Janet Lawson, born Janet Polun on November 13, 1940, in Baltimore

Baltimore

Baltimore is the largest independent city in the United States and the largest city and cultural center of the US state of Maryland. The city is located in central Maryland along the tidal portion of the Patapsco River, an arm of the Chesapeake Bay. Baltimore is sometimes referred to as Baltimore...

, Maryland

Maryland

Maryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east...

, is a jazz singer

Vocal jazz

Jazz singing can be defined by the instrumental approach to the voice, where the singer can match the instruments in their stylistic approach to the lyrics, improvised or otherwise, or through scat singing; that is, the use of nonsensical meaningless non-morphemic syllables to imitate the sound of...

 and educator. She was born into a family of professional musicians. As a child she performed on the radio and regional television.

She has worked with Duke Ellington

Duke Ellington

Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was an American composer, pianist, and big band leader. Ellington wrote over 1,000 compositions...

, Bob Dorough

Bob Dorough

Bob Dorough is an American bebop and cool jazz pianist, composer and vocalese singer.He worked with Miles Davis and Allen Ginsberg, and his adventurous style was an influence on Mose Allison, among other singers...

, Tommy Flanagan

Tommy Flanagan

Thomas Lee Flanagan was an American jazz pianist born in Detroit, Michigan, particularly remembered for his work with Ella Fitzgerald...

, Ron Carter

Ron Carter

Ron Carter is an American jazz double-bassist. His appearances on over 2,500 albums make him one of the most-recorded bassists in jazz history, along with Milt Hinton, Ray Brown and Leroy Vinnegar. Carter is also an acclaimed cellist who has recorded numerous times on that...

, Barry Harris

Barry Harris

Barry Doyle Harris is an American bebop jazz pianist and educator.-Biography:Harris left Detroit for New York City in 1960...

, Milt Hinton

Milt Hinton

Milton John "Milt" Hinton , "the dean of jazz bass players," was an American jazz double bassist and photographer. He was nicknamed "The Judge".-Biography:...

, Dave Liebman

Dave Liebman

Dave Liebman is an American saxophonist and flautist. In June 2010, he received a NEA Jazz Masters lifetime achievement award from the National Endowment for the Arts.-Biography:...

, Joe Newman

Joe Newman (trumpeter)

Joseph Dwight Newman was an American jazz trumpeter, composer, and educator, best known for his time with Count Basie....

, Rufus Reid

Rufus Reid

Rufus Reid is an American jazz bassist, educator, and composer. He lives in Teaneck, New Jersey.-Personal history:...

, Barney Kessel

Barney Kessel

Barney Kessel was an American jazz guitarist born in Muskogee, Oklahoma, USA. Generally considered to be one of the greatest jazz guitarists of the 20th century, he was noted in particular for his vast knowledge of chords and inversions and chord-based melodies...

, Clark Terry

Clark Terry

Clark Terry is an American swing and bop trumpeter, a pioneer of the fluegelhorn in jazz, educator, NEA Jazz Masters inductee, and recipient of the 2010 Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award...

, Ed Thigpen

Ed Thigpen

Edmund Leonard "Ed" Thigpen was an American jazz drummer, best-known for his work with the Oscar Peterson trio from 1959 to 1965...

, Cedar Walton

Cedar Walton

Cedar Anthony Walton, Junior is an American hard bop jazz pianist.-Biography:Walton grew up in Dallas, Texas. His mother was an aspiring concert pianist, and was Walton's initial teacher. She also took him to jazz performances around Dallas...

 and the Art Farmer

Art Farmer

Arthur Stewart "Art" Farmer was an American jazz trumpeter and flugelhorn player. He also played flumpet, a trumpet/flugelhorn combination designed for him by David Monette. His identical twin brother, Addison Farmer Arthur Stewart "Art" Farmer (August 21, 1928, Council Bluffs, Iowa –...

 Quartet.

Biography and career

Having been born into a family of professional musicians and collaborating with icons of Jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

 music, Janet Lawson was soprano

Soprano

A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...

 soloist

Solo (music)

In music, a solo is a piece or a section of a piece played or sung by a single performer...

 with the Alvin Ailey Dance Theater in "Blood Memories" at City Center

New York City Center

New York City Center is a 2,750-seat Moorish Revival theater located at 131 West 55th Street between 6th and 7th Avenues in Manhattan, New York City. It is one block south of Carnegie Hall...

, New York

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

, and composed and created with lyricist Diane Snow, a musical, “Jass is a Lady”, produced by Playwrights Horizons

Playwrights Horizons

Playwrights Horizons is a not-for-profit Off-Broadway theater located in New York City dedicated to the support and development of contemporary American playwrights, composers, and lyricists, and to the production of their new work....

 in New York City. Lawson also appeared regularly on Steve Allen

Steve Allen

Steve Allen may refer to:*Steve Allen , American musician, comedian, and writer*Steve Allen , presenter on the London-based talk radio station LBC 97.3...

's television show, The Tonight Show

The Tonight Show

The Tonight Show is an American late-night talk show that has aired on NBC since 1954. It is the longest currently running regularly scheduled entertainment program in the United States, and the third longest-running show on NBC, after Meet the Press and Today.The Tonight Show has been hosted by...

 (1968–1969).

Lawson, a scat singer, also appeared on Eddie Jefferson

Eddie Jefferson

Eddie Jefferson was a celebrated jazz vocalist and lyricist. He is credited as an innovator of vocalese, a musical style in which lyrics are set to an instrumental composition or solo. Perhaps his best-known song is "Moody's Mood for Love", though it was first recorded by King Pleasure, who cited...

's 1977 album Main Man. Her group, the Janet Lawson Quintet, has recorded two albums, The Janet Lawson Quintet in 1981, and Dreams Can Be in 1983. Her first album, The Janet Lawson Quintet was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Performance, Female

Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Performance, Female

The Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Performance, Female was an honor presented at the Grammy Awards, a ceremony that was established in 1958 and originally called the Gramophone Awards, to female recording artists for quality jazz vocal performances...

 in 1981. She lost to Ella Fitzgerald

Ella Fitzgerald

Ella Jane Fitzgerald , also known as the "First Lady of Song" and "Lady Ella," was an American jazz and song vocalist...

. Recordings from her two albums were recently compiled on CD, The Janet Lawson Quintet, by Cambria Master Recordings.

Lawson headed the vocal jazz program at William Paterson College, Wayne, New Jersey

Wayne, New Jersey

Wayne is a Township in Passaic County, New Jersey, United States, located less than from midtown Manhattan. As of the United States 2000 Census, the township had a total population of 54,069....

, from 1981 to 1988. In 1995, she developed a course for the vocal jazz program at the New School called “Jazz Anatomy: Theory for Singers,” part of a curriculum she created with singers Amy London

Amy London

Amy London is a jazz singer from Teaneck, New Jersey, United States.London grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio. She moved to Manhattan in 1980, and moved to Teaneck with her husband, guitarist Roni Ben-Hur, and daughters, Sofia and Anna, in 1998....

 and Sheila Jordan

Sheila Jordan

Sheila Jordan is an American jazz singer and songwriter. Jordan has recorded as a session musician with an array of critically acclaimed artists in addition to a notable solo career....

. She currently lives in New York City and holds adjunct professorships at New York University

New York University

New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...

, the New School and at City College

City College of New York

The City College of the City University of New York is a senior college of the City University of New York , in New York City. It is also the oldest of the City University's twenty-three institutions of higher learning...

, N.Y.

Studio albums

• 1981 The Janet Lawson Quintet (as Janet Lawson Quintet)
• 1983 Dreams Can Be (as Janet Lawson Quintet)

External links

• "A Song in Her Heart", Pocono Record, 11/5/2006