Philly vocalist Miss Justine says she has retired, but her fans won’t have it

“I tell them, ‘I come out to enjoy the music like y’all do. I buy my own food. I’m not here to entertain.’ They act like I never opened my mouth.”

Officially, Miss Justine has been retired since shortly before the pandemic started. But try telling that to the Philadelphia jazz singer’s devoted fans. “When I go out to hear some music, people are constantly saying, ‘Will you sing something?’” she complained (albeit with a sly smile) last week at her apartment in Fort Washington.

No one will have to coax her onto the stage this Sunday at the Keswick Theatre’s new Annex. As part of the second annual Montco Jazz Fest, Jazz Bridge will honor the vocalist with its Lifetime Achievement Award, an occasion for which she’s happy to shrug off retirement once more.

Miss Justine — after living with her maiden name and two married names, she now prefers to forego last names altogether — was always a reluctant performer. She grew up in a musical household in North Philly, where her mother organized her three older siblings into a vocal trio known as The Davis Kids. The family home and its piano became a hub for local jazz musicians, who dropped in for regular jam sessions.

The mysterious pianist Hassan Ibn Ali was an almost-daily guest, while other visitors included legends like John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, and McCoy Tyner. Her youngest sister Aisha went on to marry Tyner and serve as the muse for the pianist’s composition “Ballad for Aisha.”

Miss Justine got her professional start, however reluctantly, at the age of 5 on the Horn and Hardart Children’s Hour, a variety show sponsored by the famed automat and broadcast from the WCAU studios from 1949 to 1958.

“I was always kind of shy,” she said. “I was more interested in sports than in music when I was growing up.” At the time she got married for the first time, she was on three different basketball teams.

She continued to perform, sustained by the encouragement of her peers and collaborators. “I was always surprised when I got calls to sing,” she said. “I never had a lot of confidence in me. But I was working with people that I really looked up to, and I was learning from them.”

In 1982 Miss Justine made the most important connection of her career when she began performing with pianist Gerald Price, who had worked with saxophonist Sonny Stitt and vibraphonist Milt Jackson. The two worked together extensively through the ‘80s and ‘90s, with Price serving as a musical director and mentor for the singer through several local residencies that helped build the loyal fan base she continues to regard as family today.

The most long-standing was her weekend residency at the Villa Strafford in Wayne, which lasted for more than two decades. She was a favorite of the restaurant’s proprietor, celebrity chef Friedman Paul “Chef Tell” Erhardt, who also featured her at his restaurant in the Chestnut Hill Hotel for years. Miss Justine also became a fixture at Zanzibar Blue on Broad Street, and Jamey’s House of Music in Manayunk.

Even before her attempt at retirement, audiences were often reluctant to let Miss Justine leave the stage. At a concert at the Cape May Jazz Fest, when the organizers tried to end the show in compliance with local noise ordinances, an audience member stood up and started passing around his hat. “We’ll pay the fine,” he declared.

Though her living room is graced by portraits of Sarah Vaughan and Billie Holiday, Miss Justine insists that she never aspired to their iconic status. Like Price and many of the other Philly favorites with whom she worked — saxophonists Bootsie Barnes, Larry McKenna, and Tony Williams; pianists Eddie Green and Dave Posmontier; drummer Butch Ballard — she remained content with her hometown following.

“I’m too soft,” she shrugged. “This is a hard business. I think you just have to find where you fit.”

Staying close to home has allowed Miss Justine to give back to her community. She was one of the founding board members of Jazz Bridge, the Philly nonprofit that assists local musicians with financial, health, and housing needs. She also founded an organization called One Voice, a support network for singers. She helped AIDS patients with transportation to medical appointments in the 1980s and generated donations for school music programs.

“We could help people with different little things that were big to them,” Miss Justine explained.

She also became a mentor for young vocalists. Joanna Pascale, curator of this year’s Montco Jazz Fest, first heard Miss Justine at the Villa Strafford when she was a college student, and quickly began to “follow her around like a puppy,” soaking up lessons both musical and practical.

“She was one of my first champions,” Pascale said. “She had all the elements that I loved in a singer — emotion, storytelling, and incredible phrasing. She would sing songs from the Great American Songbook in a way that made you feel like you were hearing the story for the first time.”

Pascale is now able to return the favor, bringing the “Women in Jazz” themed festival to a close with Miss Justine’s Lifetime Achievement Award. “It’s nice when your peers think that much of you,” the honoree said. It’s been a wonderful life.”

The Montco Jazz Fest takes place Sept. 20-24 at various venues around Montgomery County. Miss Justine performs Sunday, Sept. 24, 4 p.m. at the Annex at the Keswick Theatre. Tickets and information at www.valleyforge.org/things-to-do/arts-culture/arts-montco-week/montco-jazz-fest/