Adelaide Hall - Legacy

Legacy

Adelaide Hall was one of the major entertainers of the Harlem Renaissance. Along with Louis Armstrong, she pioneered scat singing and is widely acknowledged as one of the world’s first jazz singers. Indeed, Ella Fitzgerald regarded her as such. Adelaide Hall was the first female vocalist to sing and record with Duke Ellington. She holds the accolade of being the twentieth century's most enduring female recording artist, her recording career having spanned eight decades. In 1941, Hall replaced Gracie Field's as Britain's highest paid female entertainer. Adelaide Hall was loosely portrayed as the nightclub chanteuse in the Francis Ford Coppola 1984 movie The Cotton Club.