Throughout his 50+ year career with his Orchestra, Duke Ellington featured many vocalists, but none of them fit the band as well as Ivie Anderson, who was on and off with the Duke from the “Jungle Band” days of 1932 to the sophisticated swing days of the post WWII era. Even better, Ellington’s greatest band, the one from 1939-41 had Anderson as the featured singer, therefore solidifying her importance and signature sound with the band.
During the Big Band era, every leader had to have a vocalist to “sell the hits,” so ladies such as Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Helen Ward and Helen Forrest became as big a star as the bands themselves. Anderson held her own, possessing an earthy ‘girl next door’ delivery that could work in both the uptempo swing numbers as well as the torchier material. Her 1932 debut with Ellington produces a definitively buoyant “It Don’t Mean A Thing” with Anderson shouting out over Wellman Braud’s bouncy bass line. Other 30s pieces such as “Ebony Rhapsody” are works of art, while she also delved into popular ditties such as “When My Sugar Walks Down the Street” and “Oh, Babe! Maybe Someday.” Both her and Ellington reached an apotheosis in 1940 with Anderson and Ellington producing a wrenching “Solitude,” an agonizing “Stormy Weather” (with Johnny Hodges glowing on the alto sax” and reaching her zenith on a sparkling “I Got It Bad And That Ain’t Good.”
She also was good with bluesy material, swinging gently on the fun “Five O’Clock Whistle” and getting down and dirty on “Rocks in My Bed.” The last few songs have her with the likes of Willie Smith/as, Buddy Collette/bar and Ceele Burke’s Orchestra, delivering some deep blues on “Empty Bed Blues” and “Bi Butter and Egg Man” before she retired from the scene. This lady is a forgotten star in what is considered the greatest of all big bands with a surfeit of stars..