Carmen McRae Biography
Carmen McRae (1920-1994), nicknamed “the singer’s singer,” was one her era’s finest and most influential vocalists, celebrated for her distinctive behind-the-beat phrasing and her witty lyrical interpretations. She also achieved distinction as a songwriter, with her compositions covered by numerous artists, including McRae’s early idol Billie Holiday. McRae began her professional career in the mid-1940s, but it was in the following decade that she really made her mark as a performer and recording artist.
Born in Harlem to Jamaican parents, McRae was exposed to the music of Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington during her childhood, and began studying piano at the age of eight. As a teenager, McRae’s talents came to the attention of the great jazz pianist Teddy Wilson and his wife, composer Irene Kitchings Wilson. That connection led to McRae’s composition “Dream of Life” being recorded in 1939 by Wilson’s longtime collaborator Billie Holiday. McRae worked as an intermission singer and pianist at various New York clubs, including the Harlem jazz club Minton’s Playhouse, a center of the emerging bebop movement. McRae got her first important job playing piano with Benny Carter’s big band in 1944, and subsequently worked with the bands of Count Basie and Mercer Ellington.
McRae didn’t begin making her own records until 1954, by which time she had absorbed the vocal influence of Billie Holiday and integrated the spirit of bebop into her singing. The same year, she was voted Best New Female Vocalist by Down Beat magazine. She ultimately recorded over 60 albums for a variety of labels, and engaged in an assortment of memorable collaborations. She was a guest performer on Dave Brubeck’s The Real Ambassadors along with Louis Armstrong, recorded duet albums with Sammy Davis Jr. and Betty Carter. McRae continued to perform and record through the late ’80s, releasing highly regarded tribute albums to Thelonious Monk, Sarah Vaughan and Billie Holiday late in her career.
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