Hollywood On 52nd Street
You’re Sensational was a tune written by Cole Porter for the 1956 film High Society starring Bing Crosby, Grace Kelly and Frank Sinatra, who introduced the song.
The Story: The highly successful jazz musician C.K. Dexter Haven (Crosby) was divorced from wealthy Newport, Rhode Island socialite Tracy Samantha Lord (Kelly) but remains in love with her. She, however, is about to get married to a bland gentleman of good standing, George Kittredge.
Spy Magazine, a fictional tabloid newspaper in possession of embarrassing information about Tracy’s father, sends reporter Mike Connor (Sinatra) and photographer Liz Imbrie to cover the nuptials. Tracy begins an elaborate charade as a private means of revenge, pretending that her Uncle Willy is her father Seth Lord and vice versa. Connor falls in love with Tracy. She must choose between three very different men in a course of self-discovery.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Flora Purim was born on March 6, 1942 in Rio de Janeiro to Jewish parents who were both classical musicians, her father a violinist and her mother a pianist. She discovered jazz when her mother played 78 vinyl rpms of Dinah Washington, Billie Holiday, Frank Sinatra, Bill Evans, Oscar Peterson, and Erroll Garner while her husband was out of the house.
Purim began her career in Brazil during the early 1960s. During this period, she made a recording of bossa nova standards by Carlos Lyra and Roberto Menescal titled Flora e M.P.M. Later in the decade she became lead singer for the Quarteto Novo, led by Hermeto Pascoal and Airto Moreira.
Flora mixed jazz with radical protest songs to defy the repressive Brazilian government of that time and a 1964 military coup led to censorship of song lyrics. Shortly before leaving Brazil she married Airto and arriving in New York in 1967, they became immersed in the emerging Electric Jazz. They toured Europe with Stanley Clarke, Stan Getz and Gil Evans. In 1972, alongside Clarke and Joe Farrell, they were, for the first two albums, members of Return To Forever. That year the band released their debut self-titled album Return To Forever, followed the same year as Light as a Feather.
In 1973, Purim released her first solo album in the United States, titled Butterfly Dreams. She was chosen by the Down Beat reader’s poll as one of the top five jazz singers. She worked with Carlos Santana and Mickey Hart and throughout the 1970s, Flora released a string of albums for the Milestone label, became involved with the Uruguayan band Opa, (which means “hi” in Uruguay), Purim collaborated in vocals in the band’s second album Magic Time, and in return, Opa played in “Corre Niña” on Flora’s album Nothing Will Be as It Was…Tomorrow .
In the 1980s Purim toured with Dizzy Gillespie’s United Nation Orchestra, culminating with Gillespie’s Grammy Award-winning album Dizzy Gillespie and the United Nation Orchestra – Live at the Royal Festival Hall, London. The Nineties saw her singing on the Grammy Award-winning album Planet Drum by Mickey Hart, the release of her own album and world tour, Speed of Light and a new band with contributions from Billy Cobham, George Duke, Alphonso Johnson, Giovanni Hidalgo and others.
Through the 1990s, Purim worked on a number of Latin projects, collaborated with P.M. Dawn on the album Red Hot + Rio. She has a huge catalogue of music that showcases her rare six-octave voice renders a vocal style influenced by Sarah Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald, drifting from lyrics to wordlessness without ever losing touch with the melody and rhythm. She broadened her repertoire to include traditional mainstream jazz, bebop and doing numbers in 4/4 time instead of the traditional Brazilian 2/4 beat. She is a 4-time winner Down Beat’s Best Female Jazz Vocalist and 2-time Grammy nominee for Best Female Jazz Performance and has been named “Order of Rio Branco” by Brazil President Fernando Henrique Cardoso. She continues to perform, record and tour.
Take A Dose On The Road
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Bobby Shew was born Robert Shew on March 4, 1941 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He began playing the guitar at the age of eight but by ten switched to the trumpet. By thirteen he was playing at local dances with various groups and at fifteen put together his own group. This gave him the opportunity to play dances, concerts, jazz coffee houses and dinner clubs.
After leaving college in 1960 he was drafted into the U.S. Army and played trumpet with the NORAD band in Colorado Springs and on tour. After leaving the Army he joined the big bands of Tommy Dorsey and Woody Herman, Della Reese and followed by the Buddy Rich Big Band in the mid to late 1960s.
By 1972 Bobby had moved from Las Vegas to Los Angeles where he became a top shelf studio musician. He also played with some of the top big bands of the era through the end of the 1970s: Toshiko Akiyoshi, Lew Tabackin, Louis Bellson, Maynard Ferguson and numerous others. In addition to playing on several notable Big Band recordings starting in the 1960s, he recorded several albums as leader starting with his 1978 debut recording Telepathy.
Shew has held the position of Trumpet chairman of the International Association of Jazz Educators, has authored numerous books on trumpet performance and technique, andis on the Board of Directors of the International Trumpet Guild.
Trumpeter and flugelhorn player Bobby Shew, now living near his hometown of Albuquerque, spends time mentoring jazz musicians in the area and leading the local Albuquerque Jazz Orchestra. As an educator he is a member of the faculty at the Skidmore Summer Jazz Institute, a two-week residential jazz workshop primarily for high school students, located in Saratoga Springs, New York. He continues to perform, record and tour.
Inspire A Young Mind
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Hollywood On 52nd Street
I Fall In Love Too Easily is a 1944 song composed by Jule Styne with lyrics by Sammy Cahn. Frank Sinatra introduced the song in the 1945 film Anchors Aweigh. The film won an Academy Award for its music; the song was nominated for Best Original Song but lost. The other stars of the film were Kathryn Grayson and Gene Kelly.
The Story: Two Navy sailors, Joe Brady and Clarence Doolittle on a four-day leave in Hollywood. Joe has his heart set on spending time with his girl, the unseen Lola. Clarence, the shy choirboy turned sailor, asks Joe to teach him how to get girls. Enter Susan, aunt to a small boy who wants to join the Navy and Clarence is smitten with her at first sight. Susan goes on to tell them that she has been trying to find work in music, and longs to perform with José Iturbi. Trying to impress her with Clarence, Joe tells her that he has arranged an audition. That night, they go out to a cafe, where Clarence meets a girl from Brooklyn, and they hit it off.
With no audition in sight they decide to come clean. Susan gets her screen test on her own, it’s successful and in they end all is forgiven and the lovers kiss as a choir sings the theme song.
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Daily Dsoe Of Jazz…
Hilliard Greene was born on February 26, 1958. Taking up the double bass, his studies have been a thirty-year journey that included matriculating through Berklee College of Music and the University of Northern Iowa. His emphasis has been classical, jazz, blues, rock, R&B, tango and music of other countries and regions.
Hill, as he is known, was musical director for balladeer and jazz vocalist Jimmy Scott for 20 years. He has served as concertmaster for Cecil Taylor’s ensemble Phtongos and was a member of the Don Pullen Trio. His list of who’s who that he has performed and/or toured with include but not limited to Gloria Lynne, Jacky Terrasson, Rashied Ali, Leroy Jenkins, Jimmy Ponder, Eddie Gladden, Vanessa Rubin, Yoron Israel, Cindy Blackman, Electric Symphony, Charles Gayle, Jack Walrath, Don Pullen, Dave Douglas, Bobby Watson, Greg Osby, Kenny Barron, Joanne Brackeen, Carla Cook, Josh Roseman, John Hicks, and the Village Vanguard Orchestra.
Greene, as a bandleader, has released three albums with his ensemble The Jazz Expressions and a solo album titled “Alone”. As an educator, he is currently on the faculty of the Bass Collective in New York City and he teaches privately doing workshops and master classes in double bass and bass guitar for both children and adults.
Double bassist Hilliard Greene, whose concentration lies in Modern Creative and improvised music, performs widely in the New York City area in recitals, nightclubs, recordings, television and radio programs, in addition to throughout Europe, United States, Asia and South America.
Dose A Day – Blues Away
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