Mildred Bailey was a jazz singer of Native American descent who was known variously as “The Queen Of Swing”, “The Rockin’ Chair Lady” and “Mrs Swing”, and who enjoyed a successful career during the 1930s and ‘40s. She had more than 40 hits in her own name and as a band singer with Glen Gray’s Casa Loma Orchestra, and the orchestras of Paul Whiteman, The Dorsey Brothers, Benny Goodman and Red Norvo (who was also her husband).

This 73-track collection comprises all those hits, plus selected recordings by Mildred with those and other bands, like those of Eddie Lang, Frankie Trumbauer and Jimmie Noone, and leading her own orchestra or with top accompanists like the Ellis Larkins Trio. It features the No.1 hits All Of Me with Paul Whiteman, Please Be Kind with Red Norvo and Darn That Dream with Benny Goodman, along with recordings which were among the original versions from that era of future classic Great American Songbook standards. Inducted into the Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame in 1989, Bailey was as her nicknames suggest, a leading performer during the swing era as a highly individual and stylish interpreter of songs from across the spectrum of jazz, swing, Hollywood, Broadway and Tin Pan Alley pop.

The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz describes Bailey as “the first white singer to absorb and master the jazz-flavoured phrasing… of her black contemporaries”, and this collection offers a substantial showcase for her remarkable talents.

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