Last week I was at the home of singer Pinky Winters helping her sequence the Sinatra portion of her upcoming Japanese tour. Completing a tentative song selection, she next sat down at the piano and performed the entire set to time it. It worked out to exactly one hour, which is what it's supposed to be. A lot of fun. Then, a couple of days later, my Japanese friend Jay said:
"I hope she's doing what are probably the three Sinatra songs the Japanese like best."
"What are those?," I bit.
He named three FS songs---at the time just a hunch on his part--- one of which Sinatra himself is on the record for disliking. No, she had not chosen any of those. They were not even in the running. Fortunately, it did turn out that four of the songs she will be singing ARE on a Japanese top ten list of favorite Sinatra faves Jay had uncovered on the net the following day. Along with those three songs in question. My Japanese friend had guessed correctly. And a perfect example of the kind of thing that always finds me saying, "How did we ever live without the net?" Pre-www, that little piece of info woulda taken a trip downtown to the main library and an entire day to suss out. Of course, it does help if one is adept at reading Japanese katakana. Which I can now. . .sorta kinda.
Sunday, May 07, 2006
Friday, May 05, 2006
Thursday, May 04, 2006
Mary Ann McCall
Here is repeat from this blog of Wednesday, May 04, 2005
Mary Ann McCall
Today is the birthday of jazz singer Mary Ann McCall. She was born in 1919 and if still alive today (she died in '94) would be. . .oh to hell with it, you do the math. McCall is one of the most underestimated of the big band era singers. I don't think she recorded too much on her own after that: I have a Jubilee lp, Detour to the Moon and a Coral lp, Melancholy Baby, both circa late fiftes - early sixties. Also an album and a few odd singles for the Regent label in the fifties. All of the Regents were arranged by Ernie Wilkins. She also appears on the 1977 LP of the Woody Herman 40th Anniversary Carnegie Hall Concert, produced for records by my deeply-missed friend, the late Nat Shapiro. Herman's band, of course, is the one most closely associated with McCall.
I’m glad I had the good sense to check her out sometime during the early 80s when she was singing at a little bar in the airport Hilton, near LAX. I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw the little squib in a local handout announcing her appearance. "Oh," I thought, "they must be keeping it very low key to keep the crowds away." And so I arrived there extra early. That is how naive I was a mere two decades ago. You've probably already guessed the rest: with the exception of myself, there was practically no one else there. I had McCall and another equally great jazz artist, Nat Pierce, her accompanist, pretty much all to myself. And I went back again and again, weekend after weekend and got to know her pretty well. She would always sit with me between sets and schmooze. Even at this late grandmotherly stage in her career she was one of jazz singing's best kept secrets. I wish I had brought a tape recorder along with me to capture those extraordinary sets. She and Pierce had been musical cohorts for nearly four decades by that time. And it showed: No muss, no fuss, no killer lounge act pyrotechnics, just straight-ahead jazz singing and piano. She just sang the songs and went home!
5/06 addenda
In October 1999 I Interviewed singer Pinky Winters for the web Songbirds magazine. Here's what she had to say about Mary Ann McCall:
Winters: They used to have in Los Angeles, seven, eight, nine years ago, these luncheons in a hotel for, I think, singers. Anyway I went to a couple of them, and she [Mary Ann McCall] was my seat-mate at one of them. And I was just blown away. She didn’t look like a band chick. Fun to talk to.
Songbirds: She was married to saxophonist Al Cohn.
Winters: I had to ask her about that, because Al Cohn’s my hero.
Songbirds: I think she was married to several famous musicians or at least had long term affairs. Sort of like a jazz Alma Mahler.
[Note: Alma Mahler was an early twentieth century "scene-maker" who managed the extraordinary feat of serially marrying three noted and varied artist/intellectuals: author Franz Werfel, architect Walter Gropius, and composer Gustav Mahler.]
Winters: We try to do that if at all possible. [laughs] She was fun. I think I asked her about Al. Al had his eye problems. That was when they first got married.
Mary Ann McCall
Today is the birthday of jazz singer Mary Ann McCall. She was born in 1919 and if still alive today (she died in '94) would be. . .oh to hell with it, you do the math. McCall is one of the most underestimated of the big band era singers. I don't think she recorded too much on her own after that: I have a Jubilee lp, Detour to the Moon and a Coral lp, Melancholy Baby, both circa late fiftes - early sixties. Also an album and a few odd singles for the Regent label in the fifties. All of the Regents were arranged by Ernie Wilkins. She also appears on the 1977 LP of the Woody Herman 40th Anniversary Carnegie Hall Concert, produced for records by my deeply-missed friend, the late Nat Shapiro. Herman's band, of course, is the one most closely associated with McCall.
I’m glad I had the good sense to check her out sometime during the early 80s when she was singing at a little bar in the airport Hilton, near LAX. I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw the little squib in a local handout announcing her appearance. "Oh," I thought, "they must be keeping it very low key to keep the crowds away." And so I arrived there extra early. That is how naive I was a mere two decades ago. You've probably already guessed the rest: with the exception of myself, there was practically no one else there. I had McCall and another equally great jazz artist, Nat Pierce, her accompanist, pretty much all to myself. And I went back again and again, weekend after weekend and got to know her pretty well. She would always sit with me between sets and schmooze. Even at this late grandmotherly stage in her career she was one of jazz singing's best kept secrets. I wish I had brought a tape recorder along with me to capture those extraordinary sets. She and Pierce had been musical cohorts for nearly four decades by that time. And it showed: No muss, no fuss, no killer lounge act pyrotechnics, just straight-ahead jazz singing and piano. She just sang the songs and went home!
5/06 addenda
In October 1999 I Interviewed singer Pinky Winters for the web Songbirds magazine. Here's what she had to say about Mary Ann McCall:
Winters: They used to have in Los Angeles, seven, eight, nine years ago, these luncheons in a hotel for, I think, singers. Anyway I went to a couple of them, and she [Mary Ann McCall] was my seat-mate at one of them. And I was just blown away. She didn’t look like a band chick. Fun to talk to.
Songbirds: She was married to saxophonist Al Cohn.
Winters: I had to ask her about that, because Al Cohn’s my hero.
Songbirds: I think she was married to several famous musicians or at least had long term affairs. Sort of like a jazz Alma Mahler.
[Note: Alma Mahler was an early twentieth century "scene-maker" who managed the extraordinary feat of serially marrying three noted and varied artist/intellectuals: author Franz Werfel, architect Walter Gropius, and composer Gustav Mahler.]
Winters: We try to do that if at all possible. [laughs] She was fun. I think I asked her about Al. Al had his eye problems. That was when they first got married.
Tuesday, May 02, 2006
Jose Can You See. . .
This (finally) just in! The U.S. Department of Education commissioned a Spanish language version of the The Star-Spangled Banner. . .in 1919! Speaking of which:
After going out of his way to ask recent Latino protesters to puh-leese sing the National Anthem in English and only in the mother tongue, it turns out that as a matter of course Boosh belted it out in Spanish on the barrio presidential campaign hustings. THIS---via Atrios' blog:
From Kevin Phillips' American Dynasty:
"When visiting cities like Chicago, Milwaukee or Philadelphia, in pivotal states, he [Boosh] would drop in at Hispanic festivals and parties, sometimes joining in singing "The Star-Spangled Banner" in Spanish, sometimes partying with a "Viva Bush" mariachi band flown in from Texas."
Is there no end to the man's hypocrisy and stoopidity? Of course, he's proved guilty of far worse than that, but I rest my case.
As of this morning, there are more than 23,000 positive comments on www.thankyoustephencolbert.org . But still no coverage in the NYT of Colbert's instantaneously legendary turn at last Saturday's WHCA dinner. The one time a year that, in the words of Jon Stewart, "the President and the press corps consummate their loveless marriage." This year, thanks to Colbert, it ended up in a bout of rough sex. All that was missing were the whips and geese.
After going out of his way to ask recent Latino protesters to puh-leese sing the National Anthem in English and only in the mother tongue, it turns out that as a matter of course Boosh belted it out in Spanish on the barrio presidential campaign hustings. THIS---via Atrios' blog:
From Kevin Phillips' American Dynasty:
"When visiting cities like Chicago, Milwaukee or Philadelphia, in pivotal states, he [Boosh] would drop in at Hispanic festivals and parties, sometimes joining in singing "The Star-Spangled Banner" in Spanish, sometimes partying with a "Viva Bush" mariachi band flown in from Texas."
Is there no end to the man's hypocrisy and stoopidity? Of course, he's proved guilty of far worse than that, but I rest my case.
As of this morning, there are more than 23,000 positive comments on www.thankyoustephencolbert.org . But still no coverage in the NYT of Colbert's instantaneously legendary turn at last Saturday's WHCA dinner. The one time a year that, in the words of Jon Stewart, "the President and the press corps consummate their loveless marriage." This year, thanks to Colbert, it ended up in a bout of rough sex. All that was missing were the whips and geese.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)