Annie Ross

Annabelle Allan Short (born 25 July 1930), known professionally as Annie Ross, is a British-American singer and actress, best known as a member of the jazz vocal trio Lambert, Hendricks & Ross. Early in her acting career, she was credited as Annabelle Logan.

In 1952, Ross met Prestige Records owner Bob Weinstock, who asked her to write lyrics to a jazz solo, in a similar way to King Pleasure, a practice that would later be known as vocalese. The next day, she presented him with "Twisted", a treatment of saxophonist Wardell Gray's 1949 composition of the same name, a classic example of the genre.The song, first released on the 1952 album King Pleasure Sings/Annie Ross Sings, was an underground hit, and resulted in her winning Down Beat magazine's New Star award.

Her first solo album, Singin' and Swingin' (1952), was recorded in New York with members of the Modern Jazz Quartet. Other albums include Annie by Candlelight (1956), Annie Ross Sings a Song with Mulligan! (1958) with Gerry Mulligan on saxophone and Chet Baker on trumpet, A Gasser! (1959) with Zoot Sims, In Hoagland with Georgie Fame and Hoagy Carmichael and Music Is Forever, featuring Tommy Flanagan on piano.She recorded seven albums with Lambert, Hendricks & Ross between 1957 and 1962. 

Ross left the group in 1962 and, in 1964, opened her own nightclub in London. Annie's Room featured performances by Joe Williams, Nina Simone, Stuff Smith, Blossom Dearie, Anita O'Day, Jon Hendricks, Erroll Garner, and Ross herself.....( Info Edited From Wiliepedia )

There was a time in the 1950s and 1960s when people began to try fusing jazz with poetry. One of the foremost British experimenters was Christopher Logue, a maverick poet who was involved with Private Eye and London’s Royal Court Theatre. He wrote numerous poems. Loguerhythms, consisting of a dozen of his sardonic poems, was recorded in 1962 at the Establishment Club in Soho, with music composed mostly by Stanley Myers and Tony Kinsey.

Annie Ross was the perfect vocalist to perform Loguerhythms. She had made her name as a member of Lambert, Hendricks & Ross, a vocal team which specialised in vocalese, the art of putting words to pieces of jazz. She was therefore an expert in the difficult process of singing poems with jazz accompaniment. Christopher Logue’s poetry doesn’t always make it easy to deliver the words.

Yet Annie manages splendidly: conveying the pieces clearly and with plenty of style. It would still have been useful if the sleeve-notes had included the poems in full, so that the listener could study them more closely.....( Info Edited From "Jazz CD Reviews" by Tony Augarde )

I will have to listen to this L/P a few times ....the voice is great...the songs you have to listen to carefully to appreciate them !!! and understand !

1. Bellini

2. The Ballad Of The Water And The Flame

3. The Ass' Song

4. The Liberal Man

5. Johnny

6. Sick Man

1. Things

2. He

3. Go To The Wall

4. The Ballad Of The Ape And The Judge

5. The General

6. Western Ladies

         10. The Ballad Of The Ape And Judge