Rita Reys - Women in Jazz: Rita Reys (2020)

Rita Reys (1924-2013) was considered one of Europe’s pre-eminent jazz singers. In presenting her with a lifetime achievement award in 2006, the Edison (Dutch Grammy) panel described her as “With no doubt the greatest jazz singer our country has brought forth”. Reys was born in Rotterdam into a musical household. Her father was a conductor and violinist, her mother was a dancer. Singing from an early age, Reys won several talent contests as a teenager. At 18, she met drummer Wessel Ilcken and worked regularly with him at the Sheherezade Club in Amsterdam. They married in 1945. From 1950, they toured as the Rita Reys Sextet, visiting a number of European countries, including Britain. In 1953, she made her debut recordings in Sweden, with saxophonist Lars Gullin.
In 1955, Reys appeared on the compilation series Jazz Behind The Dikes, which promoted the contemporary jazz sounds of Holland at the time, alongside Frans Elsen and Tony Vos. She was heard by Columbia Records producer George Avakian at the Sheherezade Club, and through him recorded The Cool Voice Of Rita Reys. The first side of the album featured Ilcken’s group, including Jerry and Ack van Rooyen, the second was with Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers (Donald Byrd, Hank Mobley, Ira Sullivan, Horace Silver, Kenny Drew and Wilbur Ware all appear). In 1957, she appeared at the Village Vanguard with a group led by Chico Hamilton. Less than a week after the couple returned to the Netherlands, tragedy struck when Ilcken died of a brain hemorrhage at the age of 33. With a young daughter to support, Reys returned to work soon after, performing with Kurt Edelhagen in 1958, and Bengt Hallberg in 1959. She also began to work with Ilcken’s regular piano player, Pim Jacobs. Their 1960 album Marriage in Modern Jazz coincided with their actual marriage that year. The album, one of many they would record with Philips earned her her first ‘Edison’ award.
Throughout the 1950s and 60s, Reys was named ‘Best Dutch Jazz Singer’ in numerous polls, and performed frequently at international jazz festivals. It was at the 1960 Juan-les-Pins Festival that she was first dubbed ‘Europe’s First Lady of Song’. A 1965 album with arrangements by Oliver Nelson featured Art Farmer, Lee Konitz, Sahib Shihab, Klaus Doldinger, Åke Persson and Benny Bailey. In 1969 she became the first Dutch jazz singer to appear at the New Orleans Jazz Festival, together with Jacobs and guests Zoot Sims and Milt Hinton. In the early 1970s, she recorded two albums with the orchestra of Rogier van Otterloo on CBS celebrating two star songwriters of the era – Michel Legrand and Burt Bacharach. Reys returned to this format again in 1981 with Jobim and in 1998 focussing on Henry Mancini. She performed regularly at the North Sea Jazz Festival through the 1980s, 90s (Pim Jacobs died in 1996), and as late as 2003. She recorded her final album in 2004 with pianist Peter Beets, publishing her autobiography in the same year. Reys died at the age of 88 in 2013.