Ernestine Anderson (born November 11, 1928) is an American jazz and blues singer. In a career spanning more than five decades, she has recorded over 30 albums. She was nominated four times for a Grammy Award. She has sung at Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, the Monterey Jazz Festival (six times over a 33-year span), as well as at jazz festivals all over the world. In the early 1990,s she joined Qwest Records, the label of fellow Garfield High School grad Quincy Jones.
Anderson was born in Houston, Texas, the daughter of a construction worker. At age three, she could sing along with the raw tunes of the legendary Bessie Smith; she soon moved on to the more refined environs of her local church, singing solos in its gospel choir.
Never Make Your Move Too Soon
Anderson tells of her early life in the book, The Jazz Scene (1998):
- “My parents used to play blues records all the time,” Ernestine Anderson told me. “John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters, all the blues greats. In Houston, where I grew up, you turned on the radio and what you got was country and western and gospel. I don’t even remember what my first experience with music was. I sort of grew into it. My father sang in a gospel quartet and I used to follow him around, and both my grandparents sang in the Baptist church choir. And they had big bands coming through Houston like Jimmie Lunceford, Billy Eckstine, Erskine Hawkins, and Count Basie.” Ernestine’s godmother entered her in a local talent contest when she was twelve years old. “I only knew two songs,” she admitted, “‘On the Sunny Side of the Street’ and ‘So Long’. The piano player asked me what key did I do these songs in and I just said ‘C’ for some reason and it was the wrong key. In order to save face I sang around the melody, improvised among the melody, and when I finished one of the musicians told me I was a jazz singer.”
Her family moved to Seattle, Washington in 1944, when she was sixteen. Anderson graduated from Garfield High School. When she was eighteen, she left Seattle, to tour for a year with the Johnny Otis band. In 1952, she went on tour with Lionel Hampton’s orchestra. After a year with the legendary band, she settled in New York, determined to make her way as a singer. Her appearance on Gigi Gryce’s 1955 album Nica’s Tempo (Savoy) led to a partnership with trumpeter Rolf Ericson for a three-month Scandinavian tour. Ernestine’s first album in the United States was made after her debut album, recorded in Sweden and released here by Mercury Records under the title Hot Cargo (1958), which created a huge sensation. In 1959 Anderson won the Down Beat “New Star” Award and recorded for Mercury to more acclaim, before dividing her time from the mid-60’s between America and Europe.
Moanin’
- “I don’t think jazz ever died. It suffered a setback during the sixties. I had to move to London in order to work because a jazz person couldn’t work in the United States when rock ‘n’ roll became the music. I didn’t think it would last this long, and I don’t think the rock ‘n’ roll people thought it would last this long, but it had.”
Her re-emergence in the mid-1970’s (at which time Ray Brown was her manager) came as a result of a sensational appearance at the 1976 Concord Jazz Festival, a string of albums for Concord Records followed. Anderson has continued her career revival into the 1990’s, working with the Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra, among others.
Goin’ to Chicago Blues
In 2008, her home—which had been in her family for decades—was scheduled for foreclosure for debts of $48,000. The home was saved by donations by friends such as Quincy Jones and Diane Schuur.
Anderson is currently represented by Addeo Music International (AMI).