Nancie Banks (born Nancie Manzuk, July 29, 1951 – November 2002) was an American

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 major ...

singer. Born in

Morgantown, West Virginia Morgantown is a city in and the county seat of Monongalia County, West Virginia, Monongalia County, West Virginia, United States, situated along the Monongahela River. The largest city in North-Central West Virginia, Morgantown is best known as th ...

, Banks sang in a church choir with her father as a child and learned piano from her mother at age four.Nancie Banks
at

Allmusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...

She lived in Pittsburgh for a time, then relocated to New York City in the 1980s and studied with

Edward Boatner Edward Hammond Boatner (1898–1981) was an American composer who wrote many popular concert arrangements of Black American spirituals. Biography Boatner was educated at Western University in Quindaro, Kansas, Boston Conservatory and recei ...

Barry Harris Barry Doyle Harris (December 15, 1929 – December 8, 2021) was an American jazz pianist, bandleader, composer, arranger, and educator. He was an exponent of the bebop style. Life and career Harris was born in Detroit, Michigan, on December ...

, and

Alberto Socarras Alberto Socarrás Estacio, ( Manzanillo, 19 September 1908 – New York City, 26 August 1987), was a Cuban-American flautist who played both Cuban music and jazz. Socarras started learning the flute in 1915 with his mother, Dolores Estacio, and l ...

, and performed with both small ensembles and

big band A big band or jazz orchestra is a type of musical ensemble of jazz music that usually consists of ten or more musicians with four sections: saxophones, trumpets, trombones, and a rhythm section. Big bands originated during the early 1910s an ...

s. She married trombonist Clarence Banks later in the decade after she joined

Charlie Byrd Charlie Lee Byrd (September 16, 1925 – December 2, 1999) was an American jazz guitarist. Byrd was best known for his association with Brazilian music, especially bossa nova. In 1962, he collaborated with Stan Getz on the album '' Jazz Samba' ...

's band, of which he was a member. Among the musicians she worked with were

Lionel Hampton Lionel Leo Hampton (April 20, 1908 – August 31, 2002) was an American jazz vibraphonist, pianist, percussionist, and bandleader. Hampton worked with jazz musicians from Teddy Wilson, Benny Goodman, and Buddy Rich, to Charlie Parker, Charles M ...

Dexter Gordon Dexter Gordon (February 27, 1923 – April 25, 1990) was an American jazz tenor saxophonist, composer, bandleader, and actor. He was among the most influential early bebop musicians, which included other greats such as Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gi ...

Walter Davis Jr. Walter Davis Jr. (September 2, 1932 – June 2, 1990) was an American bebop and hard bop pianist. Davis once left the music world to be a tailor, but returned. A soloist, bandleader, and accompanist, he amassed a body of work while never be ...

, Bob Cunningham,

Duke Jordan Irving Sidney "Duke" Jordan (April 1, 1922 – August 8, 2006) was an American jazz pianist. Biography Jordan was born in New York and raised in Brooklyn where he attended Boys High School. An imaginative and gifted pianist, Jordan was a regula ...

Diane Schuur Diane Joan Schuur (born December 10, 1953), nicknamed "Deedles", is an American jazz singer and pianist. As of 2015, Schuur had released 23 albums, and had extended her jazz repertoire to include essences of Latin, gospel, pop and country music ...

George Benson George Washington Benson (born March 22, 1943) is an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter. He began his professional career at the age of 19 as a jazz guitarist. A former child prodigy, Benson first came to prominence in the 1960s, pla ...

Woody Shaw Woody Herman Shaw Jr. (December 24, 1944 – May 10, 1989) was an American jazz trumpeter, flugelhornist, cornetist, composer, arranger, band leader, and educator. Shaw is widely known as one of the most important and influential jazz trumpet ...

Jon Hendricks John Carl Hendricks (September 16, 1921 – November 22, 2017), known professionally as Jon Hendricks, was an American jazz lyricist and singer. He is one of the originators of vocalese, which adds lyrics to existing instrumental songs and rep ...

Walter Booker Walter Booker (December 17, 1933 – November 24, 2006) was an American jazz musician. A native of Prairie View, Texas, Booker was a reliable bass player and an underrated stylist. His playing was marked by voice-like inflections, glissandos and ...

Bross Townsend Bross Elvie Townsend, Jr. (October 18, 1933 – May 12, 2003) was an American jazz and blues pianist. Townsend was born in Princeton, Kentucky. His father was also a pianist, and started his son on the instrument at age seven. Townsend moved to C ...

Charlie Persip Charles Lawrence Persip (July 26, 1929 – August 23, 2020), known as Charli Persip and formerly as Charlie Persip (he changed the spelling of his name to Charli in the late 1960s), was an American jazz drummer. Biography Born in Morristown, N ...

Walter Bishop, Jr. Walter Bishop Jr. (October 4, 1927 – January 24, 1998) was an American jazz pianist. Early life Bishop was born in New York City on October 4, 1927.Greene, Philip; Kernfeld, Barr"Bishop, Walter Jr." ''The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz'' (2nd ed ...

, and

Sadik Hakim Sadik Hakim (born Forrest Argonne Thornton; July 15, 1919 – June 20, 1983) was an American jazz pianist and composer. Early life Forrest Argonne Thornton was born on July 15, 1919 in Duluth, Minnesota. The name Argonne came from the World War ...

. In 1989 she founded her own big band and recorded four albums between 1992 and 2001. She also worked on film soundtracks, including ''

Mo' Better Blues ''Mo' Better Blues'' is a 1990 American musical comedy-drama film starring Denzel Washington, Wesley Snipes, and Spike Lee, who also wrote, produced, and directed. It follows a period in the life of fictional jazz trumpeter Bleek Gilliam (played ...

'' (1990) and ''

Housesitter ''Housesitter'' is a 1992 American romantic comedy film directed by Frank Oz, written by Mark Stein, and starring Steve Martin and Goldie Hawn. The premise involves a woman with con-artist tendencies who worms her way into the life of a reserved ...

'' (1992), and in Broadway musicals such as ''Swingin' On a Star''. During the 1990s, she taught jazz at the

City University of New York The City University of New York ( CUNY; , ) is the Public university, public university system of Education in New York City, New York City. It is the largest urban university system in the United States, comprising 25 campuses: eleven Upper divis ...

. Banks died in New York City in November 2002. Her body was found in her home; the exact day she died is unknown.

Discography

*''Waves of Peace'' (Consolidated Artists Productions, 1992) *''Bert's Blues'' (Consolidated Artists Productions, 1994) *''Ear Candy'' (GFI, 1999) *''Out of It'' (GFI, 2001)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Banks, Nancie 1951 births 2002 deaths 20th-century American singers 20th-century American women singers American women jazz singers American jazz singers Musicians from West Virginia