From Broadway To 52nd Street
The Majestic Theatre opened the curtain for Carousel for the first time on April 19, 1945. With music composed by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein, the musical ran for eight hundred and ninety performances. John Raitt and Jan Clayton had the title roles in this play adapted from the famous Molnar story of Liliom, from which came two songs that would endear themselves for years as jazz standards – What’s The Use Of Won’drin’ and If I Loved You.
The Story: Billy Bigelow, a shy New England carnival barker falls in love with Julie Jordan. Eventually winning Julie’s heart, he later discovers she is pregnant. Jobless, Billy decides he must provide for his son, or daughter, he agrees to join his criminal friend Jigger Craig in a robbery to earn extra money. The plan misfires and Billy kills himself rather than being caught. Before a heavenly judge he pleads for another chance to return to earth to earn his redemption and see his daughter. When his daughter refuses his gift of a star he has stolen from the sky, he slaps her and returns to purgatory. The widowed Julie and child are left to continue to live starkly. The story is set in Maine where majestic backdrops add emotional emphasis.
Jazz History: It was known simply as The Street and as historian Arnold Shaw stated in his book 52nd Street, “If you flagged a taxi in NYC and asked to be taken to The Street, you would be driven, without giving a number or an avenue, to Fifty-Second Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues” By the late 1940s, as the jazz clubs turned into strip joints, many bemoaned the death of The Street. They considered this era to be the block’s decline.
In 1948, Time magazine decried the change from jazz to bump-n-grind: “where nightclubs in sorry brownstones crowd each other like bums on a breadline”, an era was all but over. Swing was still there, but it was more hips than horns. Barrelhouse had declined and burlesque was back. There was little jazz left on 52nd Street and even the customers had changed. There were fewer crew haircuts, pipes and sports jackets and more bald spots, cigars and paunches.
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Tierney Sutton was born in Omaha, Nebraska on June 28, 1963. A choirgirl as a child, she attended Nicolet High School in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She matriculated through Wesleyan University where she was introduced to jazz and then went on to Berklee College of Music. The singer took a semi-finalist slot in 1998 in the Thelonious Monk Jazz Vocal Competition, and received an Indie Award nomination for Best Jazz Vocal Album for her 1999 debut recording.
Versatile in the studio and on stage, the three-time Grammy Nominee for “Best Jazz Vocal Album”, has fronted the Tierney Sutton Band for the past 16 years. The group is an incorporated unit that makes all musical and business decisions together, tours worldwide and has played such prestigious venues as Carnegie Hall, the Hollywood Bowl and Jazz at Lincoln Center.
She has lent her voice to films like The Cooler with Alec Baldwin and William H. Macy; Twisted with Samuel L. Jackson, Andy Garcia and Ashley Judd; and an indie titled Blue In Green. Her voice has been heard on commercials for BMW, Dodge, J.C. Penny and Coca-Cola. Tierney has also been performing in a trio format with flautist Hubert Laws and guitarist Larry Koonse.
Sutton also wears an educator’s hat having taught in the Jazz Studies Department at the University of Southern California for 11 years and since 2008 has been the Vocal Department Chair at Los Angeles Music Academy in Pasadena, California. She continues to give workshops and clinics throughout the world.
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Jazz and blues singer Helen Humes was born on June 23, 1913 in Louisville, Kentucky. As a teenager she was a blues singer, band vocalist with Count Basie, a saucy R&B diva and a mature interpreter of the classy pop song.
Humes made her gramophone record debut in 1927 after being spotted by guitarist Sylvester Weaver. Moving to New York City in 1937 she became a recording vocalist with Harry James’ big band, then replaced Billie Holiday as the voice of the Count Basie Orchestra in 1938. During the 1940s and 1950s, she turned solo performer and worked with different bands and other vocalists including Nat King Cole.
In 1950 Helen recorded Benny Carter’s “Rock Me to Sleep”. She managed to bridge the gap between big band jazz swing and rhythm and blues. She appeared at the 1960 Monterey Jazz Festival with a styling reminiscent of Dinah Washington. Moving to Hawaii, then to Australia in 1964, she returned to the U.S. in 1967 to care for her ailing mother leaving the music industry for several years.
Vocalist Helen Humes received the key to the city of Louisville, the Music Industry of France Award and made a full comeback in 1973 at the Newport Jazz Festival and stayed busy until her passing from cancer at age 68 on September 9, 1981 in Santa Monica, California.
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From Broadway To 52nd Street
Seven Lively Arts opened at the Ziegfeld Theatre on December 7, 1944 and the curtain rose for 183 performances. Billy Rose produced the show, hiring Cole Porter to compose the music that spawned the jazz standard Ev’ry Time We Say Goodbye.
The Story: The musical featured eleven sketches such as Local Boy Makes Good, Pas de Deux and Heaven On Angel Street. The short-list of actors included Beatrice Lillie, Bert Lahr, Alicia Markova and Doc Rockwell. They are augmented with the talents of jazz notables Teddy Wilson, Red Norvo and Benny Goodman.
Broadway History: By the Mid 40s most theaters on Broadway that had been a good investment and a symbol of vivacity and mirth from the turn of the century were now considered uneconomical. Increasing real estate values was forcing the theaters into obsolescence, turning them into film house to accommodate the takeover by movies. A second threat during this period in the competition for audience was the emergence of television, which was providing free entertainment. The result of these two industries was a shocking 80% unemployment rate for Broadway actors in 1948, and for the first time in its history, Broadway had to call a general emergency meeting for all unions and theater people.
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Sue Raney was born on June 18, 1940 in McPherson, Kansas. The proverbial fruit did not fall far from the tree as her mother was a singer and a great, great aunt had been a performer in German opera. She started singing at age four and a year later was performing in public. Due to her young age no voice teacher could be engaged, mother took voice lessons herself and then passed down what she learned to Sue.
A professional before she was a teenager, Raney worked steadily in New Mexico when her family relocated and took several trips out to Los Angeles during a couple of summer vacations. She joined the Jack Carson radio show in 1954 in L.A. when she was barely 14. By age 17 was signed by Capitol Records to record her debut album, the Nelson Riddle-produced When Your Lover Has Gone, released in 1958.
Sue then appeared on Ray Anthony’s television program and became his band’s main vocalist. At 18 she started working as a single. She had already recorded for Phillips and then signed with Capitol, recording several middle-of-the-road jazz-influenced pop dates including her 1958 Nelson riddle-produced debut album “When Your Love Has Gone”.
In the 1960’s Raney often appeared on television variety shows, led her own group and became very active in the studios where her impressive voice helped sell products. After a hiatus in the 1970s, the jazz vocalist continued to record sporadically and by the early 1980’s, in addition to recording several jazz albums for Discovery Records, she began working as a voice teacher. Through the Nineties and into the new millennium she sang with the L.A. Voices, Supersax, the Bill Watrous Big Band and as a soloist, releasing “Heart’s Desire”, a 2006 tribute album to Doris Day and in 2011“Listen Here: Alone With Alan Broadbent”.
Over the course of fifty years vocalist Sue Raney has recorded twenty albums, performed music ranging from swinging jazz and ballads to cabaret, middle-of-the-road pop and jingles, and has remained active as a jazz educator and in the studios.
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