Remembering the legacy of ‘Charleston’s First Lady of Jazz’ Ann Baker

By Black By God

August is a significant month for the history of Black music in the Mountain State. Not only is Aug. 11 the 85th birthday of John “Some Kind of Wonderful” Ellison, but the 21st. also marks what would have been the 111th birthday of “Charleston’s First Lady of Jazz,” Ann Baker. 

Born in Washington, Pennsylvania in 1915, Baker’s legendary career would see her take the stage with the most notable jazz musicians of the time. 

As noted on e-WV: The West Virginia Encyclopedia Online, “In 1946, [Baker] landed her signature gig, replacing Sarah Vaughan in Billy Eckstine’s band. Known as “The Dream Band,” the lineup included at times jazz legends Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, Art Blakey, and Dexter Gordon. During her tenure with Eckstine, Baker was also featured singing “I Cried For You” in the 1946 film ‘Rhythm in a Riff.’”

Baker retired from touring in the early 1940s, and settled in Charleston with husband, Delaney “Wag” Wagner, himself a former professional tennis player and owner of Wag’s Barbeque. 

As further noted by e-WV, “[Baker and her husband] also started a West Side club called The Shalamar where Baker sat in with a succession of big names from Nat King Cole to pianist Errol Garner. Before integration, the club attracted Charleston’s elite, including lawyers, doctors, and politicians. During the 1970s, Baker was a regular at the West Virginia Jazz Festival, performed several times on Mountain Stage, and later had a jazz series at Charleston’s Multifest named in her honor.”

After her death on Aug. 29, 1999, Baker was posthumously inducted into the West Virginia Music Hall of Fame in 2007, where she joins such fellow Black West Virginia Musicians as the aforementioned John Ellison, Bill Withers, Johnnie Johnson, Leon “Chu” Berry, Maceo Pinkard, Nat Reese, “Diamond Teeth” Mary McClain, Ada “Bricktop” Smith, Claude Jeter and the Swan Silvertones, Bob Thompson, Vann Walls, Ethel Caffie-Austin, Winston Walls, Calvin Simon, and Clarence “Fuzzy” Haskins. 

Click HERE to read BBG’s coverage of “The Black Inductees in the West Virginia Music Hall of Fame.”