Dorothy Donegan: Four Albums, 1957-1961

The piano virtuoso had a long, frustrating career, an Art Tatum friendship and a thunderous technique

Dec 31, 2025

Soon after I posted the YouTube clip of Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis, Harry “Sweets” Edison and Zoot Sims, readers wanted to know more about the pianist Dorothy Donegan and to hear more of her.

Female jazz pianists in the 1940s and ‘50s were universally excellent but notoriously shortchanged in praise, opportunities and money. Among them were Mary Lou Williams, Marian McPartland, Hazel Scott, Beryl Booker, Jutta Hipp, Nina Simone, Barbara Carroll, Toshiko Akiyoshi, Shirley Scott, Terry Pollard and Bertha Hope-Booker (Elmo Hope’s widow).

Of them all, Donegan was perhaps the most fiery and accomplished.

Born in Chicago in 1922, she started taking piano lessons at age 8. After high school, she studied music at the Chicago Musical College and the University of Southern California.

Following her graduation from college, she played extensively at clubs and made her first recordings in 1942, as a solo pianist. Trio and solo recordings came next for Continental in 1946. She also came to the attention of pianist Art Tatum, who was awed by her technique and speed.

She made her first studio albums in 1954 for Jubilee and MGM. Then came live albums in New York and Los Angeles in 1958. A few more were made in the 1960s and ‘70s before she became celebrated in Europe in the 1980s.

While performing in the Widder Bar at Zurich’s Widder Hotel in 1986, she was recorded by the Dutch Timeless label. Then in 1990, ‘91 and ‘92, she recorded three albums for Hank O’Neal’s Chiaroscuro label, with assorted special guests.

Dorothy Donegan died of cancer in Los Angeles in 1998 at age 76.

Four of her albums between 1957 and 1961 were issued in 2012 as One Night With the Virtuoso (Jasmine). Those albums were Live at the Embers (Roulette, 1957), Live! (Capitol, 1958), Donnybrook With Donegan (Capitol, 1959) and It Happened One Night (Roulette, 1961).

Here’s the complete One Night With the Virtuoso—two hours of Dorothy Donegan…