on her new book on Sarah Vaughan
March 20 (Tuesday) at 5:15, Room 102
Elaine Hayes, who received her Ph.D. in musicology from the University of Pennsylvania in 2004, discusses her recent book "Queen of Bebop: The Musical Lives of Sarah Vaughan" (Ecco 2017). It chronicles Vaughan’s (1924-1990) journey from a church girl in Newark, New Jersey, to a big band vocalist; a bebop innovator to a pop starlet; and finally, an international jazz legend to a symphony orchestra diva. Elaine also discusses her journey from academic to author of a mainstream, popular biography. Focusing on the central myths surrounding Sarah Vaughan and her legacy, Elaine explores how she reconciled these two worlds—the "theory" of academia and the need to tell a good, old-fashioned story—in an effort to change how general audiences understood women in jazz and women as creative beings.