Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Patti Austin was born on August 10, 1950 in Harlem, New York City to a jazz musician father and grew up on Long Island. She made her debut at the Apollo Theater at age four and had a contract with RCA Records when she was five. Quincy Jones and Dinah Washington have proclaimed themselves as her godparents. But it was a reluctant outing as a teenager to hear one of Judy Garland’s last concerts and the experience-helped focus her career, giving her the desire to interpret a lyric like that.
By the late 1960s Austin was a session musician and commercial jingle singer. During the 1980s, she was signed to Jones’s Qwest Records and began her most prolific hit-making period. By this time she was both one of the leading background session vocalists and also was known as Queen of The Jingles for such companies as Burger King, Almay, KFC, McDonald’s, Avon, Stouffers, Maxwell House and the US Army.
Charting twenty R&B songs between 1969 and 1991, hitting #1 for her hits “Do You Love Me?” / “The Genie”, Baby Come To Me” – a duet with James Ingram, and also hits with “How Do you Keep The Music Playing”, again teaming with Ingram and “It’s Gonna Be Special”. She would sing background for Billy Joel’s “Just The Way You Are” along with Luther Vandross, Jocelyn Brown and Chaka Khan. She would be enlisted to sing duets with Michal Jackson, George Benson, Luther, Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons, Narada Michael Walden and Johnny Mathis.
Austin would be seen leading a new group of Raelettes for the 2006 album “Ray Charles + Count Basie Orchestra = Genius”; participating in the AVO Session Basel tribute to Ella Fitzgerald, and after nine nominations, winning her first Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Album for her 2008 album Avant Gershwin.
Patti co-produced and was one of over 70 artists singing on “We Are The World: 25 for Haiti” to raise awareness and aid for those affected by the 2010 earthquake. In 2011 she released a mostly covers album project titled “Sound Advice” re-working Bob Dylan, Michael Jackson, Brenda Russell, Bill Withers and Don McLean songs and a female take on “My Way” among others.
No to be idle Austin co-wrote and sings in the star-studded L.O.V.E. – Let One Voice Emerge, encouraging especially younger Americans to get out there and exercise their right to vote; has been seen in the Bridges/Coppola film “Ticker: The Man And His Dream, and appears in the Academy Award-winning documentary film “20 Feet From Stardom” in 2013. She continues to perform, compose and tour.
Inspire A Young Mind
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Hollywood On 52nd Street
The Second Time Around is a song with words by Sammy Cahn and music by Jimmy Van Heusen. It was introduced in the 1960 film High Time, sung by Bing Crosby with Henry Mancini conducting his orchestra. The song was nominated for and Oscar for Best Original Song.
The Story: High Time is a comedy film directed by Blake and starred Bing Crosby, Fabian and Tuesday Weld. The film is told from the perspective of a middle-aged man who enters the world of a new generation of postwar youth. In the years since its release, the film has come to be viewed as a comedic study of the slowly emerging generation gap between the music and mores of an older generation and postwar youth, as well as an inadvertent time capsule of American adolescents and lifestyles in 1960.
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Hollywood On 52nd Street
Wild Is The Windis a song written by Dimitri Tiomkin and Ned Washington for the 1957 film of the same name. The title song was was one of the five nominated songs at the 1958 Academy Awards and was originally performed by Johnny Mathis who also sang it at the Oscars. The movie starred Anna Magnani, Anthony Quinn and Tony Franciosa. The film was a remake of the 1947 Italian film Fury and was adapted from the a novel by Vittorio Nino.
The Story: Wild Is the Wind is about a rancher who marries his Italian sister-in-law after the death of his wife, but she falls in love with his young ranch hand.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Carl Saunders was born August 2, 1942 in Indianapolis, Indiana and his first five years were mostly spent on the road with his uncle, trumpeter-bandleader Bobby Sherwood. Sherwood’s orchestra had hits with “Elks Parade” and “Sherwood’s Forest”.His mother, Gail (Bobby’s sister) sang for the Sherwood Orchestra and with Stan Kenton, among others. By the time he was five, he and his mother settled in Los Angeles; living with Carl’s aunt Caroline and her husband, tenor-saxophonist Dave Pell. At the time, Saunders heard the records of Pell’s Octet and was influenced by the style and phrasing of trumpeter don Fagerquist.
Saunders began playing trumpet in the seventh grade and he quickly found that he had a natural ability, mostly learning to play by ear and never having any lessons. He played in school bands, and after he graduating high school, went to work with Stan Kenton’s Orchestra, spending much of 1961-62 on the road.
After spending part of 1962-63 traveling once again with Bobby Sherwood playing drums, Carl settled in Las Vegas and over the next 20 years played with Ella Fitzgerald, Tony Bennett, Frank Sinatra, Paul Anka, Robert Goulet, Si Zentner, Harry James, Maynard Ferguson, Benny Goodman, Dan Terry and Charlie Barnet, to name a few.
A move to Los Angeles in 1984 saw Saunders playing lead trumpet with bill Holman’s Orchestra, a position he still holds. He has also worked with Supersax, the Bob Florence and Gerald Wilson big bands, the Phil Norman Tentet, as well as Buddy Rich, and Clare Fischer. In 1994, he became a member of the Dave Pell Octet and leads his own groups –quartet, sextet and big band.
As an educator the trumpeter enjoys working with kids and conducting clinics. Carl currently has seven albums released and plans to continue playing, composing and recording the straight ahead jazz that he loves most.
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Hollywood On 52nd Street
Almost In Your Arms is the love song from the 1958 romantic comedy Houseboat starring Cary Grant, Sophia Loren, Martha Hyer, Paul Peterson, Charles Herbert and Mimi Gibson. Jay Livingston and Ray Evans composed and wrote the music and lyrics.
The Story: Estranged husband Tom Winters returns home from Europe after his wife’s death and takes his three unwilling children to Washington DC where he works for the State Department. Unhappy, Robert runs away and is found by Cinzia Zaccardi, the daughter of a famous Italian conductor, who is also running away. Unbeknownst, Winters offers her a job as a maid and eventually she accepts. Sister-in-law offers Tom and the children her guest house which is destroyed by a train, the driver sells Winters his broken down houseboat, all move in and the fun begins. Eventually Tom and Cinzia get married and the rest is happily-ever-after.
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