Janet Thurlow

Thurlow was born on May 21, 1926, in Seattle – the first of five children. She took violin, piano, and singing lessons as a teenager. As a child, she sang on the Major Bowes Amateur Hour hosted by Major Edward Bowes.{{cite news |last=de Barros |first=Paul |title=Janet Thurlow, who sang during Seattle's Jackson Street jazz heyday, dies at 96 |date=2022-11-08 |newspaper=The Seattle Times |url=https://www.seattletimes.com/entertainment/music/janet-thurlow-who-sang-during-seattles-jackson-street-jazz-heyday-dies-at-96/ |url-access=subscription |access-date=2022-11-16}} She attended Broadway High School in Seattle, but had to drop out after ninth grade to care for her siblings after her parents' divorce. A few years later, Thurlow moved into her own apartment after her mother's death, befriended a young Ray Charles, and began cultivating an appreciation of jazz as well as jazz singing.

In 1949, she began as a "song stylist" with Robert "Bumps" Blackwell's Seattle-based band,{{cite web |last=Blecha |first=Peter |author-link=Peter Blecha|title=Lionel Hampton Orchestra (with Quincy Jones) plays Seattle |website=HistoryLink.org |date=1916-03-16 |url=https://www.historylink.org/file/10356 |access-date=2022-11-16}} which at that time had a 16-year old Quincy Jones as arranger and trumpet player and Ray Charles, then known as "R.C.", playing piano and alto sax.{{cite book |last=Crow |first=Bill |author-link=Bill Crow |chapter=Coast to Coast |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/frombirdlandtobr00crow/page/26/mode/2up |chapter-url-access=registration |title=From Birdland to Broadway : scenes from a jazz life |publisher=Oxford University Press |publication-place=New York |date=1992 |isbn=978-1-4294-0781-6 |oclc=252592422 |pages=20–21 |via=Internet Archive}}

In 1950, Lionel Hampton hired her to play with his band. Thurlow convinced Hampton to hire her friend Quincy Jones as a trumpeter.{{cite web |title=Quincy Jones: The Fresh Air Interview |website=NPR.org |date=2013-05-27 |url=https://www.npr.org/2013/05/27/186052477/quincy-jones-the-man-behind-the-music |access-date=2022-11-16}} In the April 1951, Thurlow recorded the song "I Can't Believe You're in Love with Me" with Hampton's orchestra for Decca Records.{{citation |last1=Hampton |first1=Lionel |last2=Thurlow |first2=Janet |title=Lionel Hampton and his orchestra play, I can't believe that you're in love with me |publisher=M-G-M |publication-place=New York, NY |year=1951 |oclc=28842003}} Mike Barnes wrote that this recording made "her perhaps the first white singer to front an all-Black big band." In August 1951, Thurlow performed with Hampton's orchestra at the Paramount Theater in Hollywood.{{cite news |title=Hampton Crew 31G in Week At H'w'd Para |date=1951-08-04 |page=14 |url=https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_tCEEAAAAMBAJ/page/n9/mode/2up |newspaper=Billboard |id={{ISSN|0006-2510|0006-2510}} |oclc=71364853}} At the end of that month, they performed at the Trianon Ballroom in Seattle that featured Jones and Thurlow as "Two Seattleites".

That same year, Thurlow met trombonist Jimmy Cleveland, a fellow band member with Hampton's orchestra.{{cite web |title=Jimmy Cleveland, with a scant fringe of goatee nesting... |website=UPI |date=1991-03-02 |url=https://www.upi.com/Archives/1991/03/02/Jimmy-Cleveland-with-a-scant-fringe-of-goatee-nesting/7137667890000/ |access-date=2022-11-16}} They married on April 2, 1953 in Chicago.{{cite web |title=Janet Thurlow in the Cook County, Illinois Marriage Index, 1930-1960 |url=https://www.ancestry.com/sharing/379560?mark=c998e107604efab3b2187e19e02f40b9f8f6f30cc703125fbc48f0e6313732f3 |url-access=subscription |access-date=2022-11-16 |website=Ancestry.com}}

In November 1952, Thurlow converted to the Jehovah's Witnesses.{{cite web |last=Hill |first=Vada |title=Obituary Janet (Thurlow) Cleveland |url=https://www.canva.com/design/DAFPk2yqxCk/view#4 |page=4 |website=canva.com |year=2022}}

By April 1953, Thurlow had left Hampton's orchestra and was performing solo in Chicago.{{cite news |title=Singer Leaves Hamp |newspaper=Down Beat |volume=19 |number=7 |date=1952-04-04 |publication-place=Chicago |publisher=Down Beat, Inc. |url=https://worldradiohistory.com/Archive-All-Music/DownBeat/50s/52/Down-Beat-1952-04-04-19-7.pdf |page=1 |issn=0012-5768 |oclc=50240528}}

On October 28, 1953, she was the vocalist on "Eclipse," a song about interracial romance written by Charles Mingus, and recorded with his octet.{{cite book |last=Gabbard |first=Krin |title=Better git it in your soul: an interpretive biography of Charles Mingus |publication-place=Oakland, California |date=2016 |isbn=978-0-520-96374-0 |oclc=932064167 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/bettergititinyou0000gabb/page/34/mode/2up 34], [https://archive.org/details/bettergititinyou0000gabb/page/268/mode/2up 268] |url=https://archive.org/details/bettergititinyou0000gabb |url-access=registration |via=Internet Archive}}

Thurlow during this time began to volunteer as a violinist at Jehovah's Witnesses' regional conventions at New York's Yankee Stadium, Philadelphia's Connie Mack Stadium, and Los Angeles' Dodger Stadium.

Thurlow and her husband moved in 1967 from New York to Lynwood, California. Thurlow began teaching vocal music but did not begin to perform jazz again until 1983, when she began occasional performing and recording with Cleveland until her husband's death in 2008.

Thurlow died of heart failure, aged 96, at St. Francis Medical Center in Lynwood in 2022.{{cite web |last=Barnes |first=Mike |title=Janet Thurlow, Jazz Singer and Widow of Trombonist Jimmy Cleveland, Dies at 96 |website=The Hollywood Reporter |date=2022-10-24 |url=https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/music-news/janet-thurlow-dead-jazz-singer-jimmy-cleveland-1235247666/ |access-date=2022-11-16}} She was buried beside her husband at Riverside National Cemetery.{{cite web |url=https://gravelocator.cem.va.gov/ngl/ |title=Janet L. Cleveland |website=Nationwide Grave Locator |publisher=National Cemetery Administration |access-date=2022-11-21 }}

{{Reflist}}

• {{cite web |title=Thurlow, Janet |website=The Northwest Music Archives |url=http://nwmusicarchives.com/artist/thurlow-janet/ |ref=none |access-date=2022-11-16}}
• {{YouTube|id=B3CUfVhRYvs|title=Eclipse}}, sung with the Charles Mingus Octet
• {{YouTube|id=v7goe7xKnkQ|title=Blue Tide}}, sung with the Charles Mingus Octet

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Category:1926 births

Category:2022 deaths

Category:American jazz singers

Category:American women jazz singers

Category:American women music educators

Category:Broadway High School (Seattle) alumni

Category:Burials at Riverside National Cemetery

Category:Singers from Seattle

Category:People from Lynwood, California