Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Ethel Waters was born in Chester, Pennsylvania on October 31, 1896 as a result of the rape of her teenaged mother, Louise Anderson by pianist and family acquaintance John Waters. Raised in poverty and never living in the same place for more than 15 months she had a difficult childhood.
Waters grew tall, standing 5’9½” in her teens, married at the age of 13, but soon left her abusive husband and became a maid in a Philadelphia hotel working for $4.75 per week. On her 17th birthday, she attended a costume party at a nightclub on Juniper Street and persuaded to sing two songs, she impressed the audience so much that she was offered professional work at the Lincoln Theatre in Baltimore, Maryland.
After Baltimore, Ethel toured on the black vaudeville circuit but success fell on hard times and she joined a carnival. Leaving that life in Chicago she headed to Atlanta, working the same clubs with Bessie Smith, singing ballads and popular songs instead of blues. But fame found her after her move to Harlem and its renaissance in the 1920s. She landed her first club gig in Harlem at Edmond’s Cellar, became an actress in the blackface comedy “Hello 1919”, and in 1921 became the fifth black woman to make a record, on the tiny Cardinal Records label. She later joined the Black Swan Record label where Fletcher Henderson was her accompanist.
She recorded for numerous labels over her career, played untold clubs and tours throughout the U.S. introducing standards like Dinah, Sweet Georgia Brown, Am I Blue and Black and Blue and worked with Duke Ellington. Film wooed her in 1933 with Rufus Jones for President featuring child star Sammy Davis Jr. in the title role. She went on to star at the Cotton Club singing Stormy Weather, had a featured role in the wildly successful Irving Berlin Broadway musical revue As Thousands Cheer in 1933, where she was the first black woman in an otherwise white show introducing Heat Wave and Supper Time to the world and was the highest paid performer on Broadway. In 1942 she starred in the Vincent Minnelli directed success Cabin In The Sky, reprising her 1940 stage role as Petunia.
Ethel Waters has three songs in the Grammy Hall of Fame, her version of Stormy Weather is on the Library of Congress’ National Recording Registry, was nominated for an Emmy for her performance in Route 66, was the second Black woman to be nominated for an Oscar for her role in Pinky, has a star approved but not funded on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, has written two autobiographies – His Eye is on the Sparrow and To Me, It’s Wonderful. The blues, jazz and gospel vocalist and actress passed away on September 1, 1977, aged 80, from uterine cancer, kidney failure, and other ailments in Chatsworth, California.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Cleo Laine was born Clementina Dinah Campbell on October 28, 1927 in Southall, Middlesex, England of mixed heritage to a black Jamaican father and white English mother. She began taking singing and dancing lessons at an early age and attended the Featherstone Primary School. Prior to her singing career she worked as an apprentice hairdresser, librarian and for a pawnbroker, married a roof tiler and had a son, all before 1957.
Laine took up singing professionally in her mid-twenties, auditioning successfully for John Dankworth’s band, with which she performed until 1958, when she married Dankworth in secret. She began her career as a singer and actress, playing the lead in a new play at London’s Royal Court Theatre in the 50s. This propelled her into consistent theatre applause and acclaim over the next two decades.
During this period she had two major recording successes, You’ll Answer to Me, reaching the British Top 10 and Shakespeare and All that Jazz with Dankworth received widespread critical acclaim. Cleo’s international recognition started in 1972 with her first tour of Australia followed by performances in the U.S. at Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall, and then heading to Canada with coast-to-coast tours of both countries. Television saw her on the Muppet Show, with a succession of record releases; several nominations and a Grammy win for her live Carnegie Hall 1983 concert.
In 1979 Laine was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to music and in the 1997 New Year’s Honours list, her membership of the order was elevated to Dame Commander, and she was appointed Dame Cleo Laine DBE, the equivalent of a knighthood for women.
Singer and actress Cleo Laine is a contralto with a three-octave range and is the only female performer to have received Grammy nominations in the jazz, popular and classical music categories. She has published a self-titled autobiography Cleo in 1994 followed up with You Can Sing If You Want To in 1997. She has recorded over a hundred albums, received several honorary doctorates, fellowships and awards, has had a street named after her and at 85 years of age the longevity of her voice has been almost unchanged from decades earlier.
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From Broadway To 52nd Street
A Connecticut Yankee opened on November 3, 1927 in the Vanderbilt Theatre and ran for four hundred and eighteen performances starring William Gaxton, Constance Carpenter and Nana Bryant.Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart composed the music for this delightful romp and from the body of music came two jazz standards Thou Swell and My Heart Stood Still. Based on the Mark Twain fantasy.
The Story: A modern man is thrust back to King Arthur’s Court in a dream caused by a blow to the head given by his fiancée for flirting with a girl. In his dream appear all the people important in his life, each taking on the personality he perceives in real life. While at court he falls in love with the girl, his attempts to woo her are thwarted by Merlin and Morgan le Fay. When he awakens he leaves his fiancée and decides to marry the girl.
Jazz History: Four clubs were pivotal in setting up The Street. 21 brought glamour, high society, top politicians and the columnists who spread the fame of The Street. Tony’s at No. 57-59 attracted the literary and theater set of the famous Algonquin Roundtable. At No. 33 Leon & Eddie became home for the tourists, cloak and suiters and show biz folk who couldn’t make it at 21 or Tony’s. At Joe Helbeck’s Onyx, originally an “in” spot for studio musicians at No. 35 triggered the awareness and influx of the public through its song hits.
In the early thirties, humorist Robert Benchley along with Jack Kriendler, one of the founder-owners of 21 drank their way west to 6th Avenue and back up the even numbered side of the street east to 5th counting the number of speakeasies and coming up with no less than 38.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Milton Nascimento was born October 26, 1942 in Rio de Janiero, Brazil and as a baby was adopted by his mother’s former employers after her death when he was just 18 months. Growing up in Três Pontas, Minas Gerais he would soon become an occasional deejay on a radio station that his father once ran.
In the early stages of his career, Nascimento played in two samba groups: Evolussamba and Sambacana. By 1963, he moved to Belo Horizonte, struck a friendship with Lô Borges led to the Clube de Esquina (“corner club”) movement that included Beto Guedes, Toninho Horta, Wagner Tiso, and Flávio Venturini, with whom he shared compositions and melodies. One composition was “Canção do Sal”, which was first interpreted by Elis Regina in 1966 and led to a television appearance with Nascimento. A subsequent collective released Clube da Esquina in 1972 with several hit singles.
Famous for his falsetto and tonal range, Nascimento is regarded for his highly acclaimed songs such as “Maria, Maria”, “Canção da América” (“Song from America”/”Unencounter”), “Travessia”, “Bailes da Vida” and “Coração de Estudante” (“Student’s Heart”). The lyrics often social and political in nature have become hymns for both campaigns and funerals.
Milton’s international breakthrough came with his appearance on jazz saxophonist Wayne Shorter’s 1974 album “Native Dancer” that led to widespread acclaim. Collaborations with stars such as Paul Simon, Cat Stevens, George Duke, Quincy Jones and Earth, Wind and Fire would follow. Angelus, released in 1994 features appearances by Pat Metheny, Ron Carter, Herbie Hancock, Jack DeJohnette, Nana Vasconcelos, Jon Anderson, James Taylor, Peter Gabriel and Duran Duran.
Nascimento contributed the song “Dancing” to the AIDS-Benefit Album “Red Hot + Rio”, worked with the Brazilian Heavy Metal band Angra, and collaborated with Jason Mraz on the latter’s album. The singer/songwriter and guitarist has recorded over two-dozen albums and continues to record, perform and tour.
From Broadway To 52nd Street
Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart wrote the musical Betsy as a vehicle for an actress named Belle Baker. When its producer Flo Ziegfeld decided that the show needed a big hit ballad, he went straight to Irving Berlin and asked him for one and Blue Skies was quickly dropped into the musical and on opening night on December 28, 1926 in the New Amsterdam Theatre, Rodgers and Hart – who never countenanced interpolations into their shows – sat in their house seats, fuming. The show faded away after only thirty-nine performances, however, Blue Skies went on to become part of show business history and a popular standard.
Broadway History: At its height in 1928, Broadway had been reduced to a twelve-block area between 41st and 53rd streets, however it originally encompassed an area stretching from 35th to 54th street, between 6th and 8th avenues. Although the district was comprised of nearly 80 theatres only four theatres are actually located on Broadway, The Marquis at 46th, The Palace at 47th, The Winter Garden at 50th and The Broadway at 53rd Street. The balance of the legitimate houses was located either east or west of this avenue. This however was not always the case. In 1810, if you wandered up Broadway north of the Battery towards the villages of Greenwich or Harlem farther to the north of the common pasture, Sheep’s Meadow; past Wall Street and Maiden Lane, at City Hall Park you would have passed the beautiful Park Theatre on Park Row. A second theatre, The Bowery, was built in 1821 and the migration of “mid-town” towards the north was well underway.
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