Jody Sandhaus

Jody Sandhaus spent the greater part of her adulthood based in New York City, where she established herself as a jazz singer whose work drew equally from cabaret and classic pop traditions. Rather than pursuing abstraction or intellectual complexity, she favored direct, listener-friendly phrasing, drawing inspiration from Billie Holiday, Peggy Lee, Ella Fitzgerald, Irene Kral, Maxine Sullivan, and Anita O'Day. While she devoted considerable focus to the Tin Pan Alley repertoire, she refused to restrict herself to ubiquitous standards; when she interpreted Cole Porter or the Richard Rodgers/Oscar Hammerstein catalog in concert or on disc, she included lesser-known yet worthy material alongside the familiar hits. Similarly, her explorations of the Duke Ellington songbook featured uncommon selections such as “I Like the Sunrise,” which appeared on her album A Fine Spring Morning.

Although she was raised in New York, Sandhaus was born in Houston, Texas. Jazz singing did not become her ambition until she reached adulthood. As a child she trained on classical piano, and that early engagement with European concert music persisted after she finished high school and relocated to Cleveland, Ohio, to pursue liberal-arts studies at Case Western Reserve University. Following graduation she lived for a time in St. Maarten in the West Indies, and it was there that she began to immerse herself in vocal jazz and pre-rock popular song. During the 1980s she returned to New York City, trained under vocal coach Marie Traficante, and integrated herself into the city’s jazz community. In New York she also met pianist Pete Malinverni, whom she later married.

Her debut recording, Winter Moon, appeared on the Saranac label in 1997. She subsequently recorded I Think of You for Consolidated Artists Productions in 2000 and A Fine Spring Morning, also for CAP, in 2004. Afterglow followed in 2009. Sandhaus died on July 17, 2012, after a prolonged struggle with breast cancer.