Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Dardanelle was born Marcia Marie Mullen on December 27, 1917 in Avalon, Massachusetts and chose her stage name early in her career. Starting her musical career in the 1930s, she led her own trio with guitarist Tal Farlow and bassist Paul Edenfieldin the mid-1940s. They appeared in the Copa Lounge at the Copacabana nightclub in New York City. Their repertoire included jazz standards, hot numbers, blues titles and some original compositions, novelty songs.
In addition to piano, Dardanelle sang and recorded for Victor in 1946. In 1951 she recorded for Columbia Records, but like many of her colleagues, she focused more on her family and disappeared from the music business until the Sixties. By then she began working for radio and television stations as a musician and actress. Outside Chicago, Illinois she had her own show featuring her sons Skip (a drummer) and Brian as a musician. From 1966 to 1984 she lived in Glen Rock, New York and had a comeback as a jazz singer in the late Seventies. It appeared on Stash ‘s two albums Songs for New Lovers and The Colors of My Life , in which Dardanelle toured with her trio, Bucky Pizzarelli, George Duvivier and Grady Tate.
Dardanelle performed and recorded through the Eighties on the Audiophile label with guest appearance by Slam Stewart. on her album New York, New York – Sounds of the Apple which was nominated for the Grammy. A move to Oxford, Mississippi, in 1986 she was a lecturer in Artist in Residence at the University of Mississippi.
Her last public appearance was in 1997 in Greenwood, Massachusetts Jazz and blues and singer, vibist and pianist Dardanelle passed away on August 8, 1997 in Memphis, Tennessee due to complications of a heart valve operation at the age of 79.
