Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Esther Phillips was born Esther Mae Jones on December 23, 1935 in Galveston, Texas. He parents divorced when she was young and she shared her childhood between Houston and Los Angeles and brought up singing in church. At age fourteen she entered and won a local L.A. amateur talent contest that culminated in a recording with Johnny Otis for Modern Records and added her to his traveling revue, billed as Little Esther Phillips, a name she reportedly took from a gas station sign.
Her first hit record was “Double Crossing Blues” in 1950 for Savoy Records and after several hit records with Savoy that went to number one or hit the Billboard charts in the top ten, she was counted as one of the very few female artists that enjoyed such success in their debut year. She left Otis and Savoy for Federal Records but just a quickly as the hits came, they stopped, in part because she no longer worked with Otis and her increasing drug use that had her addicted by the middle of the decade.
By 1954, she was back home in Houston recuperating with her father, working small nightclubs around the South, punctuated by periodic hospital stays in Lexington, Kentucky, stemming from her addiction. In 1962, Kenny Rogers re-discovered her while singing at a Houston club and got her signed to his brother Lenox label, which assisted in her comeback. From Lenox she went to Atlantic Records, dropped “Little” from her name, and covered the Beatles’ “And I Love Him” and they flew her to the UK for her first overseas performance.
With the ushering in of 1972 she realized one of her biggest with her first album “From A Whisper To A Scream” for Creed Taylor’s Kudu Records with an account of drug use on the lead track in Gil Scott-Heron’s “Home Is Where The Hatred Is”. The song went on to be nominated for a Grammy Award but when Phillips lost to Aretha Franklin, the latter presented the trophy to Phillips, saying she should have won it instead.
While at Kudu she scored her biggest hit single with a disco-style update single of Dinah Washington’s “What A Difference A Day Makes” that reached the U.S. Top 20 and the UK Top 10. The subsequent album had her working with the Brecker Brothers, Joe Beck, David Sanborn, Steve Khan and Don Grolnick. She continued to record and perform throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, completing a total of seven albums on Kudu and four with Mercury Records.
At age 48, Esther Phillips died in Carson, California on August 7, 1984 from kidney and liver failure due to her on-going battle she waged with heroin dependency.
More Posts: vocal
From Broadway To 52nd Street
Do-Re-Mi opened at the St. James on December 26, 1960 and starred Phil Silvers, Nancy Walker and John Reardon. Jule Styne, Betty Comden and Adolph Green composed the music and lyrics for the musical that ran 400 performances and gave the world the jazz standard Make Someone Happy.
The Story: A raucous satire on the music industry – with emphasis on the jukebox industry. Hubie Cram, a would-be big shot, induces three retired slot machine mobsters to muscle in on the jukebox racket. Though this does not make him the fawned upon tycoon he has always dreamed of becoming, Hubie does succeed in turning a waitress into a singing star.
Broadway History: The history of Black theater dates back to the turn of the century between 1890 and 1910 when the Black musical comedy was booming with the development of the Black musical theater. In 1903 composer Bert Williams and George Walker wrote “In Dahomey” and is considered the first all Black show on Broadway. The show returned a 400% profit to producers shattering the myth that Black shows were unprofitable. This was followed by a string of shows such as Shuffle Along, Showboat, How Come, The Chocolate Dandies, Africana and Keep Shufflin’. The rise of Black actors would make prominent stars of Ethel Waters, Pearl Bailey, Leslie Uggams, Bill Robinson, Josephine Baker, John Bubbles, Diahann Carroll, Ruby Dee and Sammy Davis Jr.
Over the following decades such shows as Porgy and Bess would come to Broadway along with Purlie, Raisin, Ain’t Misbehavin’, Golden Boy, Dreamgirls that would ultimately culminate in the establishment of the August Wilson Theatre, continuing the legacy of nearly a century of Black theater and inclusion in the Broadway lexicon.
Sponsored By
www.whatissuitetabu.com
From Broadway To 52nd Street
Camelot opened at the Majestic theatre on December 3, 1960 and ran for 873 performances that starred Richard Burton, Julie Andrews, Robert Goulet and Roddy McDowell. Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe composed the music that gave the world the jazz standard If Ever I Would Leave You.
The Story: The legend of King Arthur has been retold several times and it follows the exploits of his rise to power and his bringing his country under one monarch, falling in love with Guinevere and making her his queen, the illicit affair with Lancelot and the plot of Arthur’s destruction by his bastard son, to the fall of Camelot is set to music in this enjoyable portrayal of royal English life.
Jazz History: In the 1960s Afro-Cuban jazz grew as an extension of the movement that began in the 50s after bebop musicians such as Dizzy Gillespie and Billy Taylor started bands influenced Xavier Cugat, Tito Puente and Arturo Sandoval. The natural progression to Latin jazz combined the rhythms from Africa and Latin American countries that incorporated various instruments as conga, timbale, guiro and claves with jazz and classical harmonies. Though Afro-Cuban was after the bebop period, Brazilian jazz became extremely popular in the Sixties pioneered by Joao Gilberto, and Antonio Carlos Jobim. The rhythms of bossa nova, which were derived from samba, were first adapted to jazz by Charlie Byrd and Stan Getz.
Sponsored By
www.whatissuitetabu.com
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Joe Williams was born Joseph Goreed on December 12, 1918 in Cordele, Georgia but was raised in Chicago from the age of four by his mother, grandmother and aunt. As a child he was greatly influenced by the rebellious sound of jazz from Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Ethel Waters, Cab Calloway, Big Joe Turner and many others of the 1920’s he would hear on the radio. By his early teens, he had already taught himself to play piano and had formed his own gospel vocal quartet, known as “The Jubilee Boys”, that sang at church functions.
During his mid-teens Williams began performing as a vocalist, singing solo at formal events with local bands. The most that he ever took home was five dollars a night, but that was enough to convince his family that he could make a living with his voice. So, at 16, he dropped out of school, created his stage name to “Williams” and began earnestly marketing himself to Chicago clubs and bands. His first job was singing with the band at Kitty Davis’s club during the evening for tips that would sometimes amount to $20.
Williams first real break came in 1938 when clarinetist Jimmy Noone invited him to sing with his band. Less than a year later, the young singer was earning a reputation at Chicago dance halls and on a national radio station that broadcast his voice across the nation. Soon he was touring the Midwest by 1939 and accompanying Louis Armstrong and Fats Waller, a year later toured with Coleman Hawkins. In 1942 Lionel Hampton hired Joe to fill-in for the regular vocalist for the orchestra, the Tic Toc Club in Boston and cross-country tours. By the time the relationship ended Williams was in great demand. Through the 40s he toured and made his first recording with Andy Kirk, which led to working with Red Saunders and recording for Okeh and Blue Lake Records.
He went on to sing with the Count Basie Orchestra from ’54 to 61 with his first recording “Count Basie Swings, Joe Williams Sings” that hit #2 on the charts and sparked another LP, he won Down Beat magazine’s New Star Award and international critic’s Best New Male Singer and reader’s poll Best Male Band Singer. Through the end of the 50s the band was consistently touring Europe.
By the Sixties he was working a solo career with top-flight jazz musicians like Harry “Sweets” Edison, Clark Terry, George Shearing and Cannonball Adderley. He did all the variety shows from The Tonight Show to Joey Bishop, Merv Griffin, Steve Allen and Mike Douglas. He gained further notoriety as the father-in-law on The Cosby Show.
Baritone Joe Williams continued to perform regularly at jazz festivals in the U.S. and aboard, as well as on the nightclub circuit. He received a star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame in 1983 next to Count Basie, sang Ellington’s Come Sunday at Basie’s funeral, performed the title track All of Me in the Steve Martin/Lily Tomlin vehicle, won two Grammy Awards and enjoyed a successful career, working regularly until his death of natural causes at age 80. He collapsed on the street a few blocks from his home on March 29, 1999 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
More Posts: vocal
From Broadway To 52nd Street
Bye-Bye Birdie opened at the Martin Beck Theatre on April 14, 1960 with Lee Adams and Charles Strouse composing the music. Running 607 performances the musical starred Dick Van Dyke, Chita Rivera, Dick Gautier, Kay Medford, Susan Watson and Paul Lynde. Two actors, Van Dyke and Lynde would go on to star in the film version. A Lot Of Livin’ To Do and Put On A Happy Face are two compositions that would go on to become jazz standards.
The Story: A popular rock star, Conrad Birdie, is about to be drafted and his agent, Albert, arranges a coup he hopes will keep revenues coming in during Conrad’s stint and allow him to marry Rosie. They pick a girl in a small American town to represent girls across the country to be sung to one last time before Conrad enters the service. Albert’s mother is against the marriage and breaks it up. Conrad goes off to have a wild night, Albert wins back Rosie but everything is turned upside down in the small town.
Broadway History: An Off-Off-Broadway production that features members of Actors Equity is called an Equity Showcase production, however, not all Off-Off-Broadway shows are Equity Showcases. The union maintains very strict rules about working in such productions, including restrictions on price, the length of the run and rehearsal times. Professional actors’ participation in showcase productions is frequent and comprises the bulk of stage work for the majority of New York actors. There has been an ongoing movement to revise the Equity Showcase rules, which many in the community find overly restrictive and detrimental to the creation of New York theatre.
The term indie theatre, or independent theatre, coined by playwright Kirk Bromley, has been adopted by many as a replacement for the term Off-Off-Broadway, and is used by groups such as The League of Independent Theater and the website nytheatre.com.
Sponsored By
www.whatissuitetabu.com