Betty O'Hara born 24 May 1925

Betty O'Hara (24 May 1925 - 18 April, 2000) was an American brass player and among jazz's best kept secrets. A gifted but obscure and under-recorded improviser/arranger who knew her way around several horns and was an expressive singer to boot. In addition to singing and composing, multi-talented jazz musician Betty O'Hara was proficient at several different instruments, including trumpet, cornet, piccolo-trumpet, flügelhorn, trombone, valve trombone, and an uncommon instrument called the double-bell euphonium.

Born in Earl Park, Indiana, O'Hara began her interest in music at the age of nine, when she took up the trumpet. She toured USO facilities as part of Freddy Shaffer’s Victory Sweethearts all-girl band in the ‘40s. After performing in such ensembles as the Hartford Connecticut Symphony, O'Hara relocated to southern California in the early '60s with her bass trombone-playing husband, Barrett O'Hara. She began working as a studio musician, before becoming a charter member of the Maiden Voyage Big Band during the late '70s, and forming the Jazzbirds with trumpeter/flügelhornist Stacy Rowles during the early '80s. It was also during the '80s that O'Hara recorded soundtracks for such hit prime-time TV programs as Hill Street Blues and Magnum P.I.

                                  

                               Here's Stardust from above LP

She issued two solo albums on her own. On 1985's Horns Aplenty, O'Hara is featured on trumpet, trombone, and flugelhorn as well as the euphonium. Joined by pianist Johnny Varro, bassist Morty Corb, and drummer/vibist Gene Estes, she is heard as both an instrumentalist and a singer. O'Hara's vocals on "Stardust" and "If Dreams Come True" have a Peggy Lee-ish quality and show how charming she could be, and the instrumentals demonstrate that while O'Hara was consistently swinging, she was also quite lyrical and melodic. On her 1999 album Woman's Intuition, Betty features as both a charismatic vocalist and as a stylish brass multi-instrumentalist. She plays with equal skill and finesse on trumpet, cornet, flugelhorn, bass trumpet, valve trombone, and double-belled euphonium. Thanks to tasteful multitracking, several of these are often heard at once, sometimes accompanying O'Hara's singing.

In addition to these albums, O'Hara could be heard playing multi-instruments on recordings by other artists, including John Allred's In the Beginning, Dick Cary's And His Tuesday Night Friends and Catching Up, Rick Fay's Endangered Species, and a few compilations. She was featured at the Monterey Jazz Festival and toured Japan and Brazil, and performed in the bands of Dizzy Gillespie, Bud Freeman and Tommy Newsom. She also appeared frequently as a featured soloist at U.S. festivals

O'Hara suffered two strokes in 1998, and after moving to a convalescent hospital, died at the age of 74 on April 18, 2000, in Sherman Oaks, CA, due to complications of a stroke.

(Edited from AllMusic & Amazon notes)