Hollywood On 52nd Street
You’d Be So Nice To Come Home To is a popular song that became a jazz standard. Written by Cole Porter it premiered in the 1943 film Something To Shout About, nominated for two Oscars and introduced by Janet Blair and Don Ameche.
The Story: The movie takes place behind the scenes of a fictional vaudeville play and centers on a recently divorced woman. She decides to use her alimony settlement to produce her own show. Unfortunately her chief backer insists on starring in it but she is saved when a talented man puts everything at risk to replace the talentless chief backer.
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Frank Rosolino was born on August 20, 1926 in Detroit, Michigan. He studied the guitar with his father from the age of 9 and took up the trombone at age 14 while he was enrolled at Miller High School where he played with Milt Jackson in the school’s stage band and small group. Having never graduated, he joined the 86th Division Army Band during World War II.
Perhaps most influential of all was the street education Frank received after returning to Detroit following his period in the Army during which he sat in at the Mirror Ballroom or the Bluebird where other to-be-renowned musicians also congregated, the Jones brothers – Hank, Thad and Elvin, Tommy Flanagan, Kenny Burrell, Paul Chambers and later at the 3 Deuces on 52nd Street in New York City with Charlie Parker.
During this period Rosolino was also performing with the big bands of Bob Chester, Glen Gray, Tony Pastor, Herbie Fields, Gene Krupa and Stan Kenton. Leaving the Kenton outfit he settled in Los Angeles where he performed with Howard Rumsey’s Lighthouse All-Stars from 1954–1960 in Hermosa Beach.
Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, between nightclub engagements, Rosolino was active in many Los Angeles recording studios where he performed with such notables as Frank Sinatra, Sarah Vaughan, Tony Bennett, Peggy Lee, Mel Torme, Michel Legrand and Quincy Jones among others.
He can also be seen performing in “Sweet Smell of Success” in 1957 with Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis, and in 1958 with Shelly Manne’s group in the film “I Want To Live!” starring Susan Heyward and also. He was also a regular on The Steve Allen Show, The Tonight Show and The Merv Griffin Show. A talented vocalist, renowned for his wild form of scat-singing, Frank recorded one vocal album, “Turn Me Loose!” featuring both his singing and trombone playing. He can also be seen performing in the half hour syndicated program Jazz Scene USA, hosted by Oscar Brown, Jr.
It was during the 1970s that he performed and toured with Quincy Jones and the Grammy Award winning group Suoersax. He recorded some two-dozen sessions as a sideman and a dozen as a leader. Trombonist and vocalist Frank Rosolino committed suicide on November 26, 1978 after shooting his two sons.
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Hollywood On 52nd Street
Everything I Have Is Yours easily entered the jazz catalogue and was written by Burton Lane and the lyrics by Harold Adamson, published in 1933 and was first sung by Art Jarrett in the 1933 film Dancing Lady. The musical film starred Joan Crawford, Clark Gable in the lead roles and featured Franchot Tone, Fred Astaire, Robert Benchley and the Three Stooges.
The Story: Janie Barlow is a young dancer who is reduced to stripping in a burlesque show. Arrested for indecent exposure, she’s bailed out by millionaire playboy Tod Newton, who was attracted to her while slumming at the theatre with his society pals. When she tries to get a part in a Broadway musical, Tod intercedes with director Patch Gallagher to get her the job: he’ll put his money into the show, if Janie is given a part in the chorus. Even though he needs the money, Patch is resistant, until he sees Janie dance and realizes her talent.
When, after hard work and perseverance, Janie is elevated to the star’s part, replacing Vivian Warner. Tod is afraid he’ll lose any chance of gaining her affection if she becomes a star, so he closes the show, and Janie, out of work, goes away with him. Patch starts rehearsals up again using his own money, and when Janie returns and finds out the Tod has deceived her and manipulated things behind the scenes, she dumps him and joins up with her new sweetheart, Patch, to put on the show, which is a smash hit.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Hezekiah Leroy Gordon Smith was born August 14, 1909 in Portsmouth, Ohio and was better known in the jazz circles as violinist Stuff Smith. He studied violin with his father, cites Louis Armstrong as his primary influence and inspiration to play jazz, and like Armstrong, was a vocalist as well as instrumentalist.
In the 1920s, Smith played in Texas as a member of Alphonse Trent’s band. After moving to New York he had a regular gig with his sextet at the Onyx Club starting in 1935, performed with Coleman Hawkins as well as with younger musicians such as Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and later Sun Ra.
After signing with Vocalion in 1936, Stuff had a big hit with “I’se A Muggin'” and was billed as Stuff Smith and his Onyx Club Boys. He recorded for Decca in 1937 and Varsity in 1939-1940. He is well known for the song “If You’re A Viper” and is featured in several numbers on the Nat King Cole Trio album, After Midnight.
Part of Smith’s performance at what is considered the first outdoor jazz festival, the 1938 Carnival of Swing on Randall’s Island turned up unexpectedly on audio engineer William Savory’s discs, which were self-recorded off the radio at the time, then long-sequestered.
Smith was critical of the bebop movement, although his own style represented a transition between swing and bebop. He is credited as being the first violinist to use electric amplification techniques on a violin. He contributed to the 1938 tune “It’s Wonderful” often performed by Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald throughout their careers.
He moved to Copenhagen in 1965, performed actively in Europe, record with Oscar Peterson, Niels-Henning Orsted Pederson, Kenny Drew, Alex Riel, Stephane Grappelli and Jean Luc Ponty among others until his passing away in Munich on September 25, 1967.
Stuff Smith, one of the jazz industry’s preeminent violinists of the swing era is one of the 57 jazz musicians photographed in the 1958 portrait “A Great Day In Harlem”.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Patti Austin was born on August 10, 1950 in Harlem, New York City to a jazz musician father and grew up on Long Island. She made her debut at the Apollo Theater at age four and had a contract with RCA Records when she was five. Quincy Jones and Dinah Washington have proclaimed themselves as her godparents. But it was a reluctant outing as a teenager to hear one of Judy Garland’s last concerts and the experience-helped focus her career, giving her the desire to interpret a lyric like that.
By the late 1960s Austin was a session musician and commercial jingle singer. During the 1980s, she was signed to Jones’s Qwest Records and began her most prolific hit-making period. By this time she was both one of the leading background session vocalists and also was known as Queen of The Jingles for such companies as Burger King, Almay, KFC, McDonald’s, Avon, Stouffers, Maxwell House and the US Army.
Charting twenty R&B songs between 1969 and 1991, hitting #1 for her hits “Do You Love Me?” / “The Genie”, Baby Come To Me” – a duet with James Ingram, and also hits with “How Do you Keep The Music Playing”, again teaming with Ingram and “It’s Gonna Be Special”. She would sing background for Billy Joel’s “Just The Way You Are” along with Luther Vandross, Jocelyn Brown and Chaka Khan. She would be enlisted to sing duets with Michal Jackson, George Benson, Luther, Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons, Narada Michael Walden and Johnny Mathis.
Austin would be seen leading a new group of Raelettes for the 2006 album “Ray Charles + Count Basie Orchestra = Genius”; participating in the AVO Session Basel tribute to Ella Fitzgerald, and after nine nominations, winning her first Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Album for her 2008 album Avant Gershwin.
Patti co-produced and was one of over 70 artists singing on “We Are The World: 25 for Haiti” to raise awareness and aid for those affected by the 2010 earthquake. In 2011 she released a mostly covers album project titled “Sound Advice” re-working Bob Dylan, Michael Jackson, Brenda Russell, Bill Withers and Don McLean songs and a female take on “My Way” among others.
No to be idle Austin co-wrote and sings in the star-studded L.O.V.E. – Let One Voice Emerge, encouraging especially younger Americans to get out there and exercise their right to vote; has been seen in the Bridges/Coppola film “Ticker: The Man And His Dream, and appears in the Academy Award-winning documentary film “20 Feet From Stardom” in 2013. She continues to perform, compose and tour.
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