Marlena Shaw

A charismatic jazz singer whose sets merged pop classics with unadorned jazz material, Marlena Shaw stood out through her outgoing platform manner, thriving especially when performing directly for listeners.

Introduced by her uncle Jimmy Burgess to discs by Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis, she quickly developed a passion for the music and began collecting sides by Al Hibbler, whose phrasing left a lasting mark on her own approach. At age ten she sang at Harlem’s Apollo Theater, where the crowd’s strong approval failed to sway her mother’s decision against touring with her uncle, a trumpet player. Although she enrolled at the State Teachers’ College in Potsdam, New York, she left before finishing her studies. In 1963 she spent several months working New England clubs alongside a trio directed by Howard McGhee.

By the middle of the decade Shaw had become a regular attraction in the Catskills, at Playboy Clubs, and at additional New York venues. Her 1966 Cadet Records single “Mercy, Mercy, Mercy” moved briskly for an emerging artist; the rare vocal treatment of the instrumental prompted label executives to green-light a full album the following year. Titled Out of Different Bags to reflect its mixture of blues, jazz, and pop standards, the project reached listeners through her accountant’s introduction to Count Basie, leading to a four-year tenure as vocalist with the Basie orchestra.

After departing the ensemble in 1972, Shaw became the first woman signed to Blue Note Records and traveled briefly with Sammy Davis, Jr. Across five albums and assorted singles for the label, reviewers compared her delivery to that of Dinah Washington and Sarah Vaughan. Live, she enthralled clubgoers with an intoxicating fusion of straight-ahead jazz, soul, pop, and classic R&B, while her studio work also appealed to traditional-jazz listeners untroubled by blues or R&B influences. Blue Note Records (Europe) initiated reissues of her catalog in 2014, and in 2017 Akshin Alizadeh produced two remixes of her signature track “Woman of the Ghetto” for a limited-edition single on Cold Busted. Gilles Peterson championed the record, placing it on club playlists throughout Europe, Asia, and the United States. Shaw died on January 19, 2024, at the age of 81.