One of jazz music's most poignant losses remains singer Beverly Kenney, an artist whose finely shaded delivery and elegant timing aligned seamlessly with the understated cool jazz atmosphere of the late 1950s, only for her to take her own life at the height of her powers and still await wider recognition from the general public.
Kenney entered the world in Harrison, NJ, on January 29, 1932, launching her professional path by delivering birthday messages over the phone for Western Union. She eventually settled in New York City, where she recorded her initial demo session in 1954 alongside pianist Tony Tamburello, material that finally surfaced in 2006 as the collection Snuggled on Your Shoulder. By the close of that year she had shifted to Miami, quickly landing representation and landing engagements at the Black Magic Room. The Dorsey Brothers spotted her there and booked her for an extended run with their orchestra, though artistic disagreements led her to depart after several months. Returning once more to New York, she performed in clubs alongside George Shearing, Don Elliott, and Kai Winding, while also completing a brief Midwest stint with the Larry Sonn Band. She then signed with the Roost label, which released her first album, Beverly Kenny Sings for Johnny Smith, in early 1956. Later that year came Come Swing with Me, an outing arranged by Ralph Burns, followed in spring 1957 by her last Roost recording, a collaboration with Jimmy Jones & the Basie-Ites.
Kenney resurfaced on Decca in 1958 with Sings for Playboys; her defining statement, Born to Be Blue, appeared soon afterward, and Like Yesterday served as her final release in 1959. Reviewers and fellow musicians alike showered her work with praise, yet the rising tide of rock & roll kept her largely invisible to mainstream audiences. During a May 18, 1958, appearance on NBC's The Steve Allen Show she even performed her own composition "I Hate Rock and Roll." Associates recall her as a withdrawn and somber presence in her last months, yet her death at age 28 on April 13, 1960, continues to invite speculation. Accounts indicate she spent her final evening at the desk in her Greenwich Village apartment composing lengthy, anguished letters to both parents before ingesting a fatal combination of alcohol and Seconal, though the precise reasons remain unclear. A 1992 GQ profile by Jonathan Schwartz proposed that she had been despondent over the end of her relationship with Beat Generation figure Milton Klonsky, but subsequent research by admirer and writer Bill Reed has challenged that explanation. Largely overlooked in the United States, Kenney has developed a devoted following in Japan, where all six of her albums have stayed in circulation.
