Maxine Sullivan

Maxine Sullivan stood out as a jazz vocalist whose subtle and lightly swinging style produced consistently appealing performances that treated every lyric with care across an extended professional span. After settling in New York, she performed during breaks at the Onyx Club and came to the attention of pianist Claude Thornhill. Thornhill arranged sessions with a supportive septet in which she interpreted several standards plus swinging versions of the Scottish folk songs “Annie Laurie” and “Loch Lomond.” The second of those tracks achieved major commercial success and served as her signature piece for the remainder of her career. Later dates presented additional vintage folk material, among them “Darling Nellie Gray,” “I Dream of Jeanie,” “Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes,” and “If I Had a Ribbon Bow.” Although comparable chart impact did not recur, she had become a recognized draw. Brief screen time in the film Going Places placed her opposite Louis Armstrong, and she also appeared in the Broadway production Swingin’ the Dream. From 1940 to 1942 she regularly performed with the Sextet led by her husband, bassist John Kirby, an ensemble ideally matched to her restrained approach. She anchored the radio series Flow Gently Sweet Rhythm for two seasons, pursued a modestly successful solo path, and, like Alberta Hunter, trained as a nurse in the mid-1950s. Sullivan resumed performing in 1968, appearing at festivals and occasionally playing valve trombone and flügelhorn. Now married to pianist Cliff Jackson, she retained the same stylistic character and vocal warmth as in earlier decades, sometimes joining the World’s Greatest Jazz Band and maintaining a steady recording schedule. In later years she worked frequently with mainstream jazz groups, including Scott Hamilton’s. Appropriately, the final song she recorded in concert was the same title that had opened her discography, “Loch Lomond.” Her earliest sessions appear on a Classics compact disc; a Tono LP preserves selections from her middle period; and beginning in 1969 her recordings were issued on Monmouth Evergreen (later reissued by Audiophile), Fat Cat Jazz, Riff, Kenneth, Stash, Atlantic, and Concord.