Jazz Legend Adelaide Hall sings Sophisticated Lady

The magnificent Adelaide Hall (at the age of 85) sings ‘Sophisticated Lady’ on the Terry Wogan show in 1987. “Sophisticated Lady” is a jazz standard, composed as an instrumental in 1932 by Duke Ellington and Irving Mills, to which words were added by Mitchell Parish. The words met with approval from Ellington, who described them as “wonderful — but not entirely fitted to my original conception.” That original conception was inspired by three of Ellington’s grade school teachers. “They taught all winter and toured Europe in the summer. To me that spelled sophistication.” Adelaide Hall (20 October 1901 7 November 1993) was an American-born British jazz singer and entertainer. Hall was born in Brooklyn, New York, and was taught to sing by her father. She began her career on Broadway in 1921 in the chorus line of the Broadway musical Shuffle Along, and went on to appear in a number of similar black musical shows, until in 1928 she starred (with Bill “Bojangles” Robinson and Nina Mae McKinney) in Blackbirds of 1928. It was this revue that made her name, both in the US and in Europe when the show was taken to Paris. Her performances in it included the songs “I Can’t Give You Anything But Love, Baby”, “Diga Diga Doo”, and “I Must Have That Man”, which continued to be audience favourites throughout her career. She married a British sailor, Bert Hicks, and he started a nightclub in Paris, France (La Grosse Pomme) for her. After many years performing in the US and Europe, Hall went …
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