Mary Ann McCall

Who was Mary Ann McCall?

Mary Ann McCall was a practitioner of both traditional pop music and vocal jazz. Along with solo work she sang for Tommy Dorsey and Woody Herman's bands. She was briefly married to Al Cohn. In 1949 she won the Down Beat Readers Poll for "Girl Singer".

Mary Ann never became as commercially successful as her talent might have otherwise allowed. She worked as a bartender in a popular but rather disreputable bar called "the forty-niner" in L.A. from roughly 1974 to 1976. The bar featured nude-dancers, as well as catering to the gay and lesbian crowd. She often amazed patrons with her singing ability and outgoing personality.

Like many great but not famous jazz musicians, she slowly ended her career by playing jazz in airport bars, notably at LAX.