Mildred Bailey earned acclaim as an early jazz vocalist whose sweet tone allowed her to straddle mainstream popularity and a hotter jazz path, earning her the title Mrs. Swing while her husband, Red Norvo, was known as Mr. Swing. Born Mildred Rinker in Washington state in 1907, she took to the stage young, accompanying herself on piano and singing in movie houses through the early 1920s. By 1925 she had become the featured performer at a Hollywood club, mixing pop material, early jazz numbers, and vaudeville standards. Shaped by the styles of Ethel Waters, Bessie Smith, and Connie Boswell, she refined a soft, swinging approach that drew crowds across local nightspots. After mailing a demonstration disc to Paul Whiteman in 1929, she joined one of the period’s most prominent dance orchestras. The visibility that came with Whiteman soon brought her a radio program of her own. Although she had already cut her first sides with guitarist Eddie Lang in 1929, real recognition arrived in 1932 when she recorded her signature song, “Rockin’ Chair”—a piece Hoagie Carmichael wrote expressly for her—alongside a small group drawn from Whiteman’s band. While cutting sides for Vocalion throughout the 1930s, she often worked with her husband, xylophonist and vibraphonist Red Norvo. She also joined him on his late-decade sessions, where Eddie Sauter’s arrangements suited her voice perfectly. Even after her divorce from Norvo, Bailey kept performing and recording through the 1940s. She appeared on Benny Goodman’s Camel Caravan broadcasts and hosted another series of her own in the middle of the decade. Health setbacks late in the 1940s led to hospital stays for diabetes, and she died of a heart attack in 1951.
