D.C.’s jazz community lost its matriarch when Ronnie Wells (pictured right) succumbed to lung cancer in March 2007. One of D.C.’s premier jazz vocalists, Wells began her career in the mid-60s when she started performing at clubs throughout the city. Over the course of her career, her music took her to festivals and around the world. In 1983, she accepted an appointment to the University of Maryland’s music program, where she designed a jazz vocal program that was a rite of passage for the area’s young jazz singers.

Along with her husband, pianist Ron Elliston, who was also on the faculty at Maryland, Wells became a mentor to many. Rehearsals and jam sessions were often held at their house in Wheaton and many a young musician, including a certain DCist jazz writer, spent many a memorable hour in their musical laboratory. Wells cemented her place among the most dedicated presenters of jazz in 1991 when she founded the Fish Middleton Jazz Scholarship Fund, an organization that grants scholarships to emerging musicians, conducts educational programs, and mounts the annual East Coast Jazz Festival. Friday night, some of the finest jazz musicians in the area gathered at The Music Center at Strathmore to pay heartfelt musical tribute to this memorable woman.

Photo by Diane Daly