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Pinky Winters (born Phyllis Wozniak in 1930) is an American jazz singer with an on-and-off career span of over 80 years. She continues to play and record with talented jazz musicians into the second decade of the 21st century.

Life and career

Phyllis Wozniak was born on 1 February 1930 in Michigan City, Indiana, USA.^[1] She took piano lessons from the age of four and was performing solo in a local concert within a year.^[2] Winters cites her first main singing influence as Sarah Vaughan.^[3] After a brief spell as an office worker, she moved with a girlfriend and with Dick Groves to Denver, Colorado, where she sang and played the piano in clubs and took on the stage name of Pinky Winters.^[1] In 1953, Winters and Groves moved to California, performing in venues such as the Starlight night club in Los Angeles. At a gig one night in Santa Monica, Anita O’Day, who had a regular singing spot and who was going to be out of town for two weeks, gave her spot to Winters who found herself performing with players such as pianist Hampton Hawes and bass player Red Mitchell.^[3] From the mid to late 1950s, Winters worked in many clubs in the area and released several jazz albums on which she was accompanied by top musicians in the LA jazz scene, including Zoot Sims, Lou Levy, Gerald Wiggins, Howard Roberts and Chico Hamilton. After getting married and having a daughter, there was a hiatus in her career from 1958 to 1979, when Winters concentrated on her family.^[4] She returned to performing, recording and touring after her second divorce. In 1982 she began a partnership with Lou Levy, an accompanist who had worked with Peggy Lee and Ella Fitzgerald.^[5]^[6]

From an on-and-off four decade career, Winters became known for her intimate and informal singing style,^[7] with what the jazz expert Doug Ramsey describes as "impeccable diction, interpretation, time and phrasing".^[8] The inventive singing on her albums is now highly prized.^[9]^[10]^[11]

She toured in the Netherlands (1994), in Indonesia and in 2016 in Japan, with veteran pianist Kiyoshi Morita.^[12] Four or five of her records were released in Japan. Winters is still in demand as a performer. During the pandemic lockdowns however, she self-isolated and did not sing publicly. In an interview in September 2021, on the "West Coast Jazz Hour # 41 with Pinky Winters", then over 90 years old, Winters stated that she felt she had one more album in her.^[3]

Personal life

Winters‘ first husband was the bassist Jim Wolf with whom she performed in Los Angeles. They had a daughter together but divorced in the late 1950s. Winters‘ second husband was Bob Hardaway with whom she had a second daughter. Winters had a long professional and personal relationship with accompanist Lou Levy^[13] who died in 2001.^[14]

Discography

Pinky (Vantage Records 1954)
Pinky & Zoot (Vantaga, 1954)
Lonely One (Argo Records, 1958)
The Shadow of Your Smile – (Pinky Winters Sings Johnny Mandel) (Cellar Door, 1983)
Speak Low (Cellar Door, 1983)
Let’s Be Buddies (Jacqueline, 1985)
As Long as There’s Music (Koch Jazz 1994)
This Happy Madness (Verve 1994)
Rain Sometimes (2001)
World on a String: Pinky Winters Sings Sinatra – Live in Tokyo (SSJ, 2007)
Winters in Summer (SSJ 2010)