MUSIC
12:08 PM PDT 07/22/2020
by
Mike Barnes
She also worked as an actress, with roles in two Robert Altman films, as well as “Superman III” and “Throw Momma From the Train.”
Annie Ross, the skilled jazz singer and leading practitioner of the “vocal” art heard in her song, “Twisted,” has died. She was 89 years old.
Ross died Tuesday at his Manhattan home of complications from emphysema and heart disease, his former manager Jim Coleman said. The Washington Post.
Ross performed with fellow vocalists Dave Lambert and Jon Hendricks in the acclaimed jazz trio Lambert, Hendricks & Ross from 1957 to 1962. They endorsed dozens of instrumental classics and recorded several albums, beginning with those from 1957. Sing a Basie song, who used dubbing to multiply their voices.
In 1952, Ross and vocalist King Pleasure teamed up on an album for Prestige that included “Twisted,” their treatment of saxophonist Wardell Gray’s solo. Joni Mitchell, Bette Midler and others have recorded the tightrope melody, played by a patient who is convinced that she is smarter than her psychiatrist.
For director Robert Altman, Ross was portrayed in The player (1992) and appeared as troubled jazz singer Tess Trainer in Short Cuts (1993) She appeared in other films, including Yanks (1979) Superman iii (1983) Throw mom from the train (1987) Turn up the volume (1990) and Blue sky (1994)
Her voice was used to replace Britt Ekland in the horror movie. The wicker man (1973)
On stage, Ross appeared in the music magazine. Cranks in London and Broadway in the mid-1950s and starred opposite Vanessa Redgrave in The Threepenny Opera in 1972 and with Tim Curry in a Joseph Papp production of The Penzance Pirates in 1982
Born on July 25, 1930 in Surrey, England, Ross was the daughter of Scottish vaudevillains who sent her to Los Angeles when she was 4 years old to live with an aunt. She sang “The Bonnie Banks o ‘Loch Lomond” in Our crazy gangs (1938) and portrayed Judy Garland’s younger sister in Introducing Lily Mars (1943), earning a reputation as “the Scottish Temple of Shirley”.
He returned to Europe to begin his singing career in earnest, working with musicians such as James Moody, Kenny Clarke and Coleman Hawkins, then settled in New York in the 1950s and performed with members of the Modern Jazz Quartet. In 1953, he toured Europe with Lionel Hampton and his band.
After separating from Lambert and Hendricks, Ross in 1964 opened a London nightclub called Annie’s Room. His career suffered in the 1960s due to heroin addiction and a relationship with controversial comedian Lenny Bruce. More recently, she was a cabaret mainstay.
Grammy winner, Ross was named Jazz Master in 2010 by the National Endowment for the Arts and was the subject of a documentary, No one except me, Two years later.
Survivors include her son, Kenny Clarke Jr. Her brother, popular Scottish comedian Jimmy Logan, died in 2001.
