 She was classmates with Dexter Gordon, and friends with Eric Dolphy.After playing in youth bands and studying with Alma Hightower, she joined the big band led by Gerald Wilson in 1944.She recorded with saxophonist Dexter Gordon in 1947 and joined Dizzy Gillespie's big band, which included saxophonists John Coltrane, Paul Gonsalves, and pianist John Lewis) in New York for a time when Wilson disbanded his orchestra in 1948.