Born in Detroit, Michigan, Teri Thornton born Shirley Enid Avery was an American jazz singer and piano player. She was a self-taught musician who was performing professionally by age 22 in local jazz clubs in the ’50s. As a child, Thornton was strongly encouraged to pursue classical music, but she incensed her mother by falling in love with jazz. She was once called by the saxophonist Cannonball Adderley “the greatest voice since Ella Fitzgerald”. Moving to New York in ’60s, she got into singing on national television ad jingles and recorded for different record labels. Her first three albums were recorded with Riverside, Columbia, and Dauntless – Devil May Care, Open Highway and Somewhere in the Night.
In 1963 her rendition of “Somewhere in the Night”, the theme song of the popular ABC-TV series “Naked City”, became a Billboard Top 10 hit and she found herself singing it on “The Ed Sullivan Show” and other variety programs (hosted by Steve Allen, Merv Griffin, Mike Douglas, Rudy Vallee, Sammy Davis, Jr., and Martha Graham). She took part in a television program celebrating Duke Ellington’s 40th anniversary in music. It featured Ellington and Ella Fitzgerald who requested that Thornton join them in singing several Ellington songs accompanied by Billy Strayhorn at the piano. Ella Fitzgerald told Down Beat magazine that Ms. Thornton was her favorite singer. After releasing two more albums, including 1963’s “Open Highway” on Columbia (Tony Bennett wrote the liner notes for this album: “Teri sings with life, feeling, intensity, intelligence, and taste”. “She’s the first singer in years who doesn’t have any gimmicks, any tricks. Instead, she’s endowed with perfect pitch, a three-octave range, solid training, and years of invaluable experience. All this has made her create here a great album.”),
To find more work, Thornton journeyed to Los Angeles. However, Thornton faded from public view, and only decades later was discovered to have been singing on various song poem records in Los Angeles on the Preview label as “Teri Summers.” Moving to New York in 1983, the she found steady work in jazz clubs.
In the 1990s she fully revived her career. Thornton also won the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition in the Vocal category with her rendition of “I’ll Be Easy To Find” in 1998. Winning the competition bolstered her career leading to a new recording, I’ll Be Easy To Find after more than three decades. That same year, she was diagnosed with bladder cancer. She was a resident of the Actors’ Fund Home in Englewood, New Jersey. At the age of 65, Thornton died of complications from the cancer at Englewood Hospital on May 2, 2000.
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