Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Nellie Rose Lutcher was born on October 15, 1912 in Lake Charles, Louisiana. The eldest daughter of the 15 children, her father was a bass player and her mother a church organist. She received piano lessons and her father formed a family band with her playing piano. At age 12, she played with Ma Rainey, when her regular pianist fell ill and had to be left behind in the previous town. Searching for a temporary replacement in Lake Charles, one of the neighbors told Rainey that there was a little girl who played in church who might be able to do it.

At 15, Lutcher joined her father in Clarence Hart’s Imperial Jazz Band and in her mid-teens also briefly married the band’s trumpet player. In 1933, she joined the Southern Rhythm Boys, writing their arrangements and touring widely. 1935 saw her moving to Los Angeles, California where she began to play swing piano, and also to sing, in small combos throughout the area. At this point she began developing her own style, influenced by Earl Hines, Duke Ellington and her friend Nat “King” Cole.

Not widely known until 1947 when she learned of the March of Dimes talent show at Hollywood High School, and performed. The show was broadcast on the radio and her performance caught the ear of Capitol Records scout Dave Dexter. Signing to the label she made several records, including The One I Love (Belongs to Somebody Else) and her first hit single, the risqué Hurry On Down.

In 1950, Lutcher duetted with Nat “King” Cole on For You My Love and Can I Come In For A Second. The same year, her records were released in the UK and were actively promoted by radio DJ Jack Jackson. She headlined a UK variety tour, emceed by Jackson, with great success, later returning there to tour on her own.

With an orchestra for the first time, Lutcher recorded The Birth of the Blues and I Want to Be Near You in 1951, but losing her appeal with the record-buying public and was dropped by Capitol the following year. She went on to record, much less successfully, for other labels including Okeh, Decca and Liberty, and gradually wound down her performance schedule.

In 1952, Lutcher was contacted to perform on a happy new years television special, however, after she finished her song it was revealed that she was on the set of and the honoree on a This Is Your Life episode.

Pianist and vocalist Nellie Lutcher, most recognizable for her diction and exaggerated pronunciation and was credited as an influence by Nina Simone among others, passed away in Los Angeles on June 8, 2007, aged 94.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Spencer Williams was born on October 14, 1889 in New Orleans, Louisiana and was educated at St. Charles University in his hometown. Performing in Chicago, Illinois by 1907, he moved to New York City about 1916 where he co-wrote several songs with Anton Lada of the Louisiana Five. Among those songs was Basin Street Blues, which became one of his most popular songs and is still recorded by musicians to this day.

Touring Europe with bands from 1925 to 1928, during this time he wrote for Josephine Baker at the Folies Bergère in Paris. Returning to New York City for a few years, at the end of the Roaring Twenties, Williams was tried but then acquitted on a charge of murder. In 1932, he was back in Europe where he spent many years in London, England before moving to Stockholm in 1951.

A prolific composer, some of Spencer’s compositions that became hit songs were Basin Street Blues, I Ain’t Got Nobody, Royal Garden Blues, Mahogany Hall Stomp, I’ve Found a New Baby, Tishomingo Blues and Everybody Loves My Baby, among numerous others.

Returning once again to New York City in 1957, pianist, composer, vocalist and bandleader Spencer Williams,  was posthumously inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. He passed away on July 14, 1965 in Flushing, New York.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Roy Kral was born on October 10, 1921 in Cicero, Illinois. His sister was the renowned vocalist Irene Kral. Urged by his mother, he took classical piano lessons as a young boy but by the 1930s abandoned them to teach himself to play jazz piano by mimicking what he heard while listening to the radio under his blanket after bedtime.

During World War II, Kral served in the Army as an arranger for the Army band. After service he moved to Chicago, Illinois and joined the George Davis Quartet. As a pianist and singer for Charlie Ventura’s band, Bop for the People, in 1948 ç Kral agreed to write a new arrangement of the 1919 pop song I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles. He added a bebop sensibility and scat singing to a rather insipid pop standard, transforming it into a cool, jazzy tune and their first hit.

Meeting Jackie Cain at eighteen and just out of high school and his initial impression was not her singing until he heard her. Their voices were an octave apart and their partnership was cemented when they married in 1949 and became the duo Jackie and Roy, recording nearly 40 albums in 56 years. Coming to prominence during the bebop era they combined bebop singing with cabaret creating a very polished sound of pop, jazz and Latin music, all inflected with a jazz sensibility. The duo produced hits like Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most, You Inspire Me, and It’s A Lovely Day Today.

Pianist and vocalist Roy Kral, one half of one of the most important vocal groups in jazz, passed away at 80 of congestive heart failure on August 2, 2002 in Montclair, New Jersey. 

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Lee Wiley was born in Fort Gibson, Oklahoma on October 9, 1908. At fifteen, she left home to pursue a singing career, moving to New York City to perform on radio stations. However, her career was interrupted by a horseback riding fall that temporarily sidelined her due to blindness but recovered. At 19 she became a member of the Leo Reisman Orchestra, with whom in 1931 she recorded three songs: Take It From Me, Time On My Hands, and her composition Got The South In My Soul.

Lee began her radio career at KVOO in Tulsa, Oklahoma on the Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt program on NBC in 1932, and was featured on Victor Young’s radio show in 1933. Throughout the summer of 1936, she had her own show, Lee Wiley, on CBS.

In 1939 she recorded eight Gershwin songs on 78s with a small group for Liberty Music Shop Records. The set sold well and was followed the next year by the music of Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers & Lorenz Hart, Harold Arlen, and the music of Vincent Youmans and Irving Berlin.

She sang with Paul Whiteman, and the Casa Loma Orchestra. A collaboration with composer Victor Young resulted in several songs for which Wiley wrote the lyrics, including Got The South In My Soul and Anytime, Anyday, Anywhere. In 1963, Bob Hope Theater on NBC-TV presented “Something About Lee Wiley, where Piper Laurie portrayed her in the episode, which was produced by Revue Studios.

Vocalist Lee Wiley, active from the 1930 through the 1950s, passed away on December 11, 1975.

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Review: Tony Hightower | Legacy

Legacy. If you know Tony Hightower, you understand why he titled this treasury of songs. If you don’t, you will come to appreciate his talent. He was weaned on the classics and his selection of songs as well as his writing and arranging speak to his unique understanding of those who came before. He has accepted the torch and is crafting a distinctive voice to tell his stories. Taking his cues from decades of musical history, as you listen, you will hear the influences as he bares his soul to give you an unabashed glimpse into the pleasures and sorrows of his life.

The opening song, written by the legendary Skip Scarborough, was originally recorded in 1973 as You Can’t Hide Love by the California R&B group Creative Source.  It would be two years before Maurice White would drop it down to a ballad for Earth, Wind & Fire and garner wider recognition. Now, nearly fifty years later, a new voice gives it a swing arrangement that shows his maturity to introduce a new generation to a classic song with a different beat. It sets the tone for what is to follow.

Swing is always a fun vehicle to begin an album and it speaks to a historical note of the music that a century ago drew dancers to the floor. Tony’s arrangement of Can’t Hide Love takes us in a new direction and gives us those big band horns, adding a sprinkle of background ladies with drum highlights and a bass line driving the music and you have a classic arrangement that sets the tone for what is to follow. The Doll further illuminates his storytelling acuity with this mid-tempo groove about an elegant lady who is in a league of her own. She turns heads, can stop a room, and is the dream of most men. I think at one time Duke and Billy called her Satin Doll. The Don Redman/And Razaf composition Gee Baby takes the third position sans fanfare, slowing down with an easy opening bass line and a bluesy piano as it begs the question, Ain’t I Good To You? Written at the end of the Roaring Twenties, Tony puts the bass again in the center spotlight to assist in setting the mood as he weaves this tale of a young man trying to understand why the expensive trappings combined with his love mean so little to this woman who is obviously looking for things he is incapable of giving.

Rendez Vous stretches Hightower’s voice in falsetto beyond his familiar tenor. It is a bossa nova getaway tribute to a young man’s love for a woman. She has captured his heart and this is where he can escape from the world and lose himself in her arms on the beach in Ipanema. All To The Good takes us to church but not in the tradition. He keeps a mid~tempo beat alive as he opens with a bit of scatting before delving into his homage to the beautiful spirit that was his mother. Taking wing for that celestial residence is only softened by those left behind with memories of times well spent together. It’s ballad time and Plain Jane takes a deep look inside dreams, aspirations and realities that keep one humble and looking towards the future. It’s acceptable to remove the masks we wear and be the plain people whistling along the boulevard. Need You lightens the mood again with an easy beat as a young man does his best to let the lady in his life know how he feels. One can only envision her smiling.

The Gift is a love song of lament. The orchestration brings to mind theme songs and interlude music of many film noir or those black and white television shows of the Fifties and Sixties. The strings add an eerie but comforting ambience as he unfolds his choices and the subsequent outcome. Love & Happy raises the temperature with this remake of the quintessential Al Green/Teenie Hodges composition Love And Happiness that was first released in the UK in 1973, however, America didn’t get the single until 1977. Tony gives us a funky blues swing tempo with those horns blazing that pays tribute to its raw grittiness that was originally expressed.

There are many songs that one should not tackle unless they have truly done their homework. Here’s To Life is one of those seminal songs that has become a modern day jazz standard and an appropriate closer. Composed by Artie Butler with lyrics by Phyllis Molinary, it became Shirley Horne’s signature song and one of my favorites as the title says it all. “No complaints and no regrets, I still believe in chasing dreams and placing bets, I have learned that all you give is all you get, so give it all you got…” As it unfolds you will hear Tony pay his respects and emerge with the mantra he lives by.

If you are hesitant, don’t be. Tony Hightower’s maturity is evident in his lyricism, composing, arranging and delivery. Penning six of the ten selections he presents here, I implore you to pay very close attention to the musicianship of those who accompany him. The music is as much a part of each story as the lyric, for it plays an equally impassioned role in the story. I also encourage you not to disregard his tracking, as it is reminiscent of past producers who created studio albums that were concerts, where you just drop the needle and let it play. This is one of those albums.

To say this young man is on his way to being one of the great storytellers of his generation is by no means an exaggeration. Listen with intent. For us hip audiophiles, we applaud those who defy popular taste for original design. Legacy.

carl anthony | notorious jazz | october 7, 2021

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