"Sometimes, it’s difficult to say how you do something, you just do it."

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"Sometimes, it’s difficult to say how you do something, you just do it."

Today’s interview is with New York-based composer, arranger, and vocalist Sarah Elizabeth Charles. The S.E. Charles Quartet, with Jesse Elder on piano, Burniss Earl Travis on bass, and John Davis on drums, will perform at the Triple Door on Sunday, April 28, the final night of the Seattle Women in Jazz Festival. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. and the set begins at 7:30 p.m. This is Sarah’s first time singing in Seattle, so don’t miss out!

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You don't know me... (Part 2)

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You don't know me... (Part 2)

In my last post, I wrote about how Sarah Vaughan was an intensely private woman leading a public life, and how she kept her fans, members of the press, and even, sometimes, her own family at a distance.

Since then, I’ve been thinking about why that was and how it influences my work as her biographer. Part of my job is to tease out the details of her life, provide a glimpse into the woman behind the scenes, the private Vaughan. But what does a biographer do when her subject doesn’t cooperate? How much do I extrapolate from the information I do have? In other words, how do I read an absence? And how do I respect my subject and her desire for privacy while satisfying the desires of readers in search of an intimate portrait of a performer they admire?

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Welcome!!

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Welcome to Lady Be Bop, a blog on women in music and popular culture. All music is fair game here, but I’ll spend most of my time discussing jazz, in particular jazz vocalists. I love the great ladies of song: Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Anita O’Day, Nina Simone, and more recently the likes of Dee Dee Bridgewater and Dianne Reeves. And I’m fascinated by the music they created, the lives they lead, and the challenges they encountered along the way.

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