Carol Sloane born 5 March 1937

Carol Sloane (March 5, 1937 – January 23, 2023) was an American jazz singer. 

Born Carol Morvan in Providence, Rhode Island, she was drawn to music at an early age listening to the sounds of the wartime and postwar big bands of the swing era. She began her professional career in 1951 singing with Rhode Island society band leader Ed Drew while still a student at North Providence High School at which time she took on her first stage name, “Carol Vann.” 

In 1953, she made her first recording, a single of two songs originally intended as a demo for the songs themselves. Apparently, someone who heard the demos thought Carol’s versions were fine and the record did see a general release on both 7” 45 rpm and 10” 78 rpm. (Unfortunately, Carol’s stage name at the time, Vann, was misspelled as “Van” with one N on the labels.). 

During this period, she became an ardent jazz fan and began hanging out in the East Side neighborhood. She also spent a lot of time at Carl’s Diggins, a record store adjacent to the club. The shop was run by Carl Henry who was a jazz disc jockey and promoter and an early advocate of Rhythm & Blues in the days before Rock ’n’ Roll. Carl became a mentor figure to Carol, hipping her to all the latest sounds, advising her on purchases and introducing her to the musicians from next door who dropped by all the time. 

She first gained national attention in 1958 when she joined the orchestra of Larry Elgart with whom with she recorded for RCA Victor. Elgart rechristened her “Carol Sloane” when she joined the band. She left the Elgart organization in 1959. By 1960 she was booked as a solo artist at the Pittsburgh Jazz Festival where she was heard by Jon Hendricks of the legendary vocal trio Lambert, Hendricks & Ross who became an instant fan. He first enlisted her as a sub for the group’s female vocalist, Annie Ross, who was suffering from some health problems. He next presented her as a guest vocalist during a LH&R performance at The Village Vanguard in New York City and helped her secure her first solo booking at the club opening for Oscar Peterson. 

In 1961, Hendricks convinced producers to include Carol in their “New Stars” program that summer at Newport. She garnered rave reviews for her performance and was heard by a representative of Columbia Records who put the wheels in motion. Columbia signed her and she recorded an album a few months later. Released in 1962, Out Of The Blue was unanimously praised by the press and launched her on a solo career. Wein brought the festival back to Newport that year and Carol again appeared in a knockout performance which featured legendary tenor saxophonist Coleman Hawkins. 

                                   

She released a second album in time for Christmas of 1962, Live At 30th Street – a live performance recorded at the Columbia Studios in Manhattan and it was another critical favorite. However, sales were slow (some say due to the the preponderance of Rock ’n’ Roll on the airwaves) and although they did not drop her from the label, Columbia put Carol on the back burner. She bided her time taking club engagements, singing in Manhattan and back home at The Kings & Queens in Pawtucket where she was recorded live with another tenor giant, Ben Webster. She also became a regular on Arthur Godfrey Time, an incredibly popular CBS Radio morning show which was broadcast nationally Monday through Friday. 

She recorded two stand-alone singles of a more commercial nature for Columbia in 1963 and 1965, but neither managed to crack the charts and she parted ways with Columbia. She did not record again until 1973. During the late 1960s and early ’70s, Carol bided her time taking a variety of jobs in and out of the music business. Things began to snowball when she was asked to record an album in Tokyo, Japan for Trio Records. The Japanese are ardent jazz fans and collectors and Carol’s two Columbia albums had become high-priced collectibles there. By the late ‘70s, Carol had become a revered and legendary figure in their large jazz community. 

After the Japanese release of Sophisticated Lady in 1977 put her back in the public eye, she began recording regularly for various labels and by the late 1980s was recording for American jazz giant Fantasy Records under their Contemporary and Concord imprints. Altogether, she recorded more than two dozen critically-acclaimed, internationally released albums as a leader in the company of dozens of jazz legends and giants including Clark Terry, Tommy Flanagan, Bob Brookmeyer, Art Farmer, Jim Hall, Sir Roland Hanna, Ben Webster and Phil Woods, just to name a few. 

Carol Sloane was inducted into the Rhode Island Music Hall of Fame on April 21, 2016 during a performance at Chan’s in Woonsocket, Rhode Island. She died on January 23, 2023, due to complications from a stroke she had two years prior. 

(Edited from the Rhode Island Music Hall of Fame Historical Archive)