This piano-playing daughter of legendary Indian sitar meister Ravi Shankar was born in New York but raised in Texas. While you’re reading, listen to our Best Female Jazz Singers playlist here. Proceeding in an ascending order of greatness, it is a rich tapestry of voices – perhaps the greatest female choir ever assembled. The following is a list of the 25 best female jazz singers of all time.
And with talented young singers such as Cécile McLorin Salvant, Charenée Wade, Cyrille Aimée, and Jazzmeia Horn all waiting in the wings, the future looks incredibly bright for female jazz singers. More importantly, their presence shows us that singing jazz isn’t a dead art form, but is very much alive and still evolving. The inclusion of contemporary chanteuses – among them Dianne Reeves, Madeleine Peyroux, and Diana Krall – reveals that Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, and Sarah Vaughan still have descendents in jazz. The fewer notes they used, the more profound and eloquent they seemed to be. For those artists, communicating with their audience and conveying deep emotion was paramount. But dazzling technique isn’t everything – nor is it, necessarily, a prerequisite for being a jazz singer, as Billie Holiday, Nina Simone, and Peggy Lee demonstrated.
There are those, like Ella, Vaughan, Betty Carter, and Anita O’Day, whose voices are agile and athletic, and able to indulge in mind-boggling vocal gymnastics. Indeed, each one has a unique quality that makes them special, and they have all made (and some are still making) a vital contribution to the art – and history – of jazz singing. While this formidable trio’s greatness is not in dispute – nor ever will be – it doesn’t necessarily mean that the remaining 22 singers on the list that follows can be considered as mere also-rans, there just to make up the numbers. There are, of course, those who are so significant that their names will automatically be at the top of most people’s lists of the best female jazz singers of all time – namely, the mighty Holy Trinity comprising Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, and Sarah “Sassy” Vaughan. It’s not so much a question of who to include, but, rather, who to omit. Jazz has produced so many accomplished and influential female singers over the years that limiting the best female jazz singers to a meager 25 is a challenge that many would deem impossible.
There has been no shortage of talented singers over the decades, but the best female jazz singers possess unique voices and personalities which truly ensure they hold their own against their male counterparts. There is, however, one area of the genre where females have always excelled and flourished – the domain of the jazz vocalist. Ever since jazz was born at the dawn of the 20th Century, women have been – and continue to be – a minority in what is a largely male-dominated world.
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