Jazz vocalist Sheila Jordan dead at 96

Posted On August 12, 2025August 12, 2025

Prolific American jazz vocalist Sheila Jordan has died at the age of 96.

Her bassist, Harvie S, confirmed to NPR that the singer died on August 11th at her home in New York City. No cause of death has been revealed.

Sadly, Jordan’s career never reached the heights it should have due to various circumstances beyond her control. These include the breakdown of her marriage, which left her to raise her children as a single mother. Nevertheless, Jordan became one of the most beloved jazz artists of the 1960s thanks to albums such as Portrait of Sheila.

She was celebrated with the National Endowment of the Arts as a Jazz Master, half a century later, the highest honour in the jazz scene that one can achieve.

Despite a turbulent career in her younger years, Jordan grew her back catalogue most regularly as she became older, recording 19 albums since 2000.

Most recently, her last album, Portrait Now, was released on February 14th, 2025, the day of her final live performance.

Jordan was inspired towards a life of jazz music after she was born in Detroit, Michigan, to a poor and abusive family, where singing was her only escape. The golden moment came when she discovered Charlie Parker’s Reboppers one day on a jukebox.

Speaking of the moment, she said previously: “And I put my nickel in, and up came Bird, playing ‘Now is the Time,’ and I said that’s the music. That’s the one I’ll dedicate my life to.”

Later, after she had given birth to her daughter Traci and her husband had left due to a heroin addiction, Jordan struggled to keep her career afloat, but said: “You find a way because the music is very important. That’s how I survived, knowing that once or twice a week I’d get a sitter for Traci, and I’d go and sing in this club, and then I’d get up the next morning and go do my day gig.”

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