Ann Burton (March 4, 1933,

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the capital and most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population of 907,976 within the city proper, 1,558,755 in the urban ar ...

– November 29, 1989, Amsterdam) is the pseudonym of Johanna Rafalowicz (between 1938 and 1971: Johanna de Paauw), a

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a m ...

singer.

Early life

In about 1930 the mother of Ann Burton (pseudonym of Johanna Rafalowicz) immigrated from

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...

to the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

. Ann was born in Netherlands and when she was 3 years old, in 1933, her mother married a diamond worker. In 1938 Johanna's surname was changed to her stepfather's and she became ''Johanna de Paauw'', which was her official name until 1971, when she again changed it back to ''Rafalowicz''. During World War II her family faced Jewish persecution under German occupation and she went into hiding while her mother and stepfather survived the Nazi concentration camps. However, the family became disrupted when her (step) parents were deprived of parental power. Johanna, who had Polish nationality, acquired Dutch nationality in 1957. Johanna had never had singing lessons, but she had listened to American singers like Doris Day,

Jo Stafford Jo Elizabeth Stafford (November 12, 1917July 16, 2008) was an American traditional pop music singer, whose career spanned five decades from the late 1930s to the early 1980s. Admired for the purity of her voice, she originally underwent classi ...

, Rosemary Clooney,

Ella Fitzgerald Ella Jane Fitzgerald (April 25, 1917June 15, 1996) was an American jazz singer, sometimes referred to as the "First Lady of Song", "Queen of Jazz", and "Lady Ella". She was noted for her purity of tone, impeccable diction, phrasing, timing, in ...

and Sarah Vaughan. Later,

Billie Holiday Billie Holiday (born Eleanora Fagan; April 7, 1915 – July 17, 1959) was an American jazz and swing music singer. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and music partner, Lester Young, Holiday had an innovative influence on jazz music and pop s ...

and

Shirley Horn Shirley Valerie Horn (May 1, 1934 – October 20, 2005) was an American jazz singer and pianist. She collaborated with many jazz musicians including Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Toots Thielemans, Ron Carter, Carmen McRae, Wynton Marsalis and ot ...

influenced her. She wanted to get into the music world and so in about 1955 she took the name Ann Burton inspired by the Welsh actor

Richard Burton Richard Burton (; born Richard Walter Jenkins Jr.; 10 November 1925 – 5 August 1984) was a Welsh actor. Noted for his baritone voice, Burton established himself as a formidable Shakespearean actor in the 1950s, and he gave a memorable pe ...

Musical career

Ann Burton began her career as singer by a

quintet A quintet is a group containing five members. It is commonly associated with musical groups, such as a string quintet, or a group of five singers, but can be applied to any situation where five similar or related objects are considered a single ...

in Luxemburg. She sang with bandleader ''Johnny Millstonford'' and performed in clubs with the orchestra of ''Ted Powder'' for American soldiers in Germany. In the summer of 1958 she sang in the quartet of pianist Pia Beck in Scheveningen and in 1960 they toured with saxophonist

Piet Noordijk Piet Noordijk (May 25, 1932 – October 8, 2011) was a Dutch saxophonist. Noordijk played with orchestras and big bands, including The Skymasters, The Ramblers and Malando. He was awarded the Wessel Ilcken Prize in 1965. Between 1978 and 1992, N ...

in Spain and

Morocco Morocco (),, ) officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is the westernmost country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It overlooks the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria t ...

. Back in the Netherlands she sang again in Scheveningen. In 1965, she made an EP for Decca Records with the :nl:Frans Elsen Trio. Later she joined

Ramses Shaffy Ramses Shaffy (29 August 1933 – 1 December 2009) was a Dutch-French singer and actor who became popular during the 1960s. His most famous songs include "Zing, vecht, huil, bid, lach, werk en bewonder", "We zullen doorgaan", "Pastorale", "Samm ...

's group Shaffy Chantant. In the late sixties she was noticed by John J. Vis, the director of the record company Artone, and he produced her first album "Blue Burton" in 1967. On this record the trio of

Louis van Dijk Louis van Dijk, also spelled Louis van Dyke (27 November 1941 – 12 April 2020), was a beloved Dutch pianist. Born as Arnold Ludwig van Dijk in Amsterdam, he studied solo piano at the Amsterdam Conservatorium. Louis van Dijk became well-known fo ...

, :de:Jacques Schols and :nl:John Engels, supplemented with :de:Piet Noordijk, accompanied her. She became popular and the album received an

Edison Award The Edison Award is an annual Dutch music prize awarded for outstanding achievements in the music industry. It is comparable to the American Grammy Award. The Edison award itself is a bronze replica of a statuette of Thomas Edison, designed b ...

in 1969. A few more records in 1969 and 1972 were released in collaboration with John Vis. In 1973, she toured Japan, where she became the most popular jazz singer, second only to

. She made numerous albums with

Masahiko Sato is a Japanese jazz pianist, composer and arranger. Early life Satoh was born in Tokyo on 6 October 1941. His mother was Setsu and his father, who owned small businesses, was Yoshiaki Satoh. The house that his family moved into in 1944 contained ...

and Ken McCarthy and others. In the late seventies she worked in New York, where she made several albums, some of which were with

Grady Tate Grady Tate (January 14, 1932 – October 8, 2017) was an American jazz and soul-jazz drummer and baritone vocalist. In addition to his work as sideman, Tate released many albums as leader and lent his voice to songs in the animated ''Schoolhou ...

and Buster Williams. Singer

Helen Merrill Helen Merrill (born Jelena Ana Milcetic; July 21, 1930) is an American jazz vocalist. Her first album, the eponymous 1954 recording '' Helen Merrill'' (with Clifford Brown), was an immediate success and associated her with the first generation ...

produced the albums. For ''"New York State of Mind"'' Burton also received an Edison award. In the eighties she founded her own record label, Burtone, that produced her albums. In the period 1986–1988 she taught at the

Amsterdam Conservatory The Conservatorium van Amsterdam (CvA) is a Dutch conservatoire of music located in Amsterdam. This school is the music division of the Amsterdam University of the Arts, the city's vocational university of arts. The Conservatorium van Amsterdam ...

. Ann Burton died at the age of 56 due to

throat cancer Head and neck cancer develops from tissues in the lip and oral cavity (mouth), larynx (throat), salivary glands, nose, sinuses or the skin of the face. The most common types of head and neck cancers occur in the lip, mouth, and larynx. Symptoms ...

Discography

Albums

Bibliography

* Anneke Muller. ''Blue Burton''. Schoorl: Conserve, 1999. ISBN nummer 90-5429-129-X

References

Ann Burton official website

{{DEFAULTSORT:Burton, Ann 1933 births 1989 deaths Dutch jazz singers Musicians from Amsterdam 20th-century Dutch women singers Dutch people of Polish descent