Maxine Daniels, who has died aged 72, was a popular, jazz-oriented singer whose name was widely known in cabaret and variety circles, yet who remained very much part of London's East End. She frequently topped the bill at the Theatre Royal, Stratford, in the 1980s, supported by a faithful audience that included members of her large extended family and friends.
She was born in the area around Stepney's Victoria Docks, where pioneering settlers from Africa and the Caribbean flourished against the odds in the years around the first world war. Struggling against the general curse of unemployment and, in their case, the restricted opportunities open to non-whites, these men put down roots and established families with the help of the women - most, but not all of them, white -who supported and sustained them.
Daniels' parents belonged to this group. As Gladys Lynch, she was one of 13 children of a Caribbean seaman and an English mother of mixed race from Canning Town. She came from the same sturdy background that nurtured such entertainers as the dancers Charlie and Josie Woods, as well as her own youngest brother, the singer and entertainer Kenny Lynch.
When the second world war broke out, the family was evacuated to Carmarthen; there Gladys sang and took part in an eisteddfod. On returning to London, they settled in Salmons Lane near Commercial Road, and Gladys started work as a pickle bottler and peanut roaster before graduating to a glass factory, sawing wood.
She got her first singing job with a semi-professional band led by a Canning Town grocer and established herself as a local talent. In the early 1950s she worked with Reg Cavell's band in Romford and became involved briefly with the then unknown actor Sean Connery, who was on tour with Anna Neagle in The Glorious Days.
Soon after, she married a stoker. She remained in Stepney and was using her married name, Gladys Daniels, when in 1954 she took second place in a competition sponsored by bandleader Ted Heath. She became known in jazz circles, and guested with the West End band of drummer Hugh Lombard, a fellow black Londoner, but her first professional break came when she joined the Denny Boyce dance band and changed her first name. After two years she went solo and sang at most of the capital's leading theatres, including the Palladium.
She worked in cabaret at London nightclubs, including Churchill's, and recorded a series of popular singles, Coffee Bar Calypso and Why Should I Care? among them, but in 1958 she retired from music and moved to Southend. When she returned to the fray eight years later, it was to emphasise her jazz credentials. Blessed with what jazz musicians term an infallible ear, she moved into a newly appreciative world, when she sang at the Pizza Express jazz room in Dean Street and with Humphrey Lyttelton's band. When she joined the "Best of British Jazz" touring package, she was backed by the impeccable musicianship of trumpeter Kenny Baker and trombonist Don Lusher.
A new recording career began in the 1980s with such albums as A Beautiful Friendship, but was interrupted in 1988 when she underwent heart surgery. Despite this, she embarked on a series of recordings for Humphrey Lyttelton's Calligraph label. The most recent of these, The Memory Of Tonight, a collection of standards, emphasised the direct, melodic style that made her an enduring favourite.
She was predeceased by her husband and is survived by her daughter.
· Maxine (Gladys) Daniels, singer, born November 2 1930; died October 20 2003