Sylvia De Sayles, Vera Sanford - The Best Is Yet to Come / Ten Minutes to Midnight (2020)

The Best is Yet to Come
In October 1963, 22 year old singer —and pianist— Sylvia De Sayles got her chance to appear at the Embers club in New York. It was a slow Sunday, the day when the regular attractions had the night off so that the club could showcase new local talent. Ralph Watkins operated both the Embers and Basin Street East, and he was so impressed by Sylvia’s performance that he extended her engagement six more Sundays. A contract with Regina Records came from her success at the Embers, as did a three-week stand at the Living Room, and a ten-day stint at Basin Street East with Duke Ellington’s orchestra. On "The Best is Yet to Come" —her album debut for Regina— Sylvia sings an elegant selection of tunes that range from the more rhythmic persuasion to the torcher variety. Thanks to her warmth, vocal charm and solid jazz feeling, Sylvia was saluted as a new Lena Horne, and enjoyed a brief but successful career in the USA, with tours of the East and Europe.

Ten Minutes to Midnight
Chicagoan Vera Sanford was 25 in 1964, when she switched careers to go from legal secretary to vocalist under the auspices of her boss, Earl Washington. He was a local trial attorney and music lover, but after listening to one of her audition discs, he decided to launch a record label (Bombay) to introduce her to the music scene. Within a few months of releasing her album "Ten Minutes to Midnight," Vera was being hailed as a new singing sensation, and when she auditioned for the NBC Johnny Carson Show in New York, bandleader Skitch Henderson, paying her the highest praise, declared: “She’s a cross between Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan.”