New Music
Cheryl Bentyne’s latest offering – “Let’s Misbehave: Cole Porter Songbook – is another release in a long series of solo albums from this reigning soprano of The Manhattan Transfer. Cheryl connects with Porter’s ability to “cover the human condition” and invite one’s ear out for delightful listening to fourteen of his most memorable tunes, such as Begin The Beguine, Night and Day, Love For Sale and I Love Paris. If you like Cole Porter then you’ll enjoy Ms. Bentyne misbehaving!
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Roberta Donnay was born on August 10, 1966 in Washington, DC and began singing professionally at sixteen, knapsack wandering through Europe and borrowing guitars. Moving to San Francisco and sang with different bands, studied Latin and vocal jazz along with guitar and released her first indie album Catch The Wave in the Bay area.
She sat on the Board of Governors of the San Francisco chapter of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences alongside Orrin Keepnews, produced the temp track for the documentary Journey of the Universe, and her songs have been featured on such television shows as The Unit, Nash Bridges, The Young and the Restless, One Life To live, All My Children and That’s Life.
She has appeared with Ernestine Anderson, Booker T, Peter Coyote, Johnny Lange, Tommy Castro, Eddie Money, Neil Young and Huey Lewis among others. Her song “One World” was selected as the theme for the 2003 World Aids Day in South Africa. An avid activist she composes about the human condition, not limited to women’s issues, racial injustice, government and environmental destruction. With seven albums as a leader or collaborator, vocalist Roberta Donnay continues to perform, record and tour.
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Daily Dose Of jazz…
Ernestine Davis was born on August 5, 1907 in Memphis Tennessee. Little is known about her early life but along the way to becoming a vocalist and trumpeter. In 1937, the Piney Woods Country Life School of Mississippi founded to educate black children, created a 16-piece band known as The International Sweethearts of Rhythm to financially support the school.
In 1941, the International Sweethearts of Rhythm severed their ties with the school, moved to Virginia and recruited seasoned professionals of all ethnicities to join their band such as singer Anna Mae Winburn, Ernestine “Tiny” Davis, and alto saxophonist Roz Cron.
Holding their own during the Swing Era, the ladies toured the United States extensively up until 1945 with the end of the war and opportunities dried up as the men returned home. Their high points of touring were the Apollo Theater in New York, the Regal Theater in Chicago, and the Howard Theater in Washington, D. C., where their debut set a box office record of 35,000 patrons in one week.
One such engagement was at The Apollo where the audience was on their feet, Louis Armstrong and Eddie Durham stood in the wings, smiling broadly as Ernestine “Tiny” Davis took off in a riveting solo. The band pushed the fevered audience to new levels as Edna Williams, Willie Mae Wong, and Ruby Lucas upped the ante on the song “Swing Shift.”
Admired by the likes of Count Basie and Louis Armstrong, the later unsuccessfully attempted to lure Davis away at ten times her salary when she was at the height of notoriety. They recorded “The Jubilee Sessions” for radio broadcasts aimed toward America’s black soldiers serving during 1943 to 1946. However, because of the racial makeup of the Sweethearts, they did not get as much exposure to mainstream audiences in the South.
While their exposure to white audiences was somewhat limited, they were extremely popular with black audiences. Tiny and her partner Ruby Lucas owned Tiny and Ruby’s Gay Spot in Chicago during the 1950s.
In 1988, a short film titled “Tiny & Ruby: Hell Divin’ Women” was made as a tribute to Davis, and her lesbian partner of 40 years, drummer Ruby Lucas. Trumpeter and vocalist Ernestine “Tiny” Davis died in 1994.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Tony Bennett was born Anthony Dominick Benedetto on August 3, 1926 in Astoria, Queens, New York City. Growing up in New York City he began singing at an early age, at 10 at the ribbon cutting of the Triborough Bridge and by thirteen singing for money in various restaurants.
Developing his technique after World War II, in 1949,Pearl Bailey recognized his talent and asked him to open for her in Greenwich Village, in which Bob Hope was in attendance. The performance ultimately had Hope taking Benedetto on the road and shortening his name to Tony Bennett. He then cut a demo of “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” and was signed to Columbia Records by Mitch Miller.
With Columbia Records he had his first number one hit with “Because Of You” in 1951. This was followed by several hits throughout the decade as he furthered his approach to jazz singing. By 1962 Tony recorded his signature tune “I Left My Heart In San Francisco” but unfortunately his career suffered an extended downturn with the onset of the rock era.
Launching a comeback some twenty years later, by the end of the 80s and for the next decade Bennett released a series of gold albums and expanded his audience to the MTV generation. He has worked with Art Blakey, Count Basie, Herbie Mann, Nat Adderley, Candido Camero, Jo Jones, Kenny Burrell and Chico Hamilton.
Bennett list of accomplishments include 17 Grammys, two Emmys, being named a NEA Jazz Master and Kennedy Center Honoree, selling over 50 million records worldwide and participating in the 1965 Selma to Montgomery marches during the Civil rights Movement. He is also a serious and accomplished painter having created works that are on permanent public display in several institutions and is the founder of Frank Sinatra School of the Arts in New York City. He continues to record, perform and tour.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Maria Cole was born Maria Hawkins on August 1, 1922 in Boston, Massachusetts but grew up in her aunt’s genteel surroundings in North Carolina. Graduating in 1938 from the prestigious Black preparatory, the Palmer Memorial Institute, which was founded by her aunt, Dr. Charlotte Hawkins Brown. She returned to Boston to attend a clerical college but began working with a jazz orchestra by night and soon dropped out to pursue her love of music in New York.
Once in the city Maria joined Benny Carter’s band, performed with Count Basie and Fletcher Henderson before Ellington heard a recording of her throaty, resonant voice in the mid-1940s and hired her as a vocalist for his Orchestra. By 1946 she was appearing solo at Club Zanzibar in Harlem as an opening act for the Mills Brothers.
In 1943 she married Tuskegee Airman Spurgeon Ellington, who died in a training flight, met Nat King Cole while both performing at the Zanzibar, married him in 1948 and remained united until his death in 1965.
Jazz singer Maria Ellington Cole died in a nursing home in Boca Raton, Florida following a short battle with stomach cancer at the age of 89, on July 10, 2012.
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