"Tenderly" is a popular song published in 1946 with music by Walter Gross (1909-1967) and lyrics by Jack Lawrence. Copyright 1946 by Edwin H. Morris & Company, Inc. Originally written in the key of Eb as a waltz in 3/4 time, it has since been performed in 4/4 and has subsequently become a popular jazz standard.
Sarah Lois Vaughan (March 27, 1924 -- April 3, 1990) was an American jazz singer, described by Scott Yanow as having "one of the most wondrous voices of the 20th century." Nicknamed "Sailor" (for her salty speech), "Sassy" and "The Divine One", Sarah Vaughan was a Grammy Award winner. The National Endowment for the Arts bestowed upon her its "highest honor in jazz", the NEA Jazz Masters Award, in 1989.
Vaughan was born in Newark, New Jersey, to Asbury "Jake" Vaughan, a carpenter by trade who played guitar and piano, and Ada Vaughan, a laundress who sang in the church choir, migrants from Virginia. The Vaughans lived in a house on Brunswick Street in Newark for Vaughan's entire childhood. Jake was deeply religious. The family was active in New Mount Zion Baptist Church at 186 Thomas Street. Vaughan began piano lessons at the age of seven, sang in the church choir, and played piano for rehearsals and services. Sarah and her family were all registered Democrats.
She developed an early love for popular music. In the 1930s, she frequently saw local and touring bands at the Montgomery Street Skating Rink. By her mid-teens, she ventured illegally into Newark's night clubs and performed as a pianist and singer at the Piccadilly Club and at Newark Airport.
Vaughan attended East Side High School, then transferred to Newark Arts High School, which opened in 1931. As her nocturnal adventures as a performer overtook her academic pursuits, she dropped out of high school during her junior year to concentrate more fully on her music.
In 1989, Vaughan's health began to decline, although she rarely revealed any hints of this in her performances. She canceled a series of engagements in Europe in 1989, citing the need to seek treatment for arthritis of the hand, although she was able to complete a series of performances in Japan. During a run at New York's Blue Note Jazz Club in 1989, she was diagnosed with lung cancer and was too ill to finish the last day of what would turn out to be her final series of public performances.
Vaughan returned to her home in California to begin chemotherapy and spent her final months alternating stays in the hospital and at home. She grew weary of the struggle and demanded to be taken home, where at the age of 66 she died on the evening of April 3, 1990, while watching Laker Girls, a television movie featuring her daughter.
Her funeral was held at Mount Zion Baptist Church in Newark, New Jersey. Following the ceremony, a horse-drawn carriage transported her body to Glendale Cemetery, Bloomfield.
Parallels have been drawn between Vaughan's voice and those of opera singers. Jazz singer Betty Carter said that with training Vaughan could have "gone as far as Leontyne Price." Bob James, Vaughan's musical director in the 1960s said that "the instrument was there. But the knowledge, the legitimacy of that whole world were not for her ... But if the aria were in Sarah's range she could bring something to it that a classically trained singer could not."
In a chapter devoted to Vaughan in his book Visions of Jazz (2000), critic Gary Giddins described her as the "ageless voice of modern jazz - of giddy postwar virtuosity, biting wit and fearless caprice". He concluded by saying that "No matter how closely we dissect the particulars of her talent ... we must inevitably end up contemplating in silent awe the most phenomenal of her attributes, the one she was handed at birth, the voice that happens once in a lifetime, perhaps once in several lifetimes."
Sarah's accompanied by Ronnell Bright (piano), Richard Davis (bass), and Art Morgan (drums). Recorded July 9, 1958. (Mercury Records)
The evening breeze
Caressed the trees,Tenderly
The trembling trees
Embraced the breezeTenderly
Then you and I
Came wandering by
And lost in a sigh
Were we
The shore was kissed
By sea and mist
Tenderly
I can't forget
How two hearts met
Breathlessly
Your arms opened wide
And closed me inside
You took my lips
You took my love
So tenderly
Then you and I
Came wandering by
And lost in a sigh
Were we
The shore was kissed
By sea and mist
Tenderly
I can't forget
How two hearts met
Breathlessly
Your arms opened wide
And closed me inside
You took my lips
You took my love
So tenderly