IT’S MY THURSDAY ESSAY FOR VIP SUBSCRIBERS: All That Jazz.

Legendary jazz vocalist Cleo Laine died last month, age 97, at her home in Wavendon, England. Hardly anyone outside of the most dedicated jazz fans seemed to notice. I’m 56, and probably among the youngest to mourn her passing.

Even so, I didn’t think to write the obit I’d been carrying around in my brain for years. Cleo, you see, was born too late. British music critic Derek Jewell once called her “quite simply the best singer in the world,” but even at the height of her success in the 1970s, the Washington Post’s Mark Kernis had to admit that “She is not a household name. In fact, to many people, she’s no name at all.”

This week’s essay is not about Cleo Laine, although the power and clarity of her four-octave voice, her impressive career, and her almost unrivaled ability to work an audience certainly make her worthy of one.

When Cleo was coming up in the ’50s, a jazz artist like her dying would have been big news. Maybe not “LENNON MURDERED IN NEW YORK” or “ELVIS DEAD ON TOILET” big, but still a noteworthy passing.

Again, this isn’t really about Cleo — it’s about the near-silence that followed her death, and what it says about the music she thrilled audiences with for seven decades.

What happened to jazz?

Much more at the link.

Related (From Ed): John Coltrane and the End of Jazz.