Elvira (Vi) Redd was born in Los Angeles, September 20, 1928. She was the daughter of Alton Redd, a leading drummer who played Dixieland with Kid Ory, swing with Les Hite, and bebop with Dexter Gordon and Wardell Gray. From 1968 until his death in 1979, Alton conducted the 'Young Men From New Orleans' band aboard the Mark Twain at Disneyland. Vi’s mother, Mattie Redd, played the saxophone but only as a hobby.

Vi began singing in church when she was five years old and, after studying piano for a while, and when she was in high school, she went on to blow a C Melody saxophone that her great-aunt Alma Hightower had given when she was 10.

Vi Redd had much in common with trombonist Melba Liston. Both played a horn, in Vi’s case alto saxophone and occasionally soprano saxophone, both were Los Angeles girls, and both studied with Mrs. Hightower. Under her tutelage, Vi cut her musical teeth playing Duke Ellington swing and Sousa marches in Los Angeles City College’s children’s band alongside Melba and Dexter Gordon. One day at high school physiology class, the teacher decided to ask all the children to sing. Vi sang “City Called Heaven,” was asked to stay after class, and the teacher advised her to take advantage of an obvious talent by studying voice. One of her musical associates at high school and later at L.A. City College was Eric Dolphy.

Around 1948, while continuing to study music and majoring in the social sciences, she began performing at neighborhood sessions and in a band with her first husband, Nathaniel (Nat) Meeks, a well-known bandleader and trumpeter. In 1954 after she graduated from the L.A. State College, she earned a teaching certificate from the University of Southern California which would serve her well in her future stints outside of music.

For the following three years she played and sang with small local bands such as the Dick Hart orchestra among many others. At the same time, she discovered the obstacles that explained the scarcity of jazz women.

“My auntie was a musician,” recalled Vi, “and it never occurred to me that there was anything unusual in a woman being a musician, but I soon found out. Men can be very strange. They don’t mind so much if you’re playing piano, sitting back down there, but you stand up beside them with a saxophone or trumpet and it’s like you’re challenging them. A lot of them just can’t take it’ Vi had her first child when she was twenty years old. By then she felt frustrated as a musician and she decided to stop and get away from the scene. “In 1957, I gave up music and became interested in social work again. I was then hired full-time by the Los Angeles City Council. My second son with my second husband, drummer Richie Goldberg, was born in 1960. A few months after his birth, I decided to return to music.”

The return was not easy and she had to accept poorly paid jobs with all kinds of groups, playing jazz in addition to rhythm and blues in nightclubs and dance halls around Central Avenue. “I can’t see any advantages for a girl musician. I found nothing but disadvantages,” declared Vi. But things would change for the better when Richie Goldberg found a jazz room where he could organize his own group, and she joined him.

In March 1962, Richie and Vi began playing with organist William McAffee and soul/jazz vocalist Kittie Doswell at a regular Monday night gig at the Red Carpet Room, a new Los Angeles venue at 234 Pico Blvd. There, Vi found the atmosphere and audience that made her feel at home. What immediately stood out about her was that few musicians had a more Bird-like sound or a more grounded blues feel than Vi Redd. She suddenly became the talk of the town.

Furthermore, she was a singer with an impressively resonant timbre and fine intonation and phrasing who sang in a warm, husky voice that was tremendously appealing. But her chief vocal virtue was that jazz sound that she shared withBill Henderson among a scant few others, and it was a very exciting thing. Her talent  caught the attention of other musicians who came to listen to her.

For Dave Bailey, the former drummer for Gerry Mulligan, curiosity was quickly replaced by genuine admiration. “I met Vi probably at a jam session in Los Angeles around 1962,” Bailey recalled. “Everyone told me that she sounded like Bird. When I heard her play, I was blown away. I thought she deserved attention, so I mentioned her to Leonard Feather” From then on, Feather would become Vi Redd’s main fan and promoter, helping her to record for United Artists and for Atlantic Records.

One night she sat down with the Shelly Manne combo. Shelly was impressed and immediately offered her a series of gigs at his club. Thus, starting at the end of April and for two months, Vi Redd also performed every Tuesday to great success at Shelly’s Manne-Hole club. A few nights later Vi did a guest shot at the Renaissance with Art Blakey, and also was engaged by Howard Rumsey at the Lighthouse in Hermosa Beach. These appearances not only gained her a large following on the West Coast but there are also signs that her popularity was spreading.

That summer, Vi signed with Atlantic Records although she actually cut her first LP for United Artists before the Atlantic pact came into effect. Leonard Feather supervised the sessions in Hollywood on May 21 and May 22. On the dates were trumpeter Carmell Jones (who appeared under the pseudonym Kansas Lawrence on the LP), Roy Ayers on vibes, pianist Russ Freeman, guitarist Herb Ellis, Leroy Vinnegar and Bob Whitlock on bass, and Vi’s husband Richie Goldberg on drums. The result was the underrated gem “Bird Call” which was reissued by Alan Douglas in 1968 on the Solid State record label, a division of United Artists.

Vi continued to play every Monday with Goldberg’s group on the Red Carpet, but from June until the end of October, organist Laverne Gillette substituted for William McAffee. On July 7, 1962, she was invited to the Las Vegas Jazz Festival with her own quintet. The Los Angeles Sentinel reported: “Another first for the Las Vegas Festival on July 7 and 8 is achieved when Vi Redd, an attractive young girl alto sax player, becomes the first femme to be one of the instrumental headliners at a jazz festival.” For his part, John Tynan in Down Beat wrote, “Los Angeles altoist Vi Redd, in her first such engagement, played a bushel barrel of raw, gutsy Charlie Parker-derived horn. Her vocals on That’s All and Summertime were effective and served to lend variety to the presentation.”

A few months later the Sentinel wrote, “Vi Redd, first woman instrumentalist in participating in the recent Las Vegas Jazz Festival was jumping with joy as she was placed 5th in the Down Beat critics poll,” confirming her status on the jazz scene and establishing her as a leading solo artist.

In November 1962, she traveled to New York to record for Atco (a subsidiary label of Atlantic). The first session resulted in eight tracks for her second album as a leader. Also under the supervision of Leonard Feather, Vi Reed was accompanied by Dick Hyman on organ and contributing arrangements, pianist Paul Griffin, guitarist Bucky Pizzarelli, bassist Ben Tucker, and drummer Dave Bailey. A second session took place in Los Angeles in January 1963, where four more tracks were recorded with Bill Perkins on tenor and flute, organist Jennell Hawkins, guitarist Barney Kessel, bassist Leroy Vinnegar, and drummer Leroy Harrison. The album came out with the title “Lady Soul.” Vi played alto sax and sang on alltunes, with the exception of Lady Soul and That’s All.

In September 1964, Vi joined Earl Hines’ revue at Sutherland’s in Chicago. With the pianist’s troupe, she toured the US and Canada and appeared at New York’s Birdland in November 1964. The Chicago Defender reported on their appearance at the Sutherland Room: “Featured with ‘Fatha’ Hines in his showcase are Vi Redd, a sultry singer who also plays the saxophone as well or better than many male musicians.”

In February 1965, Vi Redd appeared on two songs, Put It on Mellow and Dinah from the “Shades of Grey” album, by an excellent group led by trombonist Al Grey that included trumpeter Harry ‘Sweets’ Edison, tenor-saxophonist Eddie ‘Lockjaw’ Davis, Kirk Stuart on piano and organ, bassist Wyatt Ruther and drummer Rufus ‘Speedy’ Jones. The album was recorded in New York, was produced by Ray Charles, and released on his Tangerine label.

Vi appeared with Count Basie’s orchestra at the Monterey Jazz Festival in September 1966, the only female instrumentalist on the Monterey bill. “Another female performer, saxophonist Vi Redd was solid on alto with Count Basie’s big beat band. The occasional outbursts of enthusiasm were refreshing to some jazz fans who had sat through earlier stiff and lackluster performances.”

On January 21 and 22, 1967, she appeared at the first annual Beverly Hills Jazz Festival based upon Leonard Feather’s “7 Ages of Jazz” which presented an anthology of stages of development through blues, Dixieland, swing, bop and modern styles.

The night of June 16, 1967, her opening at Memory Lane in Santa Barbara was quite significant. Accompanied by the Red Mitchell trio with bassist Mitchell, drummer Clarence Johnson, and Marty Harris on piano, her performance aroused enormous excitement. About the performance the Los Angeles Times said: “There was an immediate requestfor If I Should Lose You, a song with which she was identified, followed by a swinging Don’t Get Around Much Anymore and Shadow of Your Smile on which she sang and then blew a hauntingly beautiful chorus on his alto saxophone.”

In 1969, she joined the recording session for multi-instrumentalist Johnny Almond’s jazz-rock album, “Hollywood Blues,” playing alto sax on two tracks. In late July 1970, she was invited to perform in Chicago at the Modern Jazz Showcase session that took place at the North Park Hotel. Vi made a strong impression accompanied by the local rhythm section (John Young, piano; Rufus Reid, bass; Wilbur Campbell, drums). She also appeared as a guest on one track in the Gene Ammons & Dexter Gordon album The Chase! recorded live at the North Park Hotel. A week later, promoter Jack Segal’s organized a group featuring Howard McGhee, Vi Redd, Jodie Christian, Rufus Reid and Wilbur Campbell as part of the late Charlie Parker’s fiftieth anniversary tribute, recording Parker’s Ornithology which was issued on the Cadet album, A Musical Tribute to Charlie Parker. From that date, she decided to stay at home to raise her two sons and taught autistic children at Los Angeles Banneker Special Education Center.

Despite having been out of the picture for several years, Vi Redd’s willingness to play made the Pilgrimage Jazz Concert on Sunday, October 26, 1975 one of the special delights of the fall season. “There were no signs of rust on her horn or in its sound. Only the vocal numbers were below par. Redd’s articulate rapping between songs reinforced her strong rapport with the crowd. Particularly touching was her verbal salute to Cannonball Adderley followed by an elegiac Over the Rainbow in tribute to him,” wrote Leonard Feather in The Los Angeles Times. She was supported by a group made up of guitarist Terry Evans, with Nat Pierce at the piano, bassist Larry Gales, and drummer Dick Berk.

On June 30, 1977, Vi Redd returned to the stage as part of a group led by pianist Marian McPartland, which included Lynn Milano (b) and Dottie Dodgion (d). She described her joy at getting back to playing as “almost like a kid being let out of school.” That all-female group performed at The Monticello Room in Rochester, New York and the concert recording was released on the album titled “Now Is the Time!” This was Vi Redd’s last recording.

Also in 1977, Vi Redd was named a consulting panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts and Humanities in Washington, DC. In a 1981 interview, she said “Last February I made my first visit to Japan, playing at a club in Tokyo, and the people were just marvelous. One night they had me just singing gospel songs I remembered from my childhood.”

During the summer 1981, she enjoyed a successful season, explained Leonard Feather in The Los Angeles Times: “Her searing, passionate alto saxophone and her gritty, soulful voice were heard twice at the Hollywood Bowl: first in the Playboy Festival, later in the “Blues Is a Woman” program. More recently she was seen in a concert of her own at the John Anson Ford Theater, across from the Bowl.”

She traveled again to London in October 1983 engaged for a week at the Pizza Express, were she played accompanied by the Eddie Thompson trio. During the following years, she continued being active in California, appearing periodically as a featured soloist or with her own groups in concerts and festivals, performing attributes to Parker, and playing and singing every Sunday at Los Angeles’ Brookins AME Church.

In June 11, 1988 she was invited to perform at Oakland Koncepts Cultural Gallery and she said: “Sometimes I do a concert of the history of the saxophone, but this time I’ll do Vi Redd because that’s what I do best. I’ll play bebop; it’s what I’ve always played. I’m from the Sonny Stitt-Cannonball Adderley-Charlie Parker school.” She played accompanied by her drummer son Randall Goldberg, pianist Bill Bell and bass player Herbie Lewis. The Koncepts program was billed as a celebration of the 70th birthday of Nelson Mandela, and Vi was happy to oblige. “It’s my way of calling attention to my dear brothers in South Africa.”

In October 1994, she returned to London to perform again at the Pizza Express, where a legion of fans were waiting for her. Back in California, Vi continued to perform regularly live and received multiple awards for her musical achievements. Leonard Feather stated “she has too much talent. Is she a soul-blues-jazz singer who doubles on alto saxophone? Or is she a Charlie Parker-inspired saxophonist who also happens to sing? There are mixed views on whether her main instrument was saxophone or voice.”

Miss Redd’s reputation would be more in keeping with her talents if the only two albums she’s made as her leader hadn’t been withdrawn from the market for years. Throughout her career, Vi Redd’s dedication and mastery of jazz music paved the way for many other talented ladies.

—Jordi Pujol (Taken from the inside liner notes of "Bird Call" FSRCD 1671)