Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Cynthia Scott was born July 20^th in El Dorado, Arkansas, the tenth of twelve children. She started singing at the age of four, and was exposed to a wide variety of music. She grew up soaking in a myriad of influences such as Carmen McRae, Robert Flack, Aretha Franklin, Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald.

After high school Scott moved to Dallas, Texas and while working as an airline stewardess honed her craft with James Clay, Claude Johnson, Roger Boykin, Onzy Matthews and Red Garland. In 1972 she became a Raelette, backing Ray Charles for two years. During this time they toured Europe with Oscar Peterson, Joe Pass, The Count Basie Orchestra and Joe Williams.

Following Charles’ death she would work with Hank Crawford, Marcus Belgrave, and David “Fathead” Newman. By the late 80s she was in New York’s Chelsea Place hiring a young Harry Connick Jr., turning a four-week engagement into three years. She has since headlined at such jazz spots as Birdland, Iridium, Dizzy’s Club Coca Cola and the Super Club.

Cynthia has worked with Lionel Hampton, Cab Calloway, Kevin Mahogany, The Harper Brothers, Bill Charlap, Julius LaRosa, Norman Simmons and Wynton Marsalis, the later bringing her in to be the first vocal to sing in Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Rose Room to test its acoustics.

Scott’s list of accomplishments are too long to enumerate but on the short list she has performed at festival worldwide, toured with the musical “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil”, was a finalist in the 1998 Thelonious Monk Vocal Competition, and the 2005 International Songwriting Competition, is a vocal teacher at The New School and City College and teaches private students and among other things has been a Jazz Ambassador for U.S. State Department. Vocalist and educator Cynthia Scott continues to perform, tour and record.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

June Richmond was born July 9, 1915 in Chicago, Illinois. She became one of the very first black singers to be featured regularly with a white band when she performed with Jimmy Dorsey’s Orchestra in 1938.

An enthusiastic vocalist who was excellent on blues but also effective on ballads, June was a popular attraction during the swing era although never a major name. She worked with Les Hite early on in California, toured with Jimmy Dorsey, was with Cab Calloway in 1938 and then became best known for her association with Andy Kirk’s Orchestra during 1939-42.

Richmond became a solo act after leaving Kirk and then from 1948 on mostly worked in Europe, at first based in France and then later on in Scandinavia. Her only recordings as a leader were a self-titled album on the Barclay label, four numbers in 1951 with Svend Asmussen and four songs on the album “Jazz In Paris” with the Quincy Jones Orchestra in 1957.

Vocalist June Richmond, who gained fame during the swing era, died of a heart attack at the age of 47 on August 14, 1962 in Gothenburg, Sweden.

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Jazz In Film

Play Misty For Me: This 1971 film directed by Clint Eastwood tells the story of a brief fling between a male disc jockey and an obsessed female fan takes a frightening, and perhaps even deadly turn when another woman enters the picture.

Stars: Clint Eastwood, Jessica Walter, Donna Mills, John Larch, James McEachin, Irene Hervey

Music: Misty – 
Composed and performed by Erroll Garner; The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face -
Written by Ewan MacColl and performed by Roberta Flack; and
 Country Preacher – composed by Joseph Zawinul and performed by Cannonball Adderley

The song, The First Time I Ever Saw Your Face was popularized by Roberta Flack in 1972 in a version that became a breakout hit for the singer. The song first appeared on Flack’s 1969 album First Take. Flack’s rendition was much slower than the original as an early solo recording by Seeger ran two and a half minutes long whereas Flack’s is more than twice that length.

This slower, more sensual version was used by Clint Eastwood in his 1971 directorial debut Play Misty for Me during a lovemaking scene. With the new exposure, Atlantic Records cut the song down to four minutes and released it to radio. It became an extremely successful single in the United States where it reached #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and Easy Listening charts in April 1972 for six week runs on each.[3] It reached #14 on the UK Singles Chart.

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Requisites

Something Cool: June Christy established her reputation fronting the Stan Kenton Orchestra at the same time that Pete Rugolo was composing and arranging. Her voice was ideal for the high-art ambitions of the progressive jazz movement. Her diction was impeccable, her phrasing often inspired, and as this reissue of her classic Something Cool -augmented by another 12 tracks recorded between 1953 and 1955–so ably demonstrates, her technique was extraordinary, allowing her to navigate the most abstract melody with accurate pitch and rhythmic confidence.

Personnel: June Christy – vocals, composer, arranger and bandleader Pete Rugolo and His Orchestra

Record Date: 1953

Songs:  Something Cool, It Could Happen To You, Lonely House, This Time The Dreams On Me, The Night We Called It A Day, Midnight Sun, I’ll Take Romance, A Stranger Called The Blues, I Should Care, Softly As In A Morning Sunrise, I’m Thrilled

(Re-mastered CD has the same songs both in Mono and Stereo)

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Requisites

The Complete Vee-Jay Recordings: The reissue of these 1959, 1960 and 1961 dates boasts thirty-nine tracks of some of jazz’s most famous songs by one of the idioms few male jazz singers. Though Henderson never made it big, he emerged onto the scene and recorded these compositions at the young age of 29 to 31. On these sessions he swings lightly while squeezing out honest emotion from his ballads.

Personnel: Bill Henderson – vocals, Ramsey Lewis & Tommy Flanagan – piano, Booker Little – trumpet, Yusef Lateef & Eddie Harris – tenor saxophone, MJT +3, Count Basie band & combos, and string orchestras.

Arranged by: Benny Golson, Frank Wess

Record Date: Volume I – October 26, 1959 – November 21, 1960 / Volume II – December 5, 1960 – April 4, 1961

Songs: Disc I – Bye Bye Blackbird, Joey Joey Joey, Free Spirits, Sweet Pumpkin, Love Locked Out, It Never Entered My Mind, My Funny Valentine, Moanin’, Bad Luck, The song Is You, This Little Girl Of Mine, You Make Me Feel So Young, Without You, Sleepy, I Go For That, Sleepy (alt. take) Kiss And Run, A Sleepin’ Bee

Disc II – Never Kiss And Run, A Sleepin’ Bee, Don’t Like Goodbyes, Old Country, Slowly, Opportunity, Never Will I Marry, My How The Time Goes By, Hooray For Love, Skylark, Royal Garden Blues, Twelfth Of Never, Love Is A Bug, Bewitched Bothered And Bewildered, The More I See You, I Can’t Give You Anything But Love, Ac-cent-Tchu-Ate The Positive, Yes Indeed, Please Send Me Someone To Love, Sweet Georgia Brown, Am I Blue

Each LP had two different covers – the one shown here and one shown in the video.

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