A00195 - Alice Babs, Swedish Singer Who Sang for Ellington

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Hildur Alice Nilson (26 January 1924 – 11 February 2014), known by her stage name Alice Babs, was a Swedish singer.^[1] She worked in a wide number of genres – Swedish folklore, Elizabethan songs and opera. While she was best known internationally as a jazz singer, Babs also competed as Sweden's first annual competition entrant in the Eurovision Song Contest 1958. In 1972 she was named Sweden's Royal Court Singer, the first non-opera singer as such.

After making her breakthrough in the film Swing it, magistern! ('Swing It, Teacher!', 1940),^[2] she appeared in more than a dozen Swedish-language films. Despite being cast as the well-behaved, good-hearted, cheerful girl, the youth culture forming with Babs as its icon caused outrage among members of the older generation. A vicar called the Babs cult the "foot and mouth disease of cultural life".^[3]

A long and productive period of collaboration with Duke Ellington began in 1963.^[2] Among other works, Babs participated in performances of Ellington's second and third Sacred Concerts which he had written originally for her. Her voice had a range of more than three octaves; Ellington said that when she was not available to sing the parts that he had written for her, he had to use three different singers.^[4]

In 1963, her recording of "After You've Gone" (Fontana) reached No. 29 on the British New Musical Express charts.^[5]

In 1972, she contributed to the recording of "Auntie", a Dutch song commemorating the beginning of British Broadcasting Corporation's radio broadcasts 50 years before.

In 1943, Babs married Nils Ivar Sjöblom (1919–2011). Their three children are Lilleba Sjöblom Lagerbäck (born 1945), Lars-Ivar (Lasse) Sjöblom (born 1948), and Titti Sjöblom (born 1949).^[6][7]

Between 1973 and 2004, Babs and her husband resided in Costa del Sol, Spain, while still working in Sweden and internationally. In their later years, they returned to Sweden.

She was awarded the Illis quorum by the government of Sweden in 2003.^[8]

Babs died of complications from Alzheimer's disease at age 90 on 11 February 2014 in Stockholm.^[4][6][7][9]

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Alice Babs, Who Sang for Ellington, Dies at 90

By PETER KEEPNEWSFEB. 14, 2014

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Alice Babs, a Swedish singer acclaimed for her work with Duke Ellington, died on Tuesday in Stockholm. She was 90.

Her lawyer, Thomas Bodstrom, announced her death to the Swedish news media. 

Ms. Babs, a soprano with a three-octave range, first performed with Ellington’s orchestra in Europe in 1963, and though she was never a full-time member, she worked with Ellington frequently. She first drew widespread praise from American jazz critics for her performances at his so-called Sacred Concerts.

Reviewing one such concert, held at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine in Manhattan in 1968, John S. Wilson of The New York Times praised the “warmth and strength” of Ms. Babs’s voice and said that she “took her place among the top rank of Ellingtonians — those instrumentalists and singers who have brought special distinction to the Ellington ensemble and who have drawn unique inspiration from the Duke’s direction during the last 40 years.”

She had already been a pop star in Europe for two decades when she first worked with Ellington, appearing in several movies and representing Sweden at the 1958 Eurovision Song Contest. In the late 1950s and early ’60s she worked with two Danish musicians, the violinist Svend Asmussen and the guitarist Ulrik Neumann, in the group Swe-Danes, which performed in the United States as well as Europe.

In 1972 Ms. Babs was the first non-opera singer to be named Sweden’s royal court singer. She later became a member of the Royal Academy of Music. She continued to perform and record occasionally into the 21st century.

Alice Babs was born Hildur Alice Nilsson on Jan. 26, 1924, in Vastervik, Sweden. Her survivors include three children. Her husband, Nils Ivar Sjoblom, died in 2011.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9v-0P5bpg54