Salena Jones (aka Joan Shaw) born 29 January 1930

Salena Jones (born Joan Elizabeth Shaw, January 29, 1930*) is an American jazz and cabaret singer. After performing and recording in the US as Joan Shaw from the late 1940s until the early 1960s, in various styles including jazz and R&B, she moved to England and from then on performed as Salena Jones. She has toured internationally and recorded over forty albums. 

A direct descendant of Crazy Horse, the Indian Sioux warrior, Joan Shaw was born in Newport News, Virginia and began singing in church and school before making her debut on life’s bigger stages.  As a very young girl, her career began in New York at Manhattan clubs and going on to Harlem’s Apollo Theater, when she won the amateur night singing “September Song”. Joan grew up in New York in the company of musicians who would become the legends: Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, Dizzie Gillespie, Bud Powell, Wes Montgomery, Chico Hamilton and Stan Getz, she met all these people, jamming with some of them and began making demonstration records for artists like Peggy Lee, Brenda Lee and Lena Horne, before getting her own recording contract. 

Based in New York, with her own “Blues Express Orchestra”, Joan toured widely across the US with “King” Curtis in her band, also working with Johnnie Ray, Laverne Baker, Arthur Prysock, and Frankie Lyman.  This rhythm ‘n’ blues period was the forerunner to rock ‘n’ roll and it is evident that Joan Shaw is revered today by aficionados of that important era, making 15 singles between the ages of eleven and fifteen years old.. Joan then worked regularly at the famous venues of the Village Vanguard, Minton’s Playhouse and Wells Supper Club. Leonard Feather, the noted jazz critic for “Downbeat” magazine, named Joan Shaw as one of his choices as “most promising newcomers”, together with “Peggy Lee, Ella Fitzgerald and Mel Torme”. 

Glamorous and beautiful, with her distinctive voice and relaxed style, by then she had met and sung with a array of great jazz names. Her photo album shows her arm in arm with everyone from Betty Carter to Cab Calloway, Billy Eckstine, Vic Damone and Lena Horne. However, wanting to expand her horizons, and concerned at racism in her native country, Joan Shaw bought a one way ticket to Madrid where, having sung one song at the “Whiskey and Jazz Club”, on the same night as her arrival in Spain, she was immediately engaged to sing nightly with Dexter Gordon. But London called, and arriving in 1965, her management recommended a name-change. She said, "I loved Sarah Vaughan so much and adored Lena Horne's elegance; I put them together as 'Salena.' It looked good. And I kept Joan in 'Jones.'" And that's how Salena Jones was born." 

                                   

She was soon booked to appear for the first time at Ronnie Scott`s for two weeks but, such was the audience reaction that she was held over for another week, and then another: eventually appearing for seven consecutive weeks – still a record after all this time for one of the most famous clubs in the world.   Salena has also appeared throughout Britain, touring with the Million Airs Orchestra, France, Germany, Switzerland, Spain, the Netherlands, Italy, Denmark, Sweden, Belgium, Turkey, Austria and Bulgaria. 

She has also made numerous television and radio broadcasts in Britain, and throughout Europe, often supported by the BBC Big Band. She has also performed in Australia, Africa, South America, China, Canada, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Thailand and Japan. Since her first visit to Japan in 1978 she has returned at least annually, memorably in the Unesco Save The Children Telethon (1988), and on a concert tour with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (1992). 

Salena opened her own jazz club in London in 2001. Over the last five decades, Salena Jones has been a central figure on the British jazz scene and from her base here she has conquered the world. Early 2000 saw Salena starring at the Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival in Idaho, backed by the Hank Jones Quartet including such as Russell Malone, Lewis Nash, and also featuring trumpeter Roy Hargrove, singer Dianne Reeves and Freddie Cole. January 2001 saw Salena return to Israel for eight sell-out shows, and she took her trio to Japan in May for two weeks appearing for Cartier, the jewellers, at their trade fairs throughout the country. In May 2006, Salena sang again in China opening the Shanghai International Jazz Festival (opened in 2005 by Diana Krall). Salena opened with Lee Ritenour, and Tower of Power. 

On January 28, 2009, Salena married Keith Mansfield and they now live in the Ascot area of the county of Royal Berkshire. In her career to date Salena has recorded over forty albums, covering nearly five hundred songs, and sold over 500,000 albums worldwide and her album entitled "My Love" recorded in Tokyo won her an award in Japan for outstanding sales. Future concerts booked are at the Pheasantry, Chelsea, London in March and Ronnie Scotts, Soho, London in May 2024. 

(Edited form salenajones.com & Wikipedia) (*some sources give birth year as 1944 and others as 1938. I have opted for 1930 as quoted from Marv Goldbergs Notebooks & The Encyclopedia Yearbooks of Jazz by Leonard Feather.)