Ann Gilbert born June 30, 1933.

Ann Gilbert (June 30, 1933 - October 25, 2012) was an American Jazz-pop singer from the 1950s.

Born Ann Elizabeth Gilbert she began singing in church at the age of four, and by ten, she was a regular on the radio program Young America Sings. She acted and sang in summer stock musicals and seemed destined for a career in classical music when jazz beckoned. Gilbert studied classical music at Lindenwood College for Women in St. Charles, MO. 

                                 

She began improvising at the piano and preferred experimenting with music rather than the formality of classical study. Gilbert began singing in clubs, working as her own accompanist, and began building a reputation at clubs in Indianapolis and Chicago.

In 1956, she got her big chance to record when she was signed to Groove Records by a talent scout passing through Chicago. The result was her first album, The Many Moods Of Ann, on which she was accompanied by the Elliot Lawrence Orchestra. Pianist and bandleader Elliot Lawrence also did the arrangements; her accompanists included Al Cohn on tenor sax and clarinet; Hal McKusick on alto, clarinet, and flute; Sam Marowitz on alto and clarinet; and Osie Johnson on drums. She went on to do a second album, where she had much more artistic freedom, In A Swingin' Mood. 

After her marriage to producer / director Stuart Ostrow in 1957, she had her daughter, Julie Elizabeth, and retired from professional singing. She went on to adopt Katherine Ann and John Stuart. Throughout her children's childhood, she taught at every school and church that they were enrolled in. 

Ann went on to coach at The University of Houston in Texas, where many a frustrated classical singer would sneak into her studio and be schooled on the great American Songbook. She died after a heroic battle with aspiration pneumonia on October 25, 2012 (79 years of age).

(Scarce information mainly edited from Discogs)