Career
She had a hit with Ellington"s tune "I"m Beginning to See the Light". Subsequently, she worked as a soloist, performing with Rex Stewart, Ray Nance, and others into the 1960s. She returned to Ellington for 1956"s A Drum Is a Woman.
She toured the United States. in 1959 and then took a role on Broadway in The Long Dream.
She toured with Benny Goodman in the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics in 1962 and then returned to sing with Ellington in 1963. From 1970-1982 she had a children"s television show, Time for Joya, later called Joya"s Fun School.
Later in the 1980s she hosted a children"s show in the Middle East. She died of complications from leukemia in 2010, aged 85.