflicts led to a cooling in the personal relationship between Treadwell and Vaughan. Treadwell hired a road manager to handle Vaughan's touring needs and opened a management office in Manhattan so he could work with clients in addition to Vaughan.

Vaughan's relationship with Columbia Records also soured as she became dissatisfied with the commercial material she was required to record and lackluster financial success of her records. A set of small group sides recorded in 1950 with Miles Davis and Bennie Green are among the best of her career, but they were atypical of her Columbia output.

The Mercury years: 1954–1958[link]

In 1953, Treadwell negotiated a unique contract for Vaughan with Mercury Records. She would record commercial material for the Mercury label and more jazz-oriented material for its subsidiary EmArcy. Vaughan was paired with producer Bob Shad and their excellent working relationship yielded strong commercial and artistic success. Her debut Mercury recording session took place in February 1954 and she stayed with the label through 1959. After a stint at Roulette Records (1960 to 1963), Vaughan returned to Mercury from 1964 to 1967.

Vaughan's commercial success at Mercury began with the 1954 hit, "Make Yourself Comfortable", recorded in the fall of 1954, and continued with a succession of hits, including: "How Important Can It Be" (with Count Basie), "Whatever Lola Wants", "The Banana Boat Song", "You Ought to Have A Wife" and "Misty". Her commercial success peaked in 1959 with "Broken Hearted Melody", a song she considered to be "corny", but, nonetheless, became her first gold record and a regular part of her concert repertoire for years to come. Vaughan was reunited with Billy Eckstine for a series of duet recordings in 1957 that yielded the hit "Passing Strangers". Vaughan's commercial recordings were handled by a number of different arrangers and conductors, primarily Hugo Peretti and Hal Mooney.

The jazz "track" of her recording career also proceeded apace, backed either by her working trio or various combinations of stellar jazz players. One of her own favorite albums was a 1954 sextet date that included Clifford Brown.

In the latter half of the 1950s she followed a schedule of almost non-stop touring, with many famous jazz musicians. She was featured at the first Newport Jazz Festival in the summer of 1954 and starred in subsequent editions of that festival at Newport and in New York City for the remainder of her life. In the fall of 1954, she performed at Carnegie Hall with the Count Basie Orchestra on a bill that also included Billie Holiday, Charlie Parker, Lester Young and the Modern Jazz Quartet. That fall, she again toured Europe successfully before embarking on a "Big Show" U. S. tour, a grueling succession of start-studded one-nighters that included Count Basie, George Shearing, Erroll Garner and Jimmy Rushing. At the 1955 New York Jazz Festival on Randalls Island, Vaughan shared the bill with the Dave Brubeck quartet, Horace Silver, Jimmy Smith, and the Johnny Richards Orchestra

Although the professional relationship between Vaughan and Treadwell was quite successful through the 1950s, their personal relationship finally reached a breaking point and she filed for a divorce in 1958. Vaughan had entirely delegated financial matters to Treadwell, and despite stunning income figures reported through the 1950s, at the settlement Treadwell said that only $16,000 remained. The couple evenly divided that amount and their personal assets, terminating their business relationship.

The 1960s[link]

The exit of Treadwell from Sarah Vaughan's life was also precipitated by the entry of Clyde "C.B." Atkins, a man of uncertain background whom she had met in Chicago and married on September 4, 1959. Although Atkins had no experience in artist management or music, Vaughan wished to have a mixed professional/personal relationship like the one she had with Treadwell. She made Atkins her personal manager, although she was still feeling the sting of the problems she had with Treadwell, and initially kept a slightly closer eye on Atkins. Vaughan and Atkins moved into a house in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.^[5]

When Vaughan's contract with Mercury Records ended in late 1959, she immediately signed on with Roulette Records, a small label owned by Morris Levy, who was one of the backers of New York's Birdland, where she frequently appeared. Roulette's roster also included Count Basie, Joe Williams, Dinah Washington, Lambert, Hendricks and Ross and Maynard Ferguson.

Vaughan began recording for Roulette in April 1960, making a string of strong large ensemble albums arranged and/or conducted by Billy May, Jimmy Jones, Joe Reisman, Quincy Jones, Benny Carter, Lalo Schifrin, and Gerald Wilson. Surprisingly, she also had some pop chart success in 1960 with "Serenata" on Roulette and a couple of residual tracks from her Mercury contract, "Eternally" and "You're My Baby". She also made a pair of intimate vocal/guitar/double bass albums of jazz standards: After Hours (1961) with guitarist Mundell Lowe and double bassist George Duvivier and Sarah + 2 (1962) with guitarist Barney Kessell and double bassist Joe Comfort.

Vaughan was incapable of having children, so, in 1961, she and Atkins adopted a daughter, Debra Lois. However, the relationship with Atkins proved difficult and violent so, following a series of strange incidents, she filed for divorce in November 1963. She turned to two friends to help sort out the financial wreckage of the marriage: club owner John "Preacher" Wells, a childhood acquaintance, and Clyde "Pumpkin" Golden, Jr. Wells and Golden found that Atkins' gambling and profligate spending had put Vaughan around $150,000 in debt. The Englewood Cliffs house was ultimately seized by the IRS for nonpayment of taxes. Vaughan retained custody of their child and Golden essentially took Atkins place as Vaughan's manager and lover for the remainder of the decade.

Around the time of her second divorce, she also became disenchanted with Roulette Records. Roulette' finances were even more deceptive and opaque than usual in the record business and its recording artists often had little to show for their efforts other than some excellent records. When her contract with Roulette ended in 1963, Vaughan returned to the more familiar confines of Mercury Records. In the summer of 1963, Vaughan went to Denmark with producer Quincy Jones to record four days of live performances with her trio, Sassy Swings the Tivoli, an excellent example of her live show from this period. The following year, she made her first appearance at the White House, for President Johnson.

Unfortunately, the Tivoli recording would be the brightest moment of her second stint with Mercury. Changing demographics and tastes in the 1960s left jazz artists with shrinking audiences and inappropriate material. While Vaughan retained a following large and loyal enough to maintain her performing career, the quality and quantity of her recorded output dwindled even as her voice darkened and her skill remained undiminished. At the conclusion of her Mercury deal in 1967, she was left without a recording contract for the remainder of the decade.

In 1969, Vaughan terminated her professional relationship with Golden and relocated to the West Coast, settling first into a house near Benedict Canyon in Los Angeles and then into what would end up being her final home in Hidden Hills.

Rebirth in the 1970s[link]

Vaughan met Marshall Fisher after a 1970 performance at a casino in Las Vegas and Fisher soon fell into the familiar dual role as Vaughan's lover and manager. Fisher was another man of uncertain background with no musical or entertainment business experience, but—unlike some of her earlier associates—he was a genuine fan devoted to furthering her career.

The seventies also heralded a rebirth in Vaughan's recording activity. In 1971, Bob Shad, who had worked with her as producer at Mercury Records, asked her to record for his new record label, Mainstream Records. Basie veteran Ernie Wilkins arranged and conducted her first Mainstream album, A Time In My Life in November 1971. In April 1972, Vaughan recorded a collection of ballads written, arranged and conducted by Michel Legrand. Arrangers Legrand, Peter Matz, Jack Elliott and Allyn Ferguson teamed up for Vaughan's third Mainstream album, Feelin' Good. Vaughan also recorded Live in Japan, a live album in Tokyo with her trio in September 1973.

During her sessions with Legrand, Bob Shad presented "Send In The Clowns", a Stephen Sondheim song from the Broadway musical A Little Night Music, to Vaughan for consideration. The song would become her signature, replacing the chestnut "Tenderly" that had been with her from the beginning of her solo career.

Unfortunately, Vaughan's relationship with Mainstream soured in 1974, allegedly in a conflict precipitated by Fisher over an album cover photograph and/or unpaid royalties^{[citation needed]}. This left Vaughan again without a recording contract for three years.

In December 1974, Vaughan played a private concert for the United States President Gerald Ford and French president Giscard d'Estaing during their summit on Martinique.

Also in 1974, conductor Michael Tilson Thomas asked Vaughan to participate in an all-Gershwin show he was planning for a guest appearance with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl. The arrangements were by Marty Paich and the orchestra would be augmented by established jazz artists Dave Grusin on piano, Ray Brown on double bass, drummer Shelly Manne and saxophonists Bill Perkins and Pete Christlieb. The concert was a success and Thomas and Vaughan repeated the performance with Thomas' home orchestra in Buffalo, New York, followed by appearances in 1975 and 1976 with symphony orchestras around the country. These performances fulfilled a long-held interest by Vaughan in working with symphonies and she made orchestra performances without Thomas for the remainder of the decade.

In 1977, Vaughan terminated her personal and professional relationship with Marshall Fisher. Although Fisher is occasionally referenced as Vaughan's third husband, they were never legally married. Vaughan began a relationship with Waymond Reed, a trumpet player 16 years her junior who was playing with the Count Basie band. Reed joined her working trio as a musical director and trumpet player and became her third husband in 1978.

In 1977, Tom Guy, a young filmmaker and public TV producer, followed Vaughan around on tour, interviewing numerous artists speaking about her and capturing both concert and behind-the-scenes footage. The resulting sixteen hours of footage was pared down into an hour-and-a-half documentary, Listen To The Sun, that aired on September 21, 1978, on New Jersey Public Television, but was never commercially released.

In 1977, Norman Granz, who was also Ella Fitzgerald's manager, signed Vaughan to his Pablo Records label. Vaughan had not had a recording contract for three years, although she had recorded a 1977 album of Beatles songs with contemporary pop arrangements for Atlantic Records that was eventually released in 1981. Vaughan's first Pablo release was I Love Brazil, recorded with an all-star cast of Brazilian musicians in Rio de Janeiro in the fall of 1977. It garnered a Grammy nomination.

1977 also saw the release of the Godley & Creme album "Consequences", on which Vaughan sang one of the few tracks to achieve popularity outside of the album: "Lost Weekend".

The Pablo contract resulted in a total of seven albums: a second and equally wondrous Brazilian record, "Copacabana", again recorded in Rio (1979), How Long Has This Been Going On? (1978) with a quartet that included pianist Oscar Peterson, guitarist Joe Pass, bassist Ray Brown, and drummer Louis Bellson; two Duke Ellington Songbook albums (1979); Send In The Clowns (1981) with the Count Basie orchestra playing arrangements primarily by Sammy Nestico; and Crazy and Mixed Up (1982), another quartet album featuring Sir Roland Hanna, piano, Joe Pass, guitar, Andy Simpkins, bass, and Harold Jones, drums.

Vaughan and Waymond Reed divorced in 1981.

Late career[link]

Vaughan remained quite active as a performer during the 1980s and began receiving awards recognizing her contribution to American music and status as an important elder stateswoman of jazz. In the summer of 1980, Vaughan received a plaque on 52nd Street outside the CBS Building (Black Rock) commemorating the jazz clubs she had once frequented on "Swing Street" and which had long since been demolished and replaced with office buildings.

A performance of her symphonic Gershwin program with the New Jersey Symphony in 1980 was broadcast on PBS and won her an Emmy Award in 1981 for "Individual Achievement - Special Class". She was reunited with Michael Tilson Thomas for slightly modified version of the Gershwin program with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the CBS Records recording, Gershwin Live! won Vaughan the Grammy award for Best Jazz Vocal Performance, Female. In 1985, Vaughan received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 1988, Vaughan was inducted into the American Jazz Hall of Fame.

After the conclusion of her Pablo contract in 1982, Vaughan did only a limited amount of studio recording. She made a guest appearance in 1984 on Barry Manilow's 2:00 AM Paradise Cafe, an album of original pastiche compositions that featured a number of established jazz artists. In 1984, Vaughan participated in one of the more unusual projects of her career, The Planet is Alive, Let It Live a symphonic piece composed by Tito Fontana and Sante Palumbo on Italian translations of Polish poems by Karol Wojtyla, the future Pope John Paul II. The recording was made in Germany with an English translation by writer Gene Lees and was released by Lees on his own private label after the recording was turned down by the major labels. In 1986, Vaughan sang two songs, "Happy Talk" and "Bali Ha'i", in the role of Bloody Mary on an otherwise stiff studio recording by opera stars Kiri Te Kanawa and José Carreras of the score of the Broadway musical South Pacific, while sitting on the studio floor.

Vaughan's final complete album was Brazilian Romance, produced and composed by Sérgio Mendes and recorded primarily in the early part of 1987 in New York and Detroit. In 1988, Vaughan contributed vocals to an album of Christmas carols recorded by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir with the Utah Symphony Orchestra and sold in Hallmark Cards stores. In 1989, Quincy Jones' album Back on the Block featured Vaughan in a brief scatting duet with Ella Fitzgerald. This was Vaughan's final studio recording and, fittingly, it was Vaughan's only formal studio recording with Fitzgerald in a career that had begun 46 years earlier opening for Fitzgerald at the Apollo.

Vaughan is featured in a number of video recordings from the 1980s. Sarah Vaughan Live from Monterey was taped in 1983 or 1984 and featured her working trio with guest soloists. Sass and Brass was taped in 1986 in New Orleans and also features her working trio with guest soloists, including Dizzy Gillespie and Maynard Ferguson. Sarah Vaughan: The Divine One was featured in the American Masters series on PBS. Also in 1986, on Independence Day in a program nationally-televised on PBS she performed with the National Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Mstislav Rostropovich, in a medley of songs composed by George Gershwin^[6]

She was given the George and Ira Gershwin Award for Lifetime Musical Achievement, UCLA Spring Sing.^[7]

Death[link]

In 1989, Vaughan's health began to decline, although she rarely revealed any hints in her performances. She canceled a series of engagements in Europe in 1989 citing the need to seek treatment for arthritis in the hand, although she was able to complete a later series of performances in Japan. During a run at New York's Blue Note jazz club in 1989, Vaughan received a diagnosis of lung cancer and was too ill to finish the final day of what would turn out to be her final series of public performances.

Vaughan returned to her home in California to begin chemotherapy and spent her final months alternating stays in the hospital and at home. Vaughan grew weary of the struggle and demanded to be taken home, where she died on the evening of April 3, 1990, while watching a television movie featuring her daughter, a week after her 66th birthday.

Vaughan's funeral was held at Mount Zion Baptist Church at 208 Broadway in Newark, New Jersey, which was the same congregation she grew up in. Following the ceremony, a horse-drawn carriage transported her body to its final resting place in Glendale Cemetery in Bloomfield, New Jersey.^[8][9]

Grammy Hall of Fame[link]

Recordings of Sarah Vaughan were inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, which is a special Grammy award established in 1973 to honor recordings that are at least twenty-five years old, and that have "qualitative or historical significance."

Style and influence[link]

This section may contain original research. Please improve it by verifying the claims made and adding references. Statements consisting only of original research may be removed. More details may be available on the talk page. (August 2008)

Although Vaughan is usually considered a "Jazz Singer", she avoided classifying herself as such. Indeed, her approach to her "Jazz" work and her commercial "Pop" material was not radically different. Vaughan stuck throughout her career to the jazz-infused style of music that she came of age with, only rarely dabbling in rock-era styles that usually did not suit her unique vocal talents. Vaughan discussed the label in an 1982 interview for Down Beat:

"I don't know why people call me a jazz singer, though I guess people associate me with jazz because I was raised in it, from way back. I'm not putting jazz down, but I'm not a jazz singer. Betty Bebop (Carter) is a jazz singer, because that's all she does. I've even been called a blues singer. I've recorded all kinds of music, but (to them) I'm either a jazz singer or a blues singer. I can't sing a blues - just a right-out blues - but I can put the blues in whatever I sing. I might sing 'Send In the Clowns' and I might stick a little bluesy part in it, or any song. What I want to do, music-wise, is all kinds of music that I like, and I like all kinds of music."

Vaughan was an accomplished pianist with a fine ear for bebop harmonies, but her most obvious gift was always her powerful voice. Her vocal range was vast in her youth, stretching from true female baritone lows to mezzo-soprano highs; as she aged, her lower register became stronger and her forays into her (still-strong) mezzo register became rare. Musicologist Henry Pleasants notes: "Sarah Vaughan who sings easily down to a contralto low D, ascends to a pure and accurate [soprano] high C."^[11] The dynamic range, tonal quality and sheer beauty of her voice were near-operatic, while she attended. Vaughan was proficient at scatting, the improvisatory aspect of her art was focused more on ornamentation, phrasing and variation on melodies, which were almost always jazz standards. Perhaps her most noticeable musical mannerism was the creative use of often widely "swooping" glissandi through her wide entire vocal range, which was most sonorous in a dark chest register that grew deeper as she aged. Vaughan approached her voice more as a melodic instrument than a vehicle for dramatic interpretation of lyrics, although the expressive qualities of her style did accentuate lyrical meaning and she would often find unique and memorable ways of articulating and coloring individual key words in a lyric. She mainly performed in the contralto range.^[12]

During her childhood in the 30s, Vaughan was strongly attracted to the popular music of the day, much to the consternation of her deeply religious father. She was certainly influenced by the gospel traditions that she grew up with in a Baptist church, but the more radically melismatic elements of those influences are less obvious than they would be in later generations of singers in the R&B and hip-hop genres. That Vaughan was also influenced by (and an influence on) her friend and mentor, Billy Eckstine, is obvious in the numerous duet recordings they made together. However, since no recordings exist of Vaughan prior to her joining Eckstine in the Earl Hines band (nor with the Hines band) it is difficult to know with any certainty what stylistic nuances she absorbed during the critical first years of her performing career.

Perhaps because of the individuality of her style, Vaughan has rarely been overtly imitated by subsequent generations of singers, unlike such contemporaries of hers as Ella Fitzgerald, Judy Garland, Frank Sinatra or, later, Aretha Franklin. Many modern artists, however, have claimed Sarah Vaughan as a major influence, chief among them Teena Marie, Anita Baker, Chaka Khan, Chrisette Michele, Amy Winehouse and Alison Goldfrapp. Even in death she retains a loyal following and attracts new fans through her recorded legacy, most of which remains in commercial release.

While Vaughan frequently performed and recorded with large ensembles, her live performances usually featured trio accompaniments. Aside from economy, there was an inherent advantage in working with musicians who knew her style and could anticipate her improvisational side trips.

Two albums have been recorded in tribute to Vaughan following her death, Carmen McRae's Sarah: Dedicated to You (1991) and Dianne Reeves' The Calling: Celebrating Sarah Vaughan (2001).

Personal life[link]

Vaughan was married three times: George Treadwell (1946–1958), Clyde Atkins (1958–1961) and Waymon Reed (1978–1981). Unable to bear children, Vaughan adopted a baby girl (Debra Lois) in 1961. Debra worked in the 1980s and 1990s as an actress under the name Paris Vaughan.

Sarah Vaughan's personal life was a jumble of paradoxes. She had a mercurial personality and could be extremely difficult to work with (especially in areas outside of music), but numerous fellow musicians recounted their experiences with her to be some of the best of their careers. None of her marriages were successful, yet she maintained close long-running friendships with a number of male colleagues in the business and was devoted to her parents and adopted daughter. Despite effusive public acclaim, Vaughan was insecure and suffered from stage fright that was, at times, almost incapacitating^{[citation needed]}. While shy and often aloof with strangers, she was quite gregarious and generous with friends.^{[citation needed]}

Sarah Vaughan was a member of Zeta Phi Beta sorority.^[13]

Discography[link]

Tributes[link]

In 2004-2006, New Jersey Transit paid tribute to Miss Vaughan in the design of its new Newark Light Rail stations. Passengers stopping at any station on this line can read the lyrics to one of her signature songs, "Send in the Clowns", along the edge of the station platform.

On March 27, 2003, initiated by Susie M. Butler, the cities of San Francisco and Berkeley, California, signed a proclamation making March 27 "Sarah Lois Vaughan Day" in their respective cities.

In 2012, Vaughan was elected into the New Jersey Hall of Fame.^[14]

References[link]

External links[link]

	Book: Sarah Vaughan
Wikipedia books are collections of articles that can be downloaded or ordered in print.

	Biography portal
	Music portal

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Sarah Vaughan

• Billboard Chart History for Sarah Vaughan
• A Brief summary of Vaughan's career
• BBC Profile of Sarah Vaughan
• IMDB Profile of Sarah Vaughan
• Sarah Vaughan discography at Discogs

• Interview with Les Tomkins
• Personal recollections of Sarah Vaughan
• Profile of Vaughan from BookRags.com
• Profile of Vaughan from PBS American Masters
• Profile of Vaughan from PBS Ken Burns Jazz Series
• Profile of Vaughan from Verve Records
• Sarah Vaughan performs "Perdido" on Rhythm and Blues Revue in 1955