NEWS
By WILEY A. HALL | August 25, 1994
Singer Ethel Ennis has been compared to Peggy Lee, Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan. She toured with Benny Goodman. She has performed on network television. She has been called "the singer's singer," the chanteuse of choice for jazz connoisseurs.Naturally, then, I expected to talk with her about music. But time and again our conversation would move back to spiritual matters.For instance, Ms. Ennis tells me that she believes her strength lies in singing ballads. We were sitting in the living room of her home near Mondawmin Mall in Northwest Baltimore, a modest brick townhouse where she has lived with her husband for 30 years.
NEWS
By TaNoah Morgan and TaNoah Morgan,SUN STAFF | April 8, 1999
The music world is paying homage to Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington this month, which would have marked his 100th birthday. In Annapolis, jazz vocalist Ethel Ennis will lead the celebration."
FEATURES
By Sandra Crockett and Sandra Crockett,Staff Writer | June 14, 1998
The seductive sounds wafting through the floor were a temptation that could not be ignored.Jazz and blues represented the fast life and were forbidden in the WestBaltimore home, as in many homes during that time. But there was no shielding Ethel Ennis from the times. "I could hear the music coming from the apartment below us," she says. So, to get a better earful, the young Ennis got down on the floor, one ear pressed to the concrete.More than five decades later, Baltimore's 65-year-old jazz diva is still soaking up the music she loves.
FEATURES
By Carl Schoettler and Carl Schoettler,SUN STAFF | September 12, 2002
Two marvelous women, paragons of jazz-singing, talk with warm, generous camaraderie of lives well-lived, songs well-sung, with laughter and good humor for the good times and no trace of bitterness for the bad. Ethel Ennis and Ruby Glover, women of somewhat more than a certain age now, chat at a table in the Center Stage cafe, radiating youthful enthusiasm as if they had just come on the scene a minute ago. They talk in unison, solo and in counterpoint....
NEWS
By Phil Greenfield and Phil Greenfield,Special to The Sun | February 24, 1995
Nothing attracts friends like success, and when J. Ernest Green and his Carnegie-approved Annapolis Chorale take the Maryland Hall stage tonight and tomorrow, talented colleagues will abound.At these concerts -- the third in this season's Pops Series, the chorale will be joined by Maryland's first lady of song, Ethel Ennis, in a stylishly conceived program of new tunes and well-loved standards.Accompanying Ms. Ennis at these "Evenings With Ethel" will be the Annapolis Chamber Orchestra and a jazz trio consisting of drummer Paul Heldner, bass fiddler Keter Betts (Ella Fitzgerald's bassist of choice)
NEWS
By Phil Greenfield and Phil Greenfield,Special to The Sun | March 3, 1995
Con amore. With love, the Italians say. Performances that are delivered truly con amore are incredibly uplifting and, alas, all too rare.The concert at Maryland Hall last Saturday featuring the extraordinary Ethel Ennis, Maryland's first lady of song, J. Ernest Green's Annapolis Chorale and pianist Stef Scaggiari was one of those uplifting occasions.Everything about the concert -- the singing, the playing, the musical arrangements, the audience response -- was full of love.Each note that comes out of Ethel Ennis is sensitive and joyous, its tonal luster intact.