Compiled by The Bedford Citizen
The late Alice Groves’s life will be celebrated at First Parish on Bedford Common at 2 pm on Saturday, April 14.
Alice passed away peacefully on February 8 at age 93. Her life was focused on music and her children in almost equal measure according to her daughter Ellen.
A talented jazz singer, pianist, and arranger, Alice performed professionally in the Greater Boston area, starting in her teens at Revere Beach jazz clubs. She frequented the Storyville nightclub in Kenmore Square and befriended the likes of trumpeter Ruby Braff and Paul Desmond, composer of ‘Take Five.’ Jazz promoter George Wein and journalist Nat Hentoff were neighborhood friends from her youth and remained in touch throughout their lives.
Hentoff claimed, “Alice comps time better than anyone,” and Braff is said to have added, “And nobody sings better than Alice.”
A long-time resident of Bedford, Alice performed at the first Kristallnacht observances held at First Parish on Bedford Common and sang as part of a Black History Month staging of Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters’ First 100 Years at the Bedford Free Public Library in 1997. In recent years, the Groves family trio — Alice, Ellen, and Dean — presented frequent jazz concerts to benefit First Parish.
Alice worked for 20 years at Middlesex Community College in Bedford as the Administrative Assistant to the Dean of Humanities. She was predeceased by her husband Mason and is survived by her children and their spouses: Dean Groves and Laurie of Bedford, and Ellen Groves of Bedford.
In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to First Parish in Bedford, 75 Great Road, Bedford, MA 01730.
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