There’s Ella, Sarah, Carmen and Carol. Carol? Carol who? Sloane: A Jazz Singer. Which happens to be the title of an absorbing new documentary film. For years, those closest to the art of jazz singing have often mused that Carol Sloane never received the recognition that she deserved. But this long-awaited film, directed by Michael Lippert, highlights her roller-coaster career with a sensitive touch. As of today, it’s available on the digital platform Kinema for virtual screenings and video-on-demand.
Sloane died last year, at 85. Though never a household name, her passing was mourned by many who recognized her exceptional talent. I’ve long counted myself among that number, and a bit of backstory may be in order.
Back in my scrappy teenage years as a radio groupie in the early 1960s, I became friends with a DJ who let me select and spin some of the music on his program. One day I was looking through some of the new releases and discovered an album with the curious title “Out Of The Blue,” by Carol Sloane. The promotion copy had a sticker placed on the cover which stated: “A new star on Columbia Records.”
On the back, another tagline: “The exciting discovery of the Newport Jazz Festival.” Sloane premiered in a matinee performance there in 1961. It was scarcely attended, but those who did included music critics and columnists, who wrote glowing reviews. My curiosity was piqued: I had to check this out. Once the record hit the turntable, a warm, graceful voice sang out against graceful guitar accompaniment: “When I was very young, the world was younger than I…” I was captivated.
As it happens, this recording of Rodgers and Hart’s “Little Girl Blue” also yields one of its most impassioned moments in Sloane: A Jazz Singer. We see Carol some 50 years later, listening deeply, in a complicated reverie. After a minute or so, a tear falls, and she says, “I can’t listen anymore.”
Following her second album, Live At 30th Street, Carole Sloane just seemed to disappear. Where did this elegant singer with so much promise go? Well, remember that in 1964, The Beatles and The Rolling Stones hit the American terrain, and the music industry devoted most of its attention to the British invasion. Surprisingly, Sloane was friends with the talent agent who booked both The Beatles and Stones, and he invited her to see them in New York. There she was amid the frenzy of Shea Stadium, and joining the Stones to The Apollo Theater to see B.B. King. She says she enjoyed both groups.
But as the ‘60s rolled on, Sloane found herself with little or no bookings. She had some gigs with Oscar Peterson, who introduced her to Ella Fitzgerald. One time, the two were seated in an airport and Carol asked her: “Do you have a favorite song?” Ella replied: “Certainly. It’s ‘Something To Live For’” — the Billy Strayhorn classic. Moments later, the two were heard singing it together in an airport. (Can you imagine walking by and hearing this duet?)
Eventually, Sloane found herself moving to Raleigh, North Carolina and becoming a legal secretary. She sang at a jazz club called the Frog and Nightgown, into the mid-‘70s. There she linked up with the gifted pianist Jimmy Rowles, and soon found herself in an unsettled relationship. After this dissolved, she was briefly back in Boston.
For some reason I can’t recall, I contacted her. She was gracious and generous, seeing as I was such a fervent fan. About a week later, I received her wonderful album As Time Goes By, recorded in Japan in 1982. And autographed with the words "For Bob Craig! Thanks for being in my corner.” (I never really had an exclamation point after my name. More often it’s been a question mark.) Regretfully, I never met Sloane personally, nor attended any of her shows. However, twice on my Voices in Jazz program here at WRTI, I welcomed her as a guest to talk about her career and play recordings by others that had special meaning to her. For me, it was a pure delight.
Ms. Sloane, like other terrific jazz people here in the States, found an enthusiastic audience in Europe and Japan. She recorded a couple of other albums there. Things began taking shape as well here. In the ‘80s and ‘90s she was signed to the Contemporary and Concord Jazz labels. Recording with an A List of icons including Benny Golson, Tommy Flanagan, Phil Woods, Kenny Burrell, Ben Webster, Clark Terry, Houston Person, Kenny Barron, Bill Charlap, and on and on.
Enter an acquaintance of hers named Stephen Barefoot, a former bartender at the Frog and Nightgown. He was opening a jazz and cabaret club in Chapel Hill, N.C., called Stephen’s, After All; he asked that she return and help launch this new venture. With her connections, she was able to book some top folks — Carmen McRae, George Shearing and others. Unfortunately the club lasted only a couple of years.
So, it was back to Boston, where she met a booking agent named Buck Spurr. Their friendship blossomed into love, and shortly thereafter Carol was married. Sadly, Buck developed health issues and passed in 2014.
Sloane — who once released an album with the indignant title I Never Went Away — experienced a late-career triumph in 2019, with her one and only booking at the storied Birdland Jazz Club in New York City. This engagement forms a central plot point in the film, as she doubts her ability to rise to the occasion, and openly frets about the intrusive presence of Barefoot’s camera crew. But as the album Live at Birdland makes clear, she was right where she deserved to be.
Sloane: A Jazz Singer makes that case, too — not only about her Birdland booking but also her place in the jazz-vocal pantheon. After debuting at the Santa Fe Film Festival in 2023, this award-winning documentary is finally available for home viewing. The world will get to see and hear what some of us have been raving about for the past 65 years.
Sloane: A Jazz Singer is available on Kinema.com.
