So long and thanks for the ooh-la-la

A New Yorker magazine music critic once observed that jazz singer Blossom Dearie’s whispery, little-girl voice "would scarcely reach the second storey of a doll’s house." Yet the woman born Marguerite Blossom Dearie rose to fame in the 1940s, performing with Charlie Parker, Miles Davis and others, and in the 1950s joined the legendary record label Verve. Often accompanying herself on piano she was never greater than when singing Lullaby of Birdland and Cole Porter’s Give Him the Ooo-La-La. Long after her best years she’d aggressively hawk her CDs in nightclubs, a cash box close at hand. She retired from performing in 2005 after years of performing at Danny’s Skylight Room in New York City.

Telegraph