苏姗娜于1946年出生于美国加州柏克莱,71年她搬到英国从事写作与翻译。在巴黎时,苏姗娜听到比莉.哈乐黛(Billie Holiday)的唱片,深受感动,便决定投身爵士歌唱事业。刚开始她是在一些Pub演唱,并曾经与Ben Webster、Dexter Gordon等爵士大师合作。接着在76年,苏姗娜出版了首张专辑「The Songs of Harry Warren」,之后又陆续发行了Johnny Mercer、E.Y. Yip Harburg、Leo Robin等作曲家的歌曲集。1988年苏姗娜与Concord Jazz唱片公司签约,发行了专辑「No More Blues」,然后出版了包括巴西、百老汇等多元化内容的爵士唱片。苏姗娜对歌词的诠释有其独到之处,她认为歌曲的内涵是很重要的,而经由她的歌声传达出来的,则是充满生命力的悸动。她曾三度获得Stereo Review年度专辑大奖,其演唱功力深受评论界肯定。可惜的是天妒英才,苏姗娜.麦可可已于今年五月逝于纽约,享年65岁。
by Scott Yanow
One of the finest interpreters of lyrics active in the jazz world during the 1980s and 90s, Susannah McCorkle did not improvise all that much, but she brought the proper emotional intensity to the words she sang; a lyricists dream. She moved to England in 1971 where she worked with Dick Sudhalter and Keith Ingham, among others, performing at concerts with such visiting Americans as Bobby Hackett, Ben Webster, and Dexter Gordon. McCorkle sang at the Riverboat jazz room in Manhattan during 1975 (gaining a lot of attention) and recorded two albums in England (tributes to Harry Warren and Johnny Mercer) that were released domestically by Inner City. By 1980, she was back in the U.S., recording a Yip Harburg set and a fourth album for Inner City. After that label folded, McCorkle switched over to Pausa but by the late 80s was recording regularly for Concord. She expanded her pre-bop repertoire to include Brazilian songs and blues and, by the mid-90s, Susannah McCorkle was at the top of her field. Tragically, career disappointments exacerbated her chronic depression (a condition she kept well-hidden), resulting in her suicide in May of 2001 in New York City.