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Caterina Valente was born on January 14, 1931 in Paris, France into an Italian artist family, her father, a well-known accordion player and her mother, a musical clown. In 1953, she made her first recordings with Kurt Edelhagen and soon afterwards achieved success with songs such as Malagueña, The Breeze and I,] and Dreh dich nicht um with the Werner Müller orchestra. In 1955, she was featured on The Colgate Comedy Hour with Gordon MacRae.
By the mid 1960s Valente was working with Claus Ogerman and recording his arrangements and compositions and sometimes conducted in both Italian and English on the Decca and London labels. She guest appearances on the NBC Kraft Music Hall television program and on the Dean Martin Show, the CBS variety series The Entertainers alongside Carol Burnett and Bob Newhart.
She has recorded some seven dozen albums around the world in the United States, Brazil, Peru, Argentina, Columbia, United Kingdom, Japan, Australia, Germany and South Africa. Caterina has been nominated for a Grammy and won 15 awards in Austria, Italy, the US, Italy, Brazil, France and Germany. She recorded Cole Porter’s I Love Paris, that sold nearly a million copies in 1954, her jazz album A Briglia Sciolta recorded in 1989 was her best selling album worldwide and has been reissued under the titles Fantastica and Platinum Deluxe and in 2001 released her album Girl Talk with harpist Catherine Michel..
Over the years of her career she has recorded or performed with Louis Armstrong, Chet Baker, Perry Como, Ella Fitzgerald, Benny Goodman, Woody Herman, the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra, Sy Oliver, Buddy Rich and Edmundo Ros.
Vocalist, guitarist, dancer and actress Caterina Valente who had yet to retire from show business at the age of 85, finally left the spotlight and is living a quiet life at 91.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Viola Wells was born Viola Gertrude Wells Evans on December 14, 1902 in Newark, New Jersey, the first child of Robert Olivia Simmons and Earle Henry Wells, who had moved to Newark from Surry County, Virginia. When her mother died from giving birth to her sister Estelle, she briefly went to live with her maternal grandparents Rev. Morgan and Annie Simmons in Virginia, who only liked to listen to secular music. In contrast, his son “Uncle Charlie” was popular locally for his song and dance routines.
Returning to Newark in 1910 after her father remarried, she started to sing in her church’s Salika Johnson choir under the direction of her music and piano teacher, Ruth Reid. This choir performed in cities outside of New Jersey and WOR Radio in Newark invited her to sing on air to raise money for the first Black YMCA. Wells also sang in her high school glee club and competed in talent shows. At nineteen she married her first husband, tap dancer Howard Nicholas.
Her career began singing in traveling shows, once filled in for Mamie Smith and was on the Theater Owners Booking Association (TOBA) circuit by 1921. Viola frequently sang at local Newark jazz clubs, eventually moving to Harlem and finding singing engagements in nightclubs there. The Twenties saw her touring throughout the US with different bands and in the 1930s, her first big break came while touring with the Banjo Bernie Band from Baltimore and then with Ida Cox.
As the 30s came to a close she moved to Kansas City, where she ran a nightclub and headed a band. Moving back to Newark in the Forties, she met and married guitarist Harold Underhill and began singing at various New York City clubs, sometimes under her married name. She replaced Helen Humes as a singer in the Count Basie Orchestra. During that period in her career she was often billed as The Ebony Stick Of Dynamite and sang at United Service Organizations (USO) shows on military bases.
She retired from music in 1946 due to diabetes and in an effort to spend more time with her family after her father was murdered. Brought out of retirement by blues historian Sheldon Harris who helped revive her career in the 1960s, Viola recorded on the album Encore For The Chicago Blues released in 1968 by Spivey Records. She also produced a blues album in 1972 called Miss Rhapsody and toured with the Harlem Blues and Jazz Band in the 1970s.
Vocalist Viola Wells received many honors in her later years, including the key to Newark. She passed away on December 22, 1984 in Belleville, New Jersey. The book Swing City: Newark Nightlife, 1925-50 by Barbara J. Kukla is dedicated to her.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Rosemary Squires was born Joan Rosemary Yarrow on December 7, 1928 in Bristol, England. The daughter of a civil servant, she took singing, guitar and piano lessons while at St. Edmund’s Girls’ School in Salisbury, Wiltshire. Initially she started out entertaining troops on nearby UK and US army bases around Salisbury, added singing with various musical groups and a Polish military band, all the while maintaining a couple of jobs to pay the rent.
She eventually became a professional singer performing with big bands such as Ted Heath, Geraldo and Cyril Stapleton, and the small jazz bands of Max Harris, Kenny Baker and the Alan Clare band, appearing with the latter in the BBC Festival of Jazz at the Royal Albert Hall. In 1948 at 20 years of age she moved to London and by the 1950s on through the Sixties Squires became a regular on the BBC Light Programmes like Melody Time and Workers’ Playtime.
Coming to the United States Rosemary worked with Danny Kaye and Sammy Davis Jr., as well as appearing on the Johnny Carson Show. In 1994 Squires was part of the entertainment for Prince Edward’s 30th birthday celebrations. During the 2012 Royal Diamond Jubilee year she undertook two countrywide tours to celebrate her own diamond jubilee in show business including two appearances at the Royal Festival Hall. Over the course of her career she made numerous television appearances, was awarded the Gold Badge of Merit by the British Academy of Songwriters, was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire in 2004 for her services to music and charity, and was awarded the British Music Hall Society’s Lifetime Achievement Award. Vocalist Rosemary Squires continues to perform at local charity events.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Meredith Jane Monk was born November 20, 1942 in New York City and her mother was a professional singer in the popular and classical genres. Known primarily known for her avant-garde vocal innovations with a wide range of extended techniques, she first developed them during her solo performances prior to forming her own ensemble.
By the end of 1961 she was solo dancing on Off Broadway in the Actor’s Playhouse production of Scrooge, graduated from Sarah Lawrence College in 1964 and four years later founded The House, a company dedicated to an interdisciplinary approach to performance. 1978 saw her forming Meredith Monk and Vocal Ensemble to explore new and wider vocal textures and forms, which often were contrasted with minimal instrumental textures.
Monk began a long-standing relationship with the Walker Art Center of Minneapolis, Minnesota, as well as with the ECM record label that released her debut album in 1981. She has written and directed two films, Ellis Island and Book of Days, composed an opera called Atlas, has written pieces for instrumental ensembles and symphony orchestras, and composed Stringsongs for string quartet, commissioned by the Kronos Quartet. She has worked with Björk, Terry Riley, DJ Spooky, Ursula Oppens, Bruce Brubaker, John Zorn, Alarm Will Sound, Bang On A Can All-Stars and the Pacific Mozart Ensemble.
Meredith has received a MacArthur Fellowship, the Creative Capital Award, honorary Doctor of Arts degrees from Bard College, the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, the Juilliard School, the San Francisco Art Institute and the Boston Conservatory.She received the Demetrio Stratos International Award for musical experimentation in Italy and U.S. President Barack Obama presented Monk with a National Medal of Arts, the highest honor in the United States specifically given for achievement in the arts.
Avant-garde vocalist, composer, performer, director, filmmaker and choreographer continues to record extensively and create multi-disciplinary works combining music, theatre and dance.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Matthew-Aaron Dusk was born November 19, 1978 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada and from an early age he wanted to become a performer. At seven he was accepted into St. Michael’s Choir School, and remained for eleven years. Originally performing opera and classical music until hearing Tony Bennett, Bob Fenton, and Sarah Vaughan records at the age of 17, when he decided to change his musical style and direction.
In 1998 Matt won the top spot in the Canadian National Exhibition Rising Star Competition, however he was on a path to take over the family business, and the same year attended York University to study economics. After his first year he changed his major for BFA in music studying jazz theory with John Gittins, jazz vocal with Bob Fenton, and masterclasses with Oscar Peterson. Awarded the university’s Oscar Peterson Scholarship he graduated with honors.
Dusk recorded four independent CDs before securing a major record deal with Decca Records. In 2004 he became the in-house entertainer at the Golden Nugget Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada throughout the filming of the reality TV show The Casino. His 2004 debut album Two Shots went gold in Canada, the title song was The Casino’s theme song and was written by Bono and The Edge. Matt’s second project was a holiday EP titled Peace On Earth the following year. Since 2006 he has recorded a sophomore album Back In Town at Ca[ito; Records with a 58 piece orchestra, has worked with Patrick Williams and Sammy Nestico and Al Schmitt. And was the first male artist ever to reach #1 on the Japanese charts.
He has gone on to record several more albums, score the soundtrack for Call Me Fitz television show, record a live DVD concert special for PBS with a 17 piece big band. His fifth album My Funny Valentine: The Chet Baker Songbook features an eighty piece orchestra with Arturo Sandoval, Guido Basso, Emilie-Claire Barlow and Ryan Ahlwardt.
Vocalist Matt Dusk has been certified gold twice for his albums Two Shots and Good News, and once platinum for his Baker project, and has recorded a duet project with Edyta Górniak, and continues to perform, record and tour.
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