Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 4, 1990                   TAG: 9004040682
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A2   EDITION: EVENING 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: LOS ANGELES                                LENGTH: Medium

SARAH VAUGHAN DIES; JAZZ VOCALIST WAS 66

Vaughan died at 10:30 p.m. Tuesday at her home in the Hidden Hills area of the west San Fernando Valley, Los Angeles County Sheriff's Sgt. Ed Rogner said.

Vaughan had been admitted March 31 to Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles, but was released earlier Tuesday, hospital spokeswoman Paula Correia said.

Los Angeles Times jazz critic and longtime friend Leonard Feather, in his book "Encyclopedia of Jazz in the Sixties," described Vaughan as "the most important singer to emerge from the bop era."

Vaughan's style was formed by her early association with be-bop, singing with Billy Eckstine, Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie in the Earl Hines and Billy Eckstine bands in the 1940s.

During that time, with her deep, sultry voice and dramatic colorings, she was known as the most distinguished jazz singer of the '40s.

Born in Newark, N.J., on March 27, 1924, Vaughan studied piano from age 7 and was a church choir member and organist by 12. Her father, a carpenter, played guitar and her mother sang in the church choir.

In 1942, she accepted a dare - trumpeter-trombonist Jabbo Smith claimed it was his idea - and sang "Body and Soul" at an Apollo Theater amateur contest in Harlem. Eckstine heard her and recommended her to Hines as second pianist and co-vocalist with himself. She made her debut with the Hines band in 1943, at the Apollo.

She went with Eckstine after he left Hines a year later to form his own big band, then sang with John Kirby's group. By 1946 she had established herself as a solo artist. In 1949, she was paid $2,500 for a week at the Apollo.

Vaughan's voice, over which she had phenomenal control, had lovely tone, was flexible and true in pitch. And she had a mastery of scat singing, improvising, swinging and phrasing. She once told an interviewer that horns influenced her more than other singers, which was evident from her harmonic and rhythmic sense. A ceaseless innovator, she added that she never sang a song the same way twice.

Her nicknames were "the Divine One," "the Divine Sarah" and "Sassy." Often, after she introduced the musicians accompanying her, she coyly introduced herself as "Della Reese."

Detractors were irked that some of her record hits, such as "Brokenhearted Melody" in 1958 and, much more recently, "Send in the Clowns," were pop instead of jazz and some said she sacrificed emotional depth and textual meaning to aural gymnastics such as swoops through her register and embellishments. Lyrics were never as important to her as music.

Nearly all listeners felt that her voice improved with time. Her contralto register became richer, her middle register remained warm and lyrical, her top true and pure. Her range was two and a half to three octaves and sounded like more.

Critics have said that her voice could have been trained for opera. John Wilson wrote in The New York Times in 1957, "She has what may well be the finest voice ever applied to jazz."

Vaughan's first record was for Continental Records in 1944. By 1947, she had a number of popular tunes out. Her version of "The Lord's Prayer" on Musicraft in the 1940s was praised by Marian Anderson.