Chris Connor

It's my life, Jazz is my life...I don't know what else there is to say about it. - Chris Connor, 1999

Chris Connor was born in Kansas City and studied clarinet in school, was given first chair but always wanted to sing. Her father, an amateur violinist, encouraged her and took her to the area's major ballrooms to see the name bands that would come through every weekend.

After graduating high school, she typed by day and sang four or five nights a week with a band at the University of Columbus in Missouri. Kenton was the band for her and she always wanted to sing with him. When the leader of the college band graduated, Connor moved back to Kansas City, where she sang with a small group that included a then 19-year old Bob Brookmeyer.

In the late 1940s, Connor moved to New York and put in the usual starvation time of seven weeks before being hired by Claude Thornhill as a member of his vocal group, The Snowflakes. This was followed by a stint with Herbie Fields, a stretch of singing at clubs in New York and New Jersey, then back with Thornhill for a year-and-a-half of one-nighters. Then she got an offer from Jerry Wald. It was on a Wald broadcast from the Roosevelt Hotel in New Orleans that June Christy happened to hear her. Christy recommended her to Kenton, who hired her six months later.

She stayed with Kenton for less than a year, and then landed a solo gig at Birdland, which led to a contract with the newly-launched Bethlehem Records. She joined Atlantic Records in 1956, where she made her label debut with Chris Connor (aka simply Atlantic 1228), which was quickly followed the same year by He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not.

Along with June Christy, Helen O'Connell and Julie London, Chris Connor epitomized cool jazz singing in the 1950s. Influenced by Anita O'Day, the torchy, smoky singer wasn't one for aggression. Like Chet Baker on trumpet or Paul Desmond and Lee Konitz on alto sax, she used subtlety and restraint to their maximum advantage. Connor reached the height of her popularity in the 1950s when she delivered her celebrated versions of Billy Strayhorn's Lush Life and George Shearing's Lullaby Of Birdland and recorded albums like The Rich Sound Of Connor, Lullabies Of Birdland, Chris Craft and Ballads Of The Sad Cafe. In a poor career move, she left Atlantic in 1962 and signed with FM Records, which folded after she recorded only two albums.

It seems quite natural that Chris Connor, June Christy and Anita O'Day will always be the subject of comparisons...the three great singers all worked with Stan Kenton and they lived and worked in approximately the same time frame with similar material, arrangements and personnel. Each singer became the ultimate jazz singer in her own right underscoring their talent and ability.

In the 1980s, Chris came out with two highly acclaimed albums, Classic and New Again. She continued to tour internationally in the 1990s.