Valerie Capers

Valerie Capers released her 1995 Columbia album Come on Home within the Legendary Pioneers of Jazz series, yet her scant visibility and sparse discography keep her far from legendary stature while her age precludes any pioneer designation. As a child she fingered tunes at the piano before losing her sight at six. That loss never impeded her acquisition of Braille music reading or her distinction as the first blind graduate of the Juilliard School of Music. Although then rooted in classical performance, she felt the pull of jazz and soon joined Mongo Santamaria. Capers made her Atlantic session in 1965; seventeen years passed before her next recording, a self-produced effort issued on the tiny KM Arts label, and thirteen more years elapsed before the Columbia date appeared. In between she performed with Ray Brown, Slide Hampton, James Moody, Max Roach, and Dizzy Gillespie, though her chief activity remained high-level music education. Wagner Takes the "A" Train on Elysium surfaced in 1999.