Anamari (Anna Schofield) born 1940

Anna Schofield ( aka Anamari) (born 1940 - November, 3, 2010) was an underappreciated female jazz and ballad singer, who would have remained in obscurity but for her only recording: an album from 1964 which is often overlooked.

Born Anna Schofield, in Norwich, New York, in 1940, she attended Norwich High School and the University of Toronto. Having entered university at the age of 16, she found a home in the world of performing arts and soon made her way to Greenwich Village and the life that awaited her. Like many before, she went to New York to discover a side of herself that had yet to blossom and perhaps to follow the elusive muse that drew her to a life of song and the introspective, beautiful power of music. Quoted in 1963 in an article about her music Anna said, “I’ve only begun to understand why I sing. While singing has always been important, its import grows incessantly. Now, I must sing.”

      Here's "Ballad Of The Sad Young men" from above album

                                  

It’s little surprise that only a year later, in 1964, she released her first album on the Atlantic label. Entitled Anamari, it was produced by Nesushi Ertegun, the famed co-founder of Atlantic Records and was a hauntingly unique example of jazz balladry, a courageous work in that there was no attempt to hide from the intensity of these ballads. The public respected that directness, and combined with her “total involvement in” and the “uncharged uniqueness” of her performances, her success grew. She toured the country and performed internationally, but was renowned in the jazz clubs of New York City. Particularly important gigs were held at The Village Gate and Gypsy’s and she was often accompanied by some of the most revered jazz musicians of the day, including Jim Hall, Art Framer and Clark Terry.

Norwich

In 1974, her daughter Alana was born and while continuing to sing and work, Anna focused much of her attention on raising her child, while being the go-to person for her family in Norwich and her circle of friends in New York. Always searching and learning, versed in many disciplines from electric engineering to accounting to health and nutrition, Anna was a source of wisdom, humour, family history and not-so-common sense information for many friends and loved ones. In the 1990’s she returned to Norwich to care for her mother and spent much time in the place she referred to, only half-jokingly, as Brigadoon. An inventor of specialty cocktails like the “Hot Edy,” she even titles a favourite one “the Brigadoon” in honour of her home in the valley. Anna enjoyed her herb garden and her cats and was an unbelievable whiz at crossword puzzles and impossible sudokus, but it was her love of music and of her daughter and family that guided her throughout.

Anna Schofield passed on November 3, 2010 aged 70.

Quoting from her liner notes of one of her albums, “Her performances are always marked by a dignity and originality; and perhaps the most illusive quality of all – honesty – which is a hard quality to come by in a world so predisposed to artificiality.” 

(Edited from obit @ Wilson Funeral Home)