Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Della Griffin was born June 12, 1925 in Newberry, South Carolina but grew up in New York, the 19th of 20th children. She greatly admired and was influenced by Count Basie, Charlie Barnet, and most specifically Billie Holiday. She began singing when she was 12 and a few years after her graduation in 1943 from Jamaica High School in Queens, New York, she began singing professionally.
1950 found Griffin and Frances Kelley forming one of the first all female R&B singing group that played in small clubs whenever they could for about a year. In 1951, Della invited Jerry Blaine, the owner of Jubilee Records, to hear the group perform. So impressed by the group that he signed them the next day and in January 1952 Jubilee released “The Enchanters” first record, they began touring, dropped their second record and two members left the group.
Della and Kelley were determined to continue their careers and replaced the two members becoming the “Dell-Tones” after lead singer and drummer Della. They went on to record with Brunswick and Rainbow record labels, and toured with Jimmy Forrest. By 1957 the Dell-Tones slowly began to drift apart and Della left to perform on her own.
Over the years Griffin migrated towards jazz touring with and playing in support to many artists including Sonny Stitt, Benny Green, Illinois Jacquet, and Etta Jones. She began performing again in New York City clubs including the Blue Note and The Blue Book where she stayed for years.
In 1984, Della was hit by a car and took a break from singing. She came back as a featured singer that garnered her more attention than her drumming. Recording with Houston Person, she began performing overseas at age 88, she has since all but ceased her performances and appearances. While singing remained her passion, vocalist Della Griffin, who was also proficient on the drums, alto saxophone, and piano, transitioned in New York City on August 9, 2022, at the age of 100..
Inspire A Young Mind
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Nanette Natal was born on June 10, 1945 in Brooklyn, New York. She started her professional career as a classical singer in 1960 and during this period she was a member of the Helen Hayes Young People’s Theater Guild. In the early ’60s, she performed numerous concerts in New York with that group. She then went on to work the Bitter End Coffee House Circuit, performing her own material, which developed into blues and rock, singing and playing guitar and performing at universities and concert halls throughout the country.
By the ’70s, she recorded for Vanguard and Evolution Records, worked with Mahalia Jackson, Odetta, Bonnie Raitt and Rick Nelson along with TV appearances, most notably with Barbara Walters on The Today Show. She was also active on the club circuit playing such venues as the Gaslight and the Au Go-Go.
Unhappy with the constrictions of the record companies, it was in the mid-Seventies that she dissolved her recording contracts and set herself upon a path to develop her musical expression and in 1977 she turned to jazz as that vehicle. Nanette’s defining moment in her mind to pursue a jazz career occurred during a demo recording session for Columbia Records. She was asked to record a pop record and she sang Duke “Sophisticated Lady”. Dramatically changing the phrasing she was subsequently told by the engineer that she was not a pop singer, but a jazz singer.
From 1977 to the mid-’80s, Natal became a strong influence on the downtown loft scene. It was at this time that she started to teach privately, setting up her production company and label, Benyo Music Productions, and releasing five albums from 1980 to 1995.
Nanette Natal, one of the more creative jazz singers continues to perform and teach in New York and work on such interesting and daring projects as a one-woman opera. She also writes a monthly column “Creative Fire-Singing as a Spiritual Practice” which expresses her views on the art and techniques of jazz vocalizing.
Take A Dose On The Road
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Emilie-Claire Barlow was born June 6, 1976 in Toronto, Canada to professional musician parents, so she grew up in recording studios. By age seven she had begun a career singing television and radio commercial
Encouraged by her parents to sing and study several instruments Emilie chose piano, cello, clarinet and violin. She went on to study voice at the Etobicoke School of Arts and music theory and arranging at Humber College. She lists Ella Fitzgerald, Tony Bennett and Stevie Wonder amongst her musical influences.
Barlow’s first album Sings was released in 1998. She has been named Female Vocalist of the Year at the 2008 National Jazz Awards, has been nominated five times for Canada’s Juno Awards and won Best Jazz Vocal Recording for her album Seule ce soir in 2013. The album also won Album of the Year – Jazz Interpretation at the 2013 ADISQ Awards. The same year she also picked up Best Jazz Vocalist of the Year from Sirius XM Independent Album of the Year.
Beyond music Emilie has also provided voices for many animated television series, including Sailor Venus and Sailor Mars in Sailor Moon, Bakugan Battle Brawlers and Courtney in Total Drama Island.
To date the jazz singer, arranger, record producer and voice actress has released 10 self produced jazz albums on her own label and has voiced dozens of characters for animated television series. She has performed and recorded with Melanie Doane, Peter Appleyard, Matt Dusk, Jay Oliver and Dave Weckl to name a few. Emilie-Claire Barlow continues to perform, record and tour.
Inspire A Young Mind
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Hollywood On 52nd Street
Stormy Weather is both title track composed by Harold Arlen in 1933 and title of the 1943 film starring Lena Horne, Bill “Bojangles” Robinson and Cab Calloway, Katherine Dunham, Fats Waller, Ada Brown, Dooley Wilson and the Nicholas Brothers, Fayard and Harold. The romantic role of Selina, was invented for the film as Robinson did not have such a romance in real life. The song has been performed by Ella Fitzgerald, Etta James, Frank Sinatra, Red Garland, Charles Mingus, Don Byas to name a few. But the classic Horne is what you’ll hear.
The Story: The film is based upon the life and times of its star, dancer Bill “Bojangles” Robinson who plays Bill Williamson, a talented born dancer who returns home in 1918 after fighting in World War I and attempts to pursue a career as a performer. With his perpetually broke friend Gabe Tucker (Dooley Wilson along the way, he meets a beautiful singer named Selina Rogers (Lena Horne) at a soldiers’ ball and promises to come back to her when he “gets to be somebody.” Years go by, and Bill and Selina’s rising careers intersect only briefly, since Selina is unwilling to settle down.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Wycliffe Gordon was born May 29, 1967 in Waynesboro, Georgia and was heavily influenced musically by the church music his organist father played at several churches in Burke County as well as being a classical pianist and teacher.
It wasn’t until 1980 that Gordon became particularly inspired in jazz at age thirteen, listening to jazz recordings inherited from his great aunt. The collection included a five-LP jazz anthology produced by Sony-Columbia and was drawn in particular to Louis Armstrong and the Hot Fives and Hot Sevens.
Wycliffe attended, at that age, Sego High School in Augusta, Georgia and played in the band under direction from Don Milford. He graduated from Butler High in 1985, performed in New York City as part of the McDonald High School All-American Band, went on to study music at Florida A&M where he played in the marching band.
His early works as a professional were with Wynton Marsalis but in recent years he expanded beyond swing and experimented with new instruments, notably the indigenous Australian wind instrument, didgeridoo. In 1995, Gordon arranged and orchestrated the third version of the theme song for NPR’s All Things Considered, the widely recognized melody composed in 1971 by Donald Joseph Voegeli.
In 2006 he founded Blues Back Records, his was an independent jazz label and released his Rhythm On My Mind album, a collaboration with bassist Jay Leonhart. His desire for full artistic control was the impetus for creating Blues Back. Blues Back had produced other artists in Wycliffe’s universe who met Gordon’s criteria for originality, however, since 2011 has been inactive.
Jazz trombonist, arranger, composer, bandleader and music educator at the collegiate-conservatory level, Wycliffe Gordon also plays didgeridoo, trumpet, tuba, piano, and sings. To date he has a catalogue of 19 albums as a leader and another eight as a sideman performing with John Allred, Marcus Roberts, Randy Sandke, Maurice Hines, Ron Westray, and Chip White. He continues to perform, tour, record and educate.
Take A Dose On The Road
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