Lee Wiley

Her distinctive singing stood out for its husky, sensual timbre and for her precisely measured, understated interpretations of pop standards. Recognition as one of the foremost early jazz vocalists came, however, from her insight into the singular character of American popular song and her innovation of grouping selections by a single composer or shared theme, an approach that later became known as the songbook or concept LP. She also composed songs herself, though her reputation in that regard remained stronger within jazz circles than among the broader public. Although her professional life extended across multiple decades, the 1950s marked her busiest stretch in the studio; between the close of that decade and her death in 1975 she made only a single further appearance on record.

Born in Ft. Gibson, Oklahoma, in 1908, she saw early press accounts assert descent from a Cherokee princess together with a birth year five years after the actual date. Regardless of those claims, she began performing as a child, shaped by the recordings of Mildred Bailey and Ethel Waters. As a teenager she moved from Oklahoma to New York City, cut a handful of demos in the late 1920s, and soon joined Leo Reisman’s organization. Her breakthrough came in 1931 when “Time on My Hands,” recorded with Reisman, brought her solo radio spots. She also began cutting her own discs for Kapp, supported by the Casa Loma Orchestra, the Dorsey Brothers, and Johnny Green.

Her commercial momentum waned after a suspected case of tuberculosis forced her to stop singing for more than a year. In the late 1930s she resumed with sessions for Liberty Music Shop that produced a distinctive series of recordings, each devoted to the catalog of one composer—beginning with the Gershwins, followed by Cole Porter, Rodgers & Hart, and Harold Arlen. Issued on the conventional four-record 78-rpm album set, each collection contained eight songs and featured leading jazz players of the period, among them Eddie Condon, Bunny Berigan, Pee Wee Russell, Joe Bushkin, Fats Waller, and Jess Stacy. Stacy was her husband for several years in the 1940s. During that decade she also appeared regularly with his big band and with the smaller ensembles led by Condon. Columbia signed her in 1950; among the albums that followed was the highly regarded Night in Manhattan.

After one further LP for Storyville she moved in the mid-1950s to RCA Victor, where the two releases West of the Moon (1956) and A Touch of the Blues (1957) served as career summits. The first of these benefited from Ralph Burns’s subtle arrangements, which complemented her voice ideally. These proved to be essentially her final recordings. Fourteen years later she returned for a lone session, Back Home Again, issued in 1971. She died four years afterward in New York.