Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Freddy Cole was born Lionel Frederick Cole on October 15, 1931, to Edward and Paulina Nancy Cole and is the youngest sibling of musicians Eddie, Ike and Nat. Growing up in Chicago he began playing piano at age six, Cole hoped for a career with the NFL. But a hand injury ended his dream and the teenager began playing and singing in Chicago clubs. Although he was ready to hit the road at 18, his mother intervened and he continued his musical education at Chicago’s Roosevelt Institute before moving to New York City in 1951. While in New York, Cole studied at the Juilliard School of Music and went on to get a master’s degree at the New England Conservatory of Music.
The small Chicago-based label, Topper Records, released Freddy’s first single, “The Joke’s On Me” in 1952. A sophomore single, “Whispering Grass” on the OKeh label, was a moderate hit in 1953. He later spent several months on the road with Johnny Coles and Benny Golson in the Earl Bostic band before returning to hone his skills in the bistros of New York. He went on to work with Grover Washington, Jr. and to record jingles for various companies, including Turner Classic Movies.
During the 1970s, Cole recorded several albums for European and English based labels. He was the subject of the 2006 documentary “The Cole Nobody Knows” by filmmaker Clay Walker and is a member of the Steinway Artist roster. He has been inducted into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame in 2007.
Freddy cites his influences as John Lewis, Oscar Peterson, Teddy Wilson and Billy Eckstine, the latter being the subject of his release, “Freddy Cole Sings Mr. B”, that was nominated for a Grammy Award. When speaking of Eckstine, Cole recalled, “He was a fantastic entertainer. I learned so much from just watching and being around him.”
With over two-dozen albums as a leader and numerous collaborations, jazz pianist and vocalist Freddy Cole leads his quartet that holds down a rigorous schedule that continually tours the United States, Europe, South America and the Far East.
From Broadway To 52nd Street
Plain And Fancy opened at the Mark Hellinger Theatre on January 27, 1955 and ran for 461 performances. Albert Hague & Arnold B. Horwitt composed the music and the show starred Richard Derr, Shirl Conway, Will Able, Gloria Marlowe, Fletcher Rodgers and Barbara Cook. Bea Arthur was an understudy and Carol Lawrence was in the chorus. A favorite jazz tunes came from this musical was Young And Foolish.
The Story: New York City sophisticates Dan King and Ruth Winters travel to Bird-In-Hand in the Amish country of Lancaster County, PA to sell a piece of property to Jacob Yoder, who in turn intends to present it to his daughter Katie and her intended Ezra as a wedding gift. While there, they become involved with local villagers, including Hilda Miller, who mistakes Dan’s kindness for romantic overtures. Ezra’s banished brother Peter returns to claim the hand of his childhood sweetheart, Katie.
Broadway History: Previously, regardless of the size of the venue, a theatre was not considered Off-Broadway if it was within the “Broadway Box” (extending from 40th to 54th Street, and from west of Sixth Avenue to east of 8th Avenue, and including Times Square and 42nd Street. The contractual definition changed this to encompass theatres meeting the standard, which is beneficial to these theatres because of the lower minimum required salary for Actors’ Equity performers at Off-Broadway theatres as compared with the salary requirements of the union for Broadway theatres. Examples of Off-Broadway theatres within the Broadway Box are the Laura Pels Theatre and the Snapple Theater Center..
A number of Off-Broadway musicals have had subsequent runs on Broadway. These have included musicals such as Hair, Godspell, A Chorus Line, Little Shop of Horrors, Rent and The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee to name a few. Other productions such as Stomp, Blue Man Group and Altar Boyz have run for several years Off Broadway. The Fantasticks, the longest running musical in theatre history, spent its original 42-year run Off Broadway.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Nancy Kelly was born on October 12, 1950 in Rochester, New York and at the age of four began studying piano, clarinet, drama and dance with private instructors, and voice at the Eastman School of Music. By sixteen she formed a combo and performed in clubs around Rochester.
The early Seventies saw her joining a rock band as lead singer and touring the East coast and Midwest. She enjoyed the freedom of improvising and soon gravitated to jazz, once again forming her own group. Gaining a reputation she began performing on the West coast, the Far East and Europe and regularly performs in New York City at the Blue Note, Birdland and Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola at Lincoln Center.
Nancy has appeared on the stages of numerous jazz festivals, sung with symphony orchestras, and has been named “Best Female Jazz Vocalist” twice in the Down Beat Readers’ Poll. He debut cd “Live Jazz” reached #11 on the Billboard charts, followed by three ore with “Born To Swing” and “Well Alright” featuring tenor saxophonist Houston Person.
A four-year stint at Jewels Jazz club in Philadelphia between 1982 – 86 helped to revitalize jazz in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Subsequently jazz musicians Al Cohn, Jack McDuff, Etta Jones, Shirley Scott and Joey DeFrancesco became favorites of audiences bringing together students and professional people.
Nancy Kelly continues to perform and swing with her signature smoky, take-no-prisoner, back to the roots style delivering authentic expression of real emotion.
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From Broadway To 52nd Street
The Pajama Game drew back the first curtain at the St. James Theatre on May 13, 1954 and ran a record 1063 performances catapulting the show into the register of blockbuster musicals. Eddie Foy Jr., John Raitt, Janis Paige and Shirley MacLaine starred in the musical with music written and composed by Richard Adler & Jerry Ross. Jazz has had the privilege to give the song Hey There perpetual encores.
The Story: Adapted from the Broadway play, it’s a story of Sid, a workshop superintendent who must deal with a union demand for a 7.5-cent raise at the Sleep-Tite Pajama Factory. A strike is imminent and Babe the leader of the grievance committee leads the fight. However Sid is attracted to Babe and ensues a course of romance but is deflected. With slowdowns and machinery breakdowns promoting her cause, Sid reluctantly fires her. However he is convinced there is merit to Babe’s championship of the union and plots to get a peek at the books kept by Gladys.
Taking Gladys out to a nightclub Sid wheedles the keys from her but before he can leave the two are discovered by Babe. Sid gets a look at the books, sees that the boss has already tack on the 71/2 cents to production but has keeping the profits for himself. Sid confronts the boss, gets him to agree to the raise, goes to the union rally to bring the news and peace to his love life. Finally accepting her feelings for Sid, she falls for him. Everyone goes out to celebrate at Hernando’s Hideaway.
Jazz History: The free jazz movement, coming to prominence in the late ’50s, spawned very few standards. Free jazz’s unorthodox structures and performance techniques are not as amenable to transcription as other jazz styles. However, “Lonely Woman”, a blues by saxophonist Ornette Coleman, is perhaps the closest thing to a standard in free jazz, having been recorded by dozens of notable performers.
Free jazz is an approach to the music that was first developed in the 1950s and 1960s. Though the music produced by free jazz composers varied widely, the common feature was a dis-satisfaction with the limitations of bebop, hard bop and modal jazz, which had developed in the 1940s and 1950s. Each in their own way, free jazz musicians attempted to alter, extend, or break down the conventions of jazz, often by discarding hitherto invariable features chord changes or tempos. While usually considered experimental and avant-garde, free jazz has also oppositely been conceived as an attempt to return jazz to its “primitive”, often religious roots, and emphasis on collective improvisation.
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From Broadway To 52nd Street
The Golden Apple was staged for it’s initial performance at the Phoenix Theatre on March 11, 1954 and ran for one hundred and seventy-three performances. The stars of the musical were Kay Ballard, Dean Michener, Jonathan Lucas, Jack Whiting, Stephen Douglass, Bibi Osterwald and Priscilla Gillette. Jerome Morross composed the music with libretto written by John Latouche and their composition Lazy Afternoon emerged from the musical to make the pantheon of jazz standards.
The Story: In a small turn-of-the-century American village called Angel’s Roost, nothing of importance seems to happen until a traveling salesman arrives at the annual fair in a balloon. He so beguiles the wife of the sheriff that she elopes with him to the neighboring town. The mayor throws roadblocks in the pursuer’s path. After the sheriff outclasses the salesman in a boxing match, he returns home to find love from another woman waiting for him. Recreation of Homer’s The Iliad & The Odyssey.
Broadway History: The Off-Broadway theatre is a professional New York City venue with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, much smaller than those on Broadway. An Off-Broadway production is a production of a play, musical or revue that appears in such a venue, and which adheres to related trade union and other contracts.
The Off-Broadway movement started in the 1950s, as a reaction to the “perceived commercialism of Broadway” and provided an “outlet for a new generation” of creative artists. This fertile breeding ground, away from the pressures of commercial production and critical brickbats, helped give a leg up to hundreds of future Broadway greats. The first great Off-Broadway musical was the 1954 revival of the Brecht/Weil Three Penny Opera.
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