When a pert-faced high-school junior named Sarah Vaughan stepped on to the stage of Harlem's Apollo Theater one night in 1942, her only public singing experience had been in the church choir in Newark, NJ. But it turned out to be the old story of the unknown little girl, amateur night and the happy ending. When the jazz-wise Apollo audience heard Sarah's meandering, bittersweet version of Body and Soul, they clapped and whistled her into first place, with a week's engagement at $40 on the theater's regular bill. That night on the long ride...
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