Born in Worcester, Massachusetts on January 25, 1925, Barbara Carroll was a jazz pianist and vocalist. She began studying classical piano at the age of 8 but switched to jazz while in high school. She then enrolled at the New England Conservatory of Music but left after a year in order to pursue her musical career. In the late 1940s, she formed a trio with guitarist Chuck Wayne and bassist Clyde Lombardi, and they worked with Benny Goodman for a brief time. When guitarist Chuck Wayne left the trio, he was replaced by Charlie Byrd for a short while. Barbara Carroll’s first released recordings were on the 1951 album Piano Panorama – later retitled Ladies in Jazz – a split release with fellow jazz pianist Mary Lou Williams. Barbara Carrol released several more albums in the 1950s – including Lullabies in Rhythm (1955), Plays the best of George and Ira Gershwin (1958), Flower Drum Song (1959), and Satin Doll (1959) – but only released albums sporadically in the 1960s. A resurgence of interest in her career brought her out of semi-retirement in the early 1970s and she worked with several different artists including Rita Coolidge and Kris Kristofferson. She released solo material in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s but turned to working the cabaret circuit for the next few decades. She recorded several albums in the 1990s and 2000s. She was awarded the Kennedy Center’s Mary Lou Williams Women in Jazz Lifetime Achievement Award in 2003. Barbara Carroll died on February 12, 2017, at the age of 92.
