Alberta Hunter: Cafe Society Jazz Singer and Composer

Artquilt Spirit Portrait
40 in x 29 in

Ms. Hunter started her career in the 1910’s as a blues and jazz singer and composer by performing in brothels and bars. With persistence and talent, she rose to perform in top tier clubs in the US and Europe by the 1920’s. She was a prolific song composer and her music was recorded by such well known performers as Bessie Smith. She also performed in stage musicals including with Paul Robeson in Showboat in London in the late 1920’s. Despite several decades of success, she retired to work as a nurse after her mother’s death. Ms. Hunter briefly resumed her singing career in the early 1970’s with recordings and interviews. In the late 1970’s, her career fully revived with long overdue success. Long time friends in the New York music scene connected her to the owner of a Greenwich Village jazz club who contracted her for a 2 week engagement that lasted several years due to her popularity.
(b. April 1, 1895 – d. October 17, 1984)