Sheila Jordan
Vocalist (interview conducted in conversation over Zoom)
You have said before that “Music saved my life!” Could you elaborate a bit?
I grew up in an alcoholic family. My grandparents raised me. My mother was only 17 when I was born so my grandparents raised me until I was 14 years old and everybody drank. Everybody in the family had a drinking problem, so the only way I felt happy when I was a kid was singing. But I was singing all the time. My grandfather called me “little song” because I was constantly singing. That’s how music saved my life because every time I felt sad or something not so nice happened in my life, I would sing about it.
Pennsylvania
The coal mines, the out of work coal miners, a lot of prejudice against my family. My grandfather came from native backgrounds. My four or five generations grandmother was Queen Allaquippa of the Seneca Nation, so we were called half breeds. Don’t give those half breeds fire water, which was alcohol. So when I think of Pennsylvania I remember the beautiful mountains cause we lived right in back of a huge mountain. I guess you’d call it a hill now but at that time it was a mountain to me. But a lot of unhappiness. I can’t say that when I think of Pennsylvania that I have happy memories. I mean there were some you know, and they tried, they did their best, but alcoholism is a powerful disease and we had it. My family had it. I stayed there and lived with my grandparents until I was 14. Then I moved to be with my mother because by this time she could take care of me but my mother was also a very serious alcoholic so it wasn’t an easy life. When I graduated from high school, I left and I went on my own. I got a job, a part time job even while I was still in high school and then when I graduated from high school I left my mother and I went into an evangelist home for young women. I had a room, I got my meals and I had a little office job typing and I took care of myself while I was still quite young. Then I met Frank Foster and I was going to all the jazz clubs in Detroit, even though it was hard for me because it was very prejudiced racially so I was always down at the police station cause the cops did not like to see young white girls with Afro American people. Whether it was guys or women they didn’t care. Even in high school my principal called me into her office one time and said “you just so nice, why do you hang around with the colored girls?” And I was in shock. I said “What?” I said “Colored? What do you mean purple, pink, yellow, orange… colored?” She said “Go on, get out!” She was angry and I knew what she meant but I wasn’t going to give in to her because I grew up with racial prejudice and I knew what it felt like. I just wasn’t going to give in to it. It was wrong, I knew it was wrong at that early age. I knew that was wrong.
Detroit
I love Detroit in the sense that it’s where I found out about Charlie Parker, the music. As I said I always sang from the time I was a little kid because everybody in town knew I could sing and of course the kids used to make fun of me because I’d be on little radio programs in Pennsylvania but I always loved to sing. I didn’t know what kind of music I wanted to sing but I remember I was in high school and there was a juke box across the street in this hamburger place where we all went for our lunch. I was always putting a nickel in the machine if I had one and I saw this one recording which said Charlie Parker and his Reboppers, not Beboppers -Reboppers. And I said “Oh that looks interesting” and I put my nickel in and Bird came on and it was 4 or 5 notes in and Oh my god! My skin was crawling. I said “that’s the music I’ll dedicate my life to.“ Regardless of what I do, whether I support it or sing it or teach it or just go out and pay respect to these wonderful musicians. And in doing so I found out where the young people played this music and there was a club in downtown Detroit, that was run by a white couple from Canada, who were cool. They didn’t have that racial thing going on. And it was cool because we could go there because they didn’t sell alcohol and that’s where I met Tommy Flanagan, Kenny Burrell and Barry Harris. Then I met these two young guys, African-American singers who were singing Bird and I loved that and I tried to learn all these bebop heads, so I asked them “Can I sit in with you guys?” and they looked at each other and they said “well yeah, I guess”… And we became Skeeter, Mitch and Jean.
I heard Bird for the first time at the Graystone Ballroom at a concert there and it was cool because they didn’t sell alcohol. It was kind of like a concert hall, a dance hall.
You could hear the music. There was this great older musician saxophone player, Billy Mitchell. At one point he told Bird, from what I heard later, he told Bird “You gotta hear these kids sing. They sing you!” And Bird got up after the break and he played a tune and then he stopped and he said I got a surprise for you and there are some guests in the house and I want them to come up and sing and we were looking around “Oh man that’s going to be wild, that’s great!” Never dreaming it would be us! So he said “You kids over there, Billy’s friends”. And I looked at Skeeter and Mitch and they looked at me and we got up and we sang. I don’t remember what we sang …might’ve been Confirmation. I’m not sure but anyway Skeeter and Mitch were great at writing lyrics to those tunes. I didn’t write any lyrics until later, but at that time we got up and we sang for Bird! After Bird came over to us and he thanked us and he looked at me and he said “Kid you got million dollar ears”! I had no idea what does he mean “Million dollar ears?” A few years later in the early 50’s my boyfriend became Frank Foster and we had a little furnished room together and then when Frank was drafted into the Korean War. I decided I wanted to go to New York and be around Charlie Parker’s music. Anyway, Frank went into the army and I moved to New York and I got a furnished room and I stayed in New York. I went to hear Bird on 52ndStreet. All the greats were on 52ndstreet. Bud Powell in his prime. Nobody played like Bud Powell in his prime! Oh my God! And Monk and Bird and Miles and Dizzy and all the great cats. I was a bebopper then! I remember this friend of mine that I knew from Detroit and stayed in touch with, she called me up and she said “Sheila, I’m going up to Birdland. (The old Birdland, on 52ndStreet) to hear Bird. Do you want to go with me?” I said “Oh my God, but of course”. I went with her and during the break she said “I’m going back to say hello to Bird do you want to come along.” I said “Yeah!” I went with her and Bird hugged her, was glad to see her, gave her a kiss and they talked for a little while and then he looked over and he saw me. Now this is several years later. Not many, but several years later and he looked over at me and he said “I know you, you’re the kid with the million dollar ears from Detroit”. I said “Oh my God” and that was it! And then we became friends and Bird became like my big brother.
Duke Jordan
I met Duke when he was playing with Bird and we started going out on dates soon. Frank was in the army and sort of disappeared and we lost touch and I started going out with Duke and we ended up getting married and living in Brooklyn. Then I found a loft on 26thstreet right off of 8thavenue in NY city. Lofts were great because you could have sessions there all night and Duke and I both lived in the loft for a while. Now this is before my daughter was born and then Charlie Mingus and Max Roach both knew that I was looking for a teacher and suggested Lennie Tristano. I went to Lennie for lessons and Lennie would have these sessions on Saturday nights after all the lessons. It was great. That’s where I started doing the bass and voice. Peter (Ind) was the bass player or any bass player that was at the session. At a very early time of my life I heard the bass. I’m the pioneer of the bass and voice. I studied with Lennie for a couple of years and that was it.
What did you study with Lennie Tristano?
In my first lesson he wanted me to learn Charlie Parker’s Now’s the Time and I said I know it. And he said well sing it and I said OK. So I sang it and he said “Oh damn, you do know it. Ok then, how about Prez?“ I said “No I don’t know Lester Young”. He said “OK, so that’s your lesson!”
Lester was a thing he taught us. Learning different solos. The piano players he taught something else but another thing he taught me was don’t try to sound like anybody else. You have your own story to tell so you tell your story and let it be that. Don’t try to imitate anybody else. For God’s sake I knew I couldn’t sing like Sarah, she had the most glorious voice and I knew that I couldn’t scat like Ella, the greatest scat singer in the world for me, and I knew I couldn’t sing like Billie, Billie’s depth and her story, so I realized that very early and I only sang me. I sang my story.
Herbie Nichols
Yes, I worked for Herbie Nichols. After my daughter was born I worked in an office during the day, typing… no big deal. I was just a typist in a typing pool and then I got a job with an ad agency. I worked at a lot of different places but my permanent job I kept until I left in 61, I think. The advertising agency folded so they gave a year’s pay and it was there at the advertising agency that I started doing a few commercials. They found out because of the Christmas party that I loved to sing and knew that I was a singer and they would say “Could you Get Up and Sing?” and I knew the trio that they hired cause I knew them from the jazz world. So I got up and sang and Bill Burnback who was the creative director for the agency heard me and when they wanted a jazz sound on a commercial they’d call me up. That was great because I made a little extra money. I wouldn’t do it unless I really liked the music. So I did that. At that time I also worked at this little club in the Village, Page Three, and made about $6 a night but I didn’t make any money by the time I paid the baby sitter since by this time I had my daughter. Duke had left and moved back to Brooklyn and I didn’t go after him for child support. He had enough problems. He was struggling with heroin addiction and I didn’t want to cause him any more trouble than he already had so I raised my daughter by myself. I never took him to court. In addition to my day job I had this job at night where I would go and sing songs and try out ideas and learn new tunes and that’s where I heard Herbie Nichols. Herbie Nichols was the piano player down there and he said to the Club owner, he said, “The only one I worry about is the jazz singer”. Why would he be worried about me? I wouldn’t be worried about anybody. Herbie Nichols took me on a musical trip I’ll never forget. I’ve had a few of those… not a lot. Out of body experiences where you actually leave your body when you’re doing the music … and one of those was with Herbie Nichols. And I’ll never forget it. I was floating and it was like, I didn’t even remember who it was or who I was or who he was. All I knew is I was floating. I was floating over myself looking down at this person singing on this little stage but, ah I can’t explain it. You don’t have them very often but it was an out of body experience. You totally leave your body and I remember that one with Herbie. I think I was singing When the World Was Young, but I’m not sure if that was the song. You know Herbie Nichols had a very special way of playing and he took me on musical trips I’ll never forget.
Recording with George Russell on The Outer View
Yeah well what happened was George Russell came in to the Page Three because there was another pianist who played there on Herbie’s nights off. It was Jack Riley, who was a student of George Russell’s. George came in to hear Jack play and hear him accompany singers, but mostly to hear him play. And he heard me and George Russell came over to me during the break. I had sung and I was sitting at the table where all the musicians sat. He said to me “Where do you come from to sing like that?” I said “I come from hell, man!” He said “Oh, can I visit Hell with you one day” and I said “Yeah”. So I gave him my telephone number and forgot about it. George just called me one day and he said “Are you free to go back to Hell?” and I said “What?” and he said “Are you free to go back to Hell, where you said you started?” I said “Oh yeah!” My friend would take care of my daughter and I took him back to Pennsylvania and we went up to this private club that my grandmother was a member of. It was just for coal miners. They could bring friends in, but it was basically for coal miners and I went in with my grandmother and there was nobody there. All the miners were out of work. They were all on strike but there was this one miner there and so me and George and my grandmother, I was still drinking at the time, and we had some drinks. My grandmother introduced us to this miner like we were a big deal and I said to my grandmother “Mama, I’m not a big deal.” George Russell is a big deal but I’m not. I’m just a friend of George’s. The miner looked at me and he said “Are you still singing You are my Sunshine, Jeanie”. (My middle name was Jeanie (Jeannette) and I didn’t use Sheila in grade school when I was in Pennsylvania cause it was an unusual name and I got teased all the time so I started going by Jeanie.) I said “Oh no, no I don’t sing that one any more”. He said “Why not?” and George Russell said “Yeah, why not?” There was an old out of tune upright piano and George went over to it and started playing and he was playing way out and it was wonderful. But my grandmother thought what is he playing for God’s sake and she told him “That’s not the way it goes!” And she literally pushed him off the bench and she sat down and played You are my Sunshine and I sang with her. And then we left. The next day we drove back to NY. About a week or so later George called me up. He said “If you’re free before you pick up your daughter from nursery school on your way down there leave yourself an hour or as I’d like you to hear something.” So I did. I went to George’s, he had a little studio on either Bank or Jay Street and I went in and I sat down and he said “OK I want you to hear this.” He started to play this incredible piano solo. Ah I loved it! It was very out but in and very deep and soulful and then he stopped. He said “OK, Sing!” I said “Sing what?” He said “Sing You Are My Sunshine.” I said “Are you gonna play underneath me?” He said “No. I want you to sing it alone.” I said “Oh I can’t do that.” He said “Yes you can. You did it when you were a kid. Of course you can do it.” I said “I don’t know.” He said “Please sing it”. And I sang the first chorus all by myself and then the second chorus he came in and he added beautiful little chords …but they were out, man. Oh incredible! And then that was it and so then he was at Riverside Records recording The Outer View he called me up and said “I want you to come up here if you’re free.” I think it was a Saturday and so I was free from my job and I went up. He said OK I want you to sing in a recording booth over there. So he played Sunshine (hums) and all this beautiful stuff going on and then this incredible saxophone player from Ohio, Paul Plummer, he was playing this incredible solo and I’m thinking “What am I supposed to be doing?” I was just enjoying the music and then it stopped and George said “OK you sing.” I said “What do you mean Sing? You mean sing by myself?” He said “Yes, sing alone.” And I did and then he brought in all these incredible things on the second chorus. That was Sunshine. He wanted to change it to a drinking song dedicated to the out of work coal miners of Pennsylvania but he couldn’t. They wouldn’t let him do that. Then George paid for a demo tape of me singing and he hired Barry Galbraith on guitar, Steve Swallow on acoustic bass who was still playing at Page Three with me and Denzil Best. He made this demo tape and he took it to Blue Note Records who had never recorded a singer before and he also took a copy of it to Quincy Jones at Mercury, I think. Alfred Lion and Francis Wolff heard it and they picked it up. They said we never recorded a singer but we’re going to record this one and I did Portrait of Sheila. In the meantime Quincy also sent me a letter and said he was so sorry that I didn’t record with him and he wished me the very, very best. Maybe I should call him now!!! Anyway, that’s the story of Blue Note. I’m not great at recording. I like more live recordings where they can record me while I’m performing. I’m not great in the studio. I don’t feel great in a studio in a little booth like that, I never have. I hear every sound, every click.
The ”You are my sunshine” recording …as it relates to miners etc. There is a real sadness in the way you sing it, spiritual….
Thank you. Well as I said the music saved my life. You know it was the one thing that I could do that I knew would not turn its back on me. That it would pull me through my whole life and it has. And I had my day job and then I got laid off and they gave me a year’s pay at the advertising agency. They were merging with another company and I could stay and be a typist or they said they would give me a year’s pay. So… a little voice in my head and in my heart said “Take the money! Go Sing! That’s what you’ve been wanting to do so shut up and take the money and go sing.” So that’s what I did.
You are on Carla Bley’s Escalator Over The Hill…
Yes, I am. Well, I love Carla Bley’s music but I don’t know why she wanted me but I did it and Steve Swallow was on it too. And it had Paul Hines’ poetry.
And you also did Steve Swallow’s Home with poems by Robert Creeley.
Yes, Bob Moses, Steve Kuhn and Dave Liebman were on that one and there was another keyboard player, what was his name? …(Lyle Mays)….. That’s right.
The music on Home is quite challenging
Oh yeah ,I guess so! Steve said he wanted me to hear something and he came by the apartment and I had my piano there at the time and he started playing and I said “Beautiful music “and he said “You like it ?”and I said “yeah.” He said “Well, here it is I want you to learn it and want you to record it.” I said “Oh, I can’t do that!” He said “Yeah, you can!” So, I went to hear Robert Creeley recite his poetry at the 92ndstreet Y. It was incredible. I introduced myself and I said “Oh my God I love the way you recite! I will never be able to sing it like you recite it! It’s so beautiful.” Later he said in a Downbeat article he wished he could recite his poetry the way I sang it. I couldn’t believe he said that! He was a beautiful man and I really loved him.
Billie Holiday
Oh, Billie Holiday! Nobody sang with the heart and soul like Billie. Then and now! I mean all of these great singers. Ella’s scatting, Sarah with the most magnificent voice I’ve ever heard in jazz. Billie didn’t have that voice but she had that heart and soul that touched me the minute I heard her sing the first two notes. What a life she must have had! She touched me emotionally. She’s my favorite singer!
Your greatest musical triumph!
I haven’t done it yet!
“If I could do it all over again, one thing I would do differently…”
I would never have gotten into drinking and snorting cocaine. It almost ruined my life. Thank God I found a program and I’ve been a member of that program ever since. I’ve been clean and sober now through the program for 34 years. But I was on a dry drunk. For eight years I didn’t drink but then I started snorting a little cocaine once in a while. Not everyday because I couldn’t afford it, but it was pretty crazy But thank God I found the solution. I had a spiritual awakening. I remember like it was yesterday. I was on my couch in NY city where I still am now. Still have that apartment and I was coming out of a…I hadn’t slept because I was snorting cocaine and getting high. But I wasn’t drinking but you know I was on the dry drunk and this voice came to me and said I gave you a gift and if you don’t take care of it I’m going to take it away and give it to somebody else. And I was sort of like half out of it and I looked up to see who was this. There was nobody there but that voice was so strong and so real and so prominent. I got the phone and I called an organization a woman picked up and I told her I’ve been 8 years blah blah blah blah dry doing it on my own. She said “Why would you want to do it by yourself when we are here to help you?” That makes sense you know and that’s it and I’ve been sober ever since. It’s a wonderful program. I won’t go into detail I respect the privacy. So many musicians died from drug addiction especially in the Charlie Parker days because Bird had the powerful disease of alcoholism but mostly drug addiction and I just wish he could’ve gone to the meeting. Bird was only 34 years old when he died. He came to my loft so many times. I remember one time he came up and he played solo for one hour. He just took his horn out. Nobody was there to accompany him. He said “Can I play?” and I said “Yeah!” I’ll never forget that and why didn’t have a tape recorder at the time. Why didn’t I have a camera at the time. All these beautiful moments with Charlie Parker. He’s the reason I sing. He was my spiritual God you know!
Teaching
How I got to teaching was because of Eddie Summerland(?) and John Lewis. Eddie was the head of City College up in Harlem and John Lewis was a teacher and also a part of the jazz department, head of the jazz department. I did a concert up there and Eddie said “That was wonderful “and John Lewis said “I haven’t heard you since you were a kid in Detroit. Why don’t you come up here and teach and Eddie why don’t you fix it up so Sheila can come up and teach” and I said “No, no, no I’m not a teacher. I don’t have a degree.” John said “You have a degree in life! Teach what you do. Teach that. That’s what jazz is.” I said “Well I’ll try” but I was scared, I really was. But you know what? I learnt to teach by teaching. Then I started a workshop in Vermont at the Vermont Jazz Center through Eugene Uman and that’s in August and then with Billy Taylor and Max Roach and the wonderful Dr. Fred Tillis who was the head of the Music Department up in Amherst. I did a concert up there with Harvie doing bass and voice duet. Dr. Tillis was there and he came over to me afterwards, He said “We have a teacher here in the summer for two weeks but she doesn’t teach what you’re teaching. Why don’t you come and teach” and I said “No, no I don’t want to take anybody’s job.” He said “well no!” He said “I have to get rid of her because she’s calling them names and yelling and screaming at them and they’re paying good money.“ Who wants to pay good money to be told they’re a turkey and that they can’t sing? They need encouragement. I said Well that’s what I do but I don’t want to take her job especially because she was Afro American and there’s this white woman coming and taking this lady’s job. So they got another woman and she was Afro American and she taught for that year and then the next year I came in and I started to teach In the meantime I was doing the bass and voice and I went to, I think South Carolina, and that’s where this woman who was the teacher before me lived. She came to my concert and I said “Oh my Gosh! She’s gonna kill me!” I hadn’t seen her since I took her job and I was in the bathroom and she came in. She’s gonna get me! Instead she complemented me. She said “I’m glad you took over the course and you’re doing a great job and everybody speaks very highly of it.” I said “Really?” She said “Yes! Glad you joined.” So that was nice. I don’t teach at City College anymore. Every once in a while I’ll do a master class. I couldn’t do it anymore because I started working more. I lost my job and all of a sudden I worked more than I had ever worked in my life. It’s incredible Life has been very good to me and I’m very, very grateful to all the wonderful musicians who have helped me through my life. It’s been fantastic.
Sheila you are an absolute treasure and role model to many. And you keep doing so many things.
I will keep on doing until I die, my darling. Thank you. Well, you don’t just take these things for granted. It’s a gift that was given to you whether it’s big or small so if you start taking it for granted as I said earlier it can be taken away and given to somebody else. I just do what I think I was told to do and I just wanna keep doing it. I call jazz music in the United States the Step Child of American music cause nobody ever talks about it on any of these big music programs. They don’t even mention it. The only time it was mentioned recently was when they gave an award to, I think was it Wayne Shorter, but other than that they don’t even put it in the credits and if they do it’s so small and fast. They don’t respect it and it’s the only music that America can really call its own I don’t know the reason for that. One time a lady saw me at a concert and she said “I love the way you sing. You must’ve had a lot of training and schooling”. I said “You wanna know where I went to school?” She said” Yes!” I said “I’ll tell you who my teachers were.” I said “The music came from the cotton fields in the south where the Afro Americans were brought against their will to the United States to work in the south for little or no money, little or no food, bad and terrible conditions and they were thrown out in the cotton fields to pick cotton. How did they get through it?” She looked at me …“I don’t know!” I said “They sang the blues (singing). It started with the blues… that’s where it started.” She just looked at me like “Oh!” It’s true that’s where it started. It started with the Afro Americans being brought here against their will, put in the cotton fields against their will, were paid nothing, given very little food and how did they get through their life….singing and they sang the blues… (singing) That’s it!
Thank you Sheila. You are amazing!
You’re very welcome. Thank you so much!