is the best description I've read about Ms Washington. I feel guilty because on all my jazz playlists she's underrepresented even though I have a significant portion of her catalogue, especially her work on Mercury (listen to "Dinah James!" if you want a good time -- "Come Rain or Come Shine," "Lover, Come Back to Me"," and "I've Got You Under My Skin: are standouts), but her voice is too...I'm not sure how to describe it, but "forward" and "aggressive" will have to suffice....to fit in with Ella, Sarah Vaughan, Carmen McRae, Shirley Horn, Blossom Dearie, etc. even on my "swinging" playlists.
Anyhow, she's wonderful. I've said for years that Fantasia should play her in a biopic because their voices have so many similarities -- forward placement in the mask, singing that conveys their deep church roots while remaining definitely secular, and a sense of humor through it all -- because her life was SO interesting. Without looking it up, I'm fairly sure that she died when she was ~37 and she'd been married like 6 times by then and never suffered fools gladly. Damn I didn't intend to type this much, so apologies.
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