Toni Harper - Miss In-Between: Selected Singles As and Bs, 1948-1953 (2023)

As with our Great Gates compilation, Jasmine is delighted to bring you this month the first ever CD reissue of the 1940s and early 50s recordings of Toni Harper - a long overdue concept that will be welcomed by those who love her oft-reissued mid to late 50s recordings for RCA and Verve.

When she made the first of the recordings heard in 'Miss In-Between' in 1947, Toni was just 10 years old - but she sang like someone twice that age, at least, and was immediately hailed as a future star and seen by lovers of jazz and blues vocalists as considerably more than a 'novelty kiddie act'.

We've managed to fit almost all of the recordings Toni made between 1948 and 1953 into this collection, including duets with former Duke Ellington vocalist Herb Jeffries and selections recorded with the big band of Harry James. They all tell the story of why Toni Harper deserves the reputation she earned as a singer before she was even old enough to go to college.

It's taken a long time to get this project past the finishing post - and sadly Toni passed away in February of this year, just as the finishing touches were being applied, having not recorded since she retired from singing 1965. It is nevertheless a permanent testament to a unique talent, and its release means that - a few later singles apart - just about all of this remarkable young woman's equally remarkable early recordings can now be heard again for the first time since some of them appeared on a vinyl reissue in the 80s.