Lorraine Geller was an American jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

 pianist.

Geller started out with the all-female big band

Big band

A big band is a type of musical ensemble associated with jazz and the Swing Era typically consisting of rhythm, brass, and woodwind instruments totaling approximately twelve to twenty-five musicians...

, Sweethearts of Rhythm, under Anne Mae Winburn; this group was a successor to the International Sweethearts of Rhythm

International Sweethearts of Rhythm

The International Sweethearts of Rhythm was the first integrated all women's band in the United States. During the 1940s the band featured some of the best female musicians of the day...

. She met alto saxophonist Herb Geller

Herb Geller

Herb Geller , is an American jazz saxophonist, composer and arranger.His musical abilities could have been inherited from his mother, Francis. She worked at the Hollywood neighbourhood cinemas playing piano, accompanying silent movies...

, then playing with Claude Thornhill

Claude Thornhill

Claude Thornhill was an American pianist, arranger, composer, and bandleader...

, in 1950, and married him in 1951; together they moved to Los Angeles

Los Ángeles

Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

. There they played with many of the stalwarts of the West Coast jazz

West coast jazz

West Coast jazz refers to various styles of jazz music that developed around Los Angeles and San Francisco during the 1950s. West Coast jazz is often seen as a sub-genre of cool jazz, which featured a less frenetic, calmer style than bebop or hard bop. The music tended to be more heavily arranged,...

 scene, such as Shorty Rogers

Shorty Rogers

Milton “Shorty” Rogers , born Milton Rajonsky in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, was one of the principal creators of West Coast jazz. He played both the trumpet and flugelhorn, and was in demand for his skills as an arranger. Rogers worked first as a professional musician with Will Bradley and...

, Zoot Sims

Zoot Sims

John Haley "Zoot" Sims was an American jazz saxophonist, playing mainly tenor and soprano.-Biography:He was born in Inglewood, California, the son of vaudeville performers Kate Haley and John Sims. Growing up in a performing family, Sims learned to play both drums and clarinet at an early age...

, Stan Getz

Stan Getz

Stanley Getz was an American jazz saxophone player. Getz was known as "The Sound" because of his warm, lyrical tone, his prime influence being the wispy, mellow timbre of his idol, Lester Young. Coming to prominence in the late 1940s with Woody Herman's big band, Getz is described by critic Scott...

, and Red Mitchell

Red Mitchell

Keith Moore "Red" Mitchell Keith Moore "Red" Mitchell Keith Moore "Red" Mitchell (September 20, 1927, New York City - November 8, 1992, Salem, Oregon, was an American jazz double-bassist, composer, lyricist, and poet. He was the brother of Whitey Mitchell....

; she also did sessions with Charlie Parker

Charlie Parker

Charles Parker, Jr. , famously called Bird or Yardbird, was an American jazz saxophonist and composer....

 and Dizzy Gillespie

Dizzy Gillespie

John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie was an American jazz trumpet player, bandleader, singer, and composer dubbed "the sound of surprise".Together with Charlie Parker, he was a major figure in the development of bebop and modern jazz...

. In 1957, she accompanied Kay Starr

Kay Starr

Kay Starr is an American pop and jazz singer who enjoyed considerable success in the 1940s and 50s. She is best remembered for introducing two songs that became #1 hits in the 1950s, "Wheel of Fortune" and "The Rock And Roll Waltz"....

. She performed at the first Monterey Jazz Festival

Monterey Jazz Festival

The Monterey Jazz Festival is one of the longest consecutively running jazz festivals. It debuted on October 3, 1958 and was founded by San Francisco jazz radio broadcaster Jimmy Lyons.-History:...

 in 1958. Later that year, she died suddenly of heart failure.

Discography

with Herb Geller

• The Gellers, Mercury (EmArcy) (1955, with Red Mitchell on bass and Mel Lewis
  Mel Lewis
  Mel Lewis was an American drummer, jazz musician and band leader. He was born Melvin Sokoloff in Buffalo, New York to Russian immigrant parents....
  
   on percussion)
• Herb Geller plays, Mercury (also Verve 1996, with Leroy Vinnegar
  Leroy Vinnegar
  Leroy Vinnegar was an American jazz bassist.Born in Indianapolis, the self-taught Vinnegar established his reputation in Los Angeles during the 1950s and 1960s. His trademark was the rhythmic "walking" bass line, a steady series of ascending or descending notes, and it brought him the nickname...
  
   bass, Larance Marable
  Larance Marable
  Larance Marable is a West Coast jazz hard bop drummer born in Los Angeles, California, probably best known today for his work with Charlie Haden in his Quartet West. However, Marable also had a strong career first as a bop musician in the 1950s working with the likes of Dexter Gordon and Charlie...
  
   percussion)
• The Herb Geller Sextette, Mercury (with e.g. Conte Candoli
  Conte Candoli
  Secondo "Conte" Candoli was an American jazz trumpeter based on the West Coast. He played in the big bands of Woody Herman, Stan Kenton, Benny Goodman, and Dizzy Gillespie, and in Doc Severinsen's NBC Orchestra on The Tonight Show. He played with Gerry Mulligan, and on Frank Sinatra's TV specials...
  
  , Red Mitchell, 1955)

Solo

• Lorraine Geller at the Piano, Dot
• Chet Baker, Miles Davis - Complete performances with Lighthouse All Stars, Jazz Factory 2004