The Quarantined Jazz Voyager

It is amazing but not surprising how people want to get back to the same old routine they were in before the pandemic instead of inventing themselves anew. As I move around my city I see more and more people not wearing masks in enclosed spaces. I am not surprised by the robotic sense of normalcy by society.

This week I have selected an album by the underrated and often unappreciated vocalist  Irene Kral. The younger sister of pianist Roy Kral, I discovered her towards the end of her career in 1977 when I heard her album Where Is Love. I was enamored by her voice and the quiet understatement of her singing. Unfortunately I never had the opportunity to hear her live as she transitioned the followin year in August.

The album I present today is her third studio session, Better Than Anything, recorded on June 17 & 18, 1963 at the World Pacific Studios in Los Angeles, California. It was produced by Joe Burnett, engineered by Richard Bock and released the same year on Äva Records and distributed by MGM. Making up the quartet with Irene is the Junior Mance Trio.

The cover design was by Richter & Mracky Design Associates, the photography by Fred Seligo and the liner notes were written by Tommy Wolf.

Track List | 29:24

1. Better Than Anything (David “Buck” Wheat, Bill Loughborough) ~ 2:21
2. The Touch Of Your Lips (Ray Noble) ~ 2:22
3. The Meaning of the Blues (Bobby Troup, Leah Worth) ~ 3:11
4. Rock Me To Sleep (Benny Carter, Paul Vandervoort II) ~ 2:20
5. No More (Tutti Camarata, Bob Russell) ~ 3:10
6. Passing By (Laurent Hess, Charles Trenet, Jack Lawrence) ~ 1:54
7. It’s a Wonderful World (Jan Savitt, Harold Adamson, Johnny Watson) ~ 2:34
8. This Is Always (Mack Gordon, Harry Warren) ~ 3:23
9. Just Friends (John Klenner, Sam M. Lewis) ~ 2:40
10. Guess I’ll Hang My Tears Out to Dry (Jule Styne, Sammy Cahn) ~ 3:35
11. Nobody Else But Me (Jerome Kern, Oscar Hammerstein II) ~ 1:54

• Irene Kral ~ vocals
• Junior Mance ~ piano
• Bob Cranshaw ~ bass
• Mickey Roker ~ drums

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Jerry Ross was born Jerold Rosenberg on March 9, 1926 in Bronx, New York to Russian parents of the Jewish faith. Growing up, he was a professional singer and actor in the Yiddish theater. Following high school, he studied at New York University under Rudolph Schramm and introductions to singer Eddie Fisher and others brought him into contact with music publishers at the Brill Building, the center of songwriting activity in New York.

Ross met Richard Adler in 1950 and as a duo they became protégés of composer, lyricist, and publisher Frank Loesser. They began their career in the Broadway theater with John Murray Anderson’s Almanac, a revue for which they provided most of the songs, resulting in recordings of Acorn in the Meadow by Harry Belafonte and Fini by Polly Bergen.

Their second effort, The Pajama Game, opened on Broadway in May 1954. It ran for 1063 performances, produced the jazz standard Hey There, won a Tony Award, Donaldson Award and the Variety Drama Critics Award. Two songs from the show,

Their next musical, Damn Yankees, opened on Broadway in 1955, starring Gwen Verdon. It ran for 1019 performances and produced the jazz standard Whatever Lola Wants, and won the Tony Award for Composer/Lyricist and Musical.

Composer and lyricist Jerry Ross, who wrote, alone or in collaboration more than 250 songs and was entered posthumously into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, transitioned on November 11, 1955, at the age of 29, from complications related to the lung disease bronchiectasis.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

James Edward Davis was born in 1915 in Madison, Georgia. He and his family moved to Gary, Illinois, and then to Englewood, New Jersey, where he completed his high school education. Being musically gifted, he was accepted into the Juilliard School in New York City to study piano and composition, his fees being paid by a benefactress.

In the late 1930s he wrote the song Lover Man (Oh, Where Can You Be?) with Ram Ramirez but could not initially place it, until he offered it to Billie Holiday in 1942. However, due to the 1942–44 musicians’ strike Holiday didn’t record the song until 1944. Although at first it was only a minor hit, it soon achieved widespread success and went on to become a jazz standard.

During the early 1940s Davis struggled to make a living as a songwriter and supplemented his meagre royalties by giving piano lessons. Drafted in 1942, but as a member of the NAACP, refused enlistment into the segregated regiment, was ultimately imprisoned for thirteen days, then inducted into the army, serving three and a half years. By 1945, as a warrant officer, he was sent to France for six months, and learned the language. Back home, upon his discharge he left for Hollywood, joined the Actors’ Laboratory Theatre, however his acting career only offered stereotypical racial roles. At the end of 1947 he emigrated to France.

Warmly welcomed in Paris, in part, due to the fame of the song Lover Man, he styled himself Jimmy “Lover Man” Davis and entered a highly creative period, writing a number of songs and placing them with major French performers, such as Yves Montand, Maurice Chevalier, and Joséphine Baker. His songwriting royalties were still insufficient to live on, so he began singing his own songs in solo performances, touring through France, Italy, Holland, Spain, Switzerland and other countries.

Composer, songwriter, vocalist, pianist and actor Jimmy Davis, whose birth and death dates are currently unknown, and who was a close friend of Langston Hughes, transitioned in Paris, France in 1997. His biography, In Search of Jimmy ‘Lover Man’ Davis, was written by Professor François Grosjean.

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Three Wishes

When the ladies got together for a bit of girl talk Pannonica put for the th question of three wishes to Pearl Bailey who responded to her inquiry with this answer:

1. 1. “I only need one. I wish that humans would learn to live together with love, and then they wouldn’t need the other two wishes.”

*Excerpt from Three Wishes: An Intimate Look at Jazz Greats ~ Compiled and Photographed by Pannonica de Koenigswarter

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Clotilde Rullaud was born March 1, 1978 in Reims, France and was immersed in the performing arts of music, theatre and dance from early childhood. At five, she began studying flute and singing at the conservatoire, before going on to complete her studies in jazz and improvised music at IACP in Paris, France and EDIM in Cachan, France. She explored opera singing with the tenor singer, Peterson Cowan.

Her musical identity developed through her travels through the Balkans, Ireland, Lebanon, the United States. Clotilde’s study of vocal techniques, inspired by Meredith Monk, fado, tango, Romani music, Turkish music, Persian music, Inuit throat singing and Bulgarian voices were also great influences.

She has recorded three albums as a vocalist and flutist, her 2007 debut with Hugo Lippi, Live au 7 Lézards  She has also directed and produced a short film, and written and directed a multidisciplinary performance. With a repertoire spanning jazz, free improvisation and folk music, her career as a musician has led her to perform in France, Germany, Australia, Burkina Faso, China, South Korea, Japan, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Taiwan, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Since 2007, Rullaud has taught at Martina A. Catella’s school, Les Glotte-Trotters in Paris, and conducted workshops for the festival Les Suds in Arles and for the Ateliers d’ethnomusicologie (ADEM) in Geneva, Switzerland. Moving to New York City in 2017 she collaborated with American pianist Chris McCarthy, producing Pieces of a Song, a repertoire of dark and beautiful pieces based on the writings of Diane di Prima, poetess of the Beat Generation.

She has performed with Olivier Hutman, Dano Haider, Antoine Paganotti, Tristan Macé, Albin Lebossé, Emmanuel Bex, Yann Cléry, Laurent Salzard, Gautier Garrigue, and Alexandre Saada, the latter collaboration produced A Woman’s Journey, a homage to American female protest songstresses.

She has received numerous awards for her work in both jazz and film. Vocalist, flutist and composer Clotilde Rulllaud, who is also an artistic director, filmmaker, producer and facilitator, continues to pursue the limits of her creativity.

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