Sugar & Spice

When a pert-faced high-school junior named Sarah Vaughan stepped on to the stage of Harlem's Apollo Theater one night in 1942, her only public singing experience had been in the church choir in Newark, NJ. But it turned out to be the old story of the unknown little girl, amateur night and the happy ending. When the jazz-wise Apollo audience heard Sarah's meandering, bittersweet version of Body and Soul, they clapped and whistled her into first place, with a week's engagement at $40 on the theater's regular bill. That night on the long ride home to Newark, Sarah decided to make singing her business.

Last week Sarah's business was bustling. She commanded four-figure fees for her nightclub and theater engagements ($2,500 last fall for a week at the Apollo), grossed $125,000 last year. She had chalked up four weeks at Manhattan's Paramount, stood as the top girl singer in two nationwide popularity polls (Down Beat, Metronome) for the third year running. Her records were selling around 3,000,000 copies a year.

African Drums. The chief quality that has brought 25-year-old Sarah to the top of her field is a highly individualistic style that had caused one recording executive to exclaim: "Good God, she can't do that. Tell her to sing it straight. That stuff will never get anywhere." Sarah soon proved him wrong. After a couple of years as vocalist with Earl ("Father") Hines's and Billy Eckstine's bands, in 1946 she landed a solo spot in Manhattan's Cafe Society Downtown, stayed for a six-month run. Her recording of It's Magic caught the ears of thousands with its mixture of torchy sweetness and boppish spice.

It did not take record buyers and club patrons long to learn that when Sarah slid into a ballad like Don't Blame Me or / Cover the Waterfront, anything might happen, and seldom happen twice the same. Some jazz critics claimed Sarah, gliding through her two-octave range with the confident swoop of a chicken hawk, can not only stop at quarter tones en route, but even at eighths. Her beat could be as steady as a bass fiddle's or as unpredictable as an African drum, and she could play her voice with the ease of an oldtime tailgate trombonist or sing as straight as a church soloist. Her version of The Lord's Prayer brought a congratulatory wire from Sarah's idol, Marian Anderson.

Cross-Country Look. Back in Cafe Society last week for a three-week run, Sarah was playing to enthusiastic fans and trying to do a little housekeeping in her Newark apartment before starting out on 1950s journeyings.

Looking back over last year's impressive score, she and her husband-manager George Treadwell hoped this year's would be even better. She already had crosscountry bookings as far ahead as December, had appeared on some 20 television shows and was looking expectantly toward Hollywood for new fields to conquer.

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