Jackie Paris

Carlo Jackie Paris, born September 20, 1924, in Nutley, New Jersey, and died June 17, 2004, was an American jazz singer, guitarist, and Broadway performer. Raised in an Italian-American family, Paris attended Nutley High School and began performing as a child entertainer in vaudeville, sharing the stage with Bill "Bojangles" Robinson and the Mills Brothers. His uncle Chick had played guitar with Paul Whiteman's orchestra. Paris tap danced from childhood through his years of service in the US Army during World War II.

Following his military service, Paris was inspired by his friend Nat King Cole to form a guitar-and-vocals trio. The Jackie Paris Trio became a fixture at the Onyx Club on New York's 52nd Street. His first recording was "Skylark," captured during one of two sessions his trio made for MGM Records in 1947. He also recorded Thelonious Monk's "'Round Midnight," a session produced by critic Leonard Feather that featured a young Dick Hyman on piano. Both recordings became among his best-known works.

In 1949, Paris toured with the Lionel Hampton Orchestra, which performed at the Cavalcade of Jazz at Wrigley Field in Los Angeles on July 10, 1949, produced by Leon Hefflin Sr., and gave a second concert at Lane Field in San Diego on September 3, 1949. That same year he was invited to join Duke Ellington's Orchestra but declined due to exhaustion. A photograph from 1947 or 1948 documents Paris onstage at the Three Deuces club alongside Charlie Parker, though Parker did not tour with a vocalist. Paris worked frequently with Charles Mingus, who named Paris his favorite singer; their collaborations included "Paris in Blue" in 1952 and "Duke Ellington's Sound of Love," recorded for Mingus's album Changes Two in 1974.

Over the course of his career, Paris performed or recorded with a wide range of jazz musicians, including Bobby Scott, Charlie Shavers, Coleman Hawkins, Dizzy Gillespie, Donald Byrd, Eddie Costa, Gigi Gryce, Hank Jones, Joe Wilder, Johnny Mandel, Lee Konitz, Max Roach, Neal Hefti, Oscar Pettiford, Ralph Burns, Terry Gibbs, Tony Scott, and Wynton Kelly. During the 1960s and 1970s, he frequently performed alongside his then-wife, Anne Marie Moss. His discography spans the 1940s through the 2000s and includes Songs by Jackie Paris on Wing, The Song Is Paris on Impulse!, Sings the Lyrics of Ira Gershwin on Time, and Lucky to Be Me on EmArcy, among numerous other albums.

Paris also appeared on Broadway, with credits including Georgy and A Cry of Players, both staged between 1968 and 1970. His recognition in the jazz world included winning the New Star Male Vocalist award in the inaugural Down Beat Critics Poll in 1953, the same poll in which Ella Fitzgerald took the female vocalist honor; Fitzgerald repeatedly cited Paris as one of her favorite singers. He also won Best Male Vocalist in the Playboy Musicians and Critics Poll from 1957 through 1961, and received a Gold Disc Award from Swing Journal in 1989 for Lucky to Be Me. Comic Lenny Bruce, who shared the bill with Paris on multiple occasions, publicly praised his talent. In 2001, Paris performed to a standing-room crowd and a standing ovation at New York's Birdland jazz club in Times Square, having appeared at every incarnation of the venue from the 1950s onward. A documentary about his life, 'Tis Autumn: The Search for Jackie Paris, was released in 2006.