Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Pearl Mae Bailey, born March 29, 1918 in Southampton County, Virginia was raised in the Newport News, Virginia. She began singing at the age of three, making her stage debut at 15 when prompted by her brother Bill she entered an amateur contest winning first prize at Philadelphia’s Pearl Theatre. She went on to do the same at The Apollo, which cemented her decision to pursue an entertainment career.
Singing and dancing in Philly’s black nightclubs and other east coast cities in the thirties, by WWII she was touring the country with the USO and then settling in New York. Her success as a solo nightclub performer brought her work with Noble Sissle, Cootie Williams, Cab Calloway and Duke Ellington.
In 1946 she made her debut on Broadway in St. Louis Woman, which was later followed by House Of Flowers. Broadway led to the silver screen and in 1954 she took the role of Frankie in Carmen Jones, Maria in Porgy and Bess in ’59, both starring Dorothy Dandridge and Aunt Hagar in the film version of St. Louis Blues. In between demanding stage and screen commitments she continued to tour and record.
Returning to Broadway with Cab Calloway in David Merrick’s 1967 production of Hello Dolly won her a Tony award a year later. Throughout the next two decades she would sing the national anthem at the World Series, have her own television show, continue to perform on Broadway, be the voice for several animated film characters, earn a B.A. in theology from Georgetown University, become a spokesperson for Duncan Hines, win a Daytime Emmy, be appointed Ambassador of Love by President Nixon, be awarded the Bronze Medallion from New York City and a Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Pearl Bailey, an uninhibited vaudevillian, singer and actress passed away on August 17, 1990 in Philadelphia of arteriosclerotic coronary artery disease. The sultry voice was best known for her signature songs “Takes Two To Tango”, “Baby It’s Cold Outside” and “Won’t You Come Home Bill Bailey”.
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From Broadway To 52nd Street
I’d Rather Be Right opened at the Alvin Theatre on November 2, 1937 and ran two hundred and ninety performances. The play starred Joy Hodges, Austin Marshall and George M. Cohen. The composers of the play’s music were Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart and one of their songs emerge to become a jazz standard – Have You Met Miss Jones.
The Story: As the story goes, a couple, Phil & Peggy, who wish to marry cannot do so until he receives a raise in pay. This raise was contingent on President Roosevelt balancing the budget. Falling asleep in Central Park, Phil dreams that he and Peggy meet the President. The President, in turn, summons the Cabinet, goes to battle with the Supreme Court, all to help the youngsters. Seemingly stymied, the President then suggests the young lovers marry anyway. When Phil awakens, that’s what they do.
Jazz History: Swing was dance music. It was a “live” broadcast nightly on the radio across America for many years especially by Earl “Fatha” Hines and his Grand Terrace Cafe Orchestra broadcasting coast-to-coast from Chicago. Although it was a collective sound, swing also offered individual musicians a chance to “solo” and “improvise” melodic, thematic solos, which could at times be very complex and “important” music. Over time, social strictures regarding racial segregation began to relax in America: white bandleaders began to recruit black musicians and black bandleaders. In the mid-1930s, Benny Goodman hired pianist Teddy Wilson, vibraphonist Lionel Hampton and guitarist Charlie Christian to join small groups.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
George Benson was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on March 22, 1943 and raised in the Hill District. A child prodigy at the age of 7, he first played the ukulele in a corner drug store and received a few dollars for his efforts. At age 8, he was playing guitar in an unlicensed nightclub on Friday and Saturday nights that was soon closed down by the police. By the time he was 10, George was in New York recording his first single record with RCA-Victor in New York, called “She Makes Me Mad”.
He attended Connelly High School and although he left before graduation, he learned how to play straight-ahead instrumental jazz during a relationship performing for several years with organist Jack McDuff. At the age of 21, he recorded his first album as leader, “The New Boss Guitar” featuring McDuff, followed by “It’s Uptown with the George Benson Quartet” and “The George Benson Cookbook”.
During the ‘60s he was recording with Miles Davis for Columbia’s “Miles In The Sky”, moved on to Verve for a period and then signed with Creed Taylor producing such albums as “White Rabbit” and “The Other Side of Abbey Road” among others.
Benson released “Breezin” in 1976 and it went triple platinum topping Billboard’s 200. Tuning to vocal chops, the guitarist added a crossover audience adding smooth jazz to his repertoire of genres that include R&B, pop and jazz. The multi-Grammy award winner, he has recorded over two hundred albums and singles as a leader, sideman and collaborator; and has performed with the likes of Jaki Byard, Hank Mobley, Jimmy Smith, Lou Donaldson, Hank Crawford, Don Sebesky, Stanley Turrentine, Hubert Laws, Lee Morgan, Red Holloway, J. J. Johnson and Kai Winding, Freddie Hubbard, Deodato, Aretha Franklin, Freddy Cole, and Sadao Watanabe among numerous others.
In 2009 the National Endowment of the Arts honored George Benson with the distinction of being a Jazz Master and he continues to record, perform and tour worldwide.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Amina Claudine Myers was born March 21, 1942 in Blackwell, Arkansas. The pianist, organist, vocalist, composer and musical arranger began singing and playing the piano and organ as a child in church choirs in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area where she grew up. She directed choirs at an early age and graduated in concert music and music education from Philander Smith College.
In the early sixties Amina moved to Chicago, teaching and attending classes at Roosevelt University. It was in Chicago that she began working with Sonny Stitt and Gene Ammons, joined the AAMC, focused on vocal compositions and recorded her debut album with Kalaparusha Maurice McIntyre in 1969. .
In 1976 Myers relocated to New York City, where she intensified her compositional work and expanded it into the realm of Off-Broadway productions. She also continued performing and recording as a pianist and organist with Lester Bowie and Muhal Richard Abrams into the early eighties. In 1985 she joined Charlie Haden’s Liberation Music Orchestra and had notable collaborations on recordings with artists like Marian McPartland, the Art Ensemble of Chicago, Archie Shepp, David Murray, Arthur Blytheand Ray Anderson to name a few.
Amina Claudine Myers, a virtuoso pianist and organist whose work is presented internationally and appears on scores of recordings, draws upon her backgrounds in classical music and the music of the black church of her native rural South to create a recombinant sensibility within improvisation-imbued extended compositions. Her work is insistently post-genre at a moment when re-inscriptive collage pretends to postmodern transgression.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Bill Henderson was born William Randall Henderson on March 19, 1926 in Chicago, Illinois. He didn’t begin his musical career until 26 years later performing around his home city with Ramsey Lewis before moving to New
York in 1958. A singer of blues, ballads and swing, he follows in the tradition of Joe Williams and Ernie Andrews but clearly brings his own personality to each performance.
His early big hit was Senor Blues, recorded with Horace Silver and worked with the Jimmy Smith trio. During his tenure at Vee-Jay in which he recorded several fine albums he worked with Ramsey Lewis, Yusef Lateef, Booker Little and Eddie Harris. A move to MGM had him working with Oscar Peterson in 1963 and touring with Count Basie from 1965-66.
Settling in Los Angeles, Bill began working as an actor in film and television in the seventies, taking minor or supporting roles and one-time appearances in such movies as Trouble Man, Silver Streak, City Slickers, Hoodlum, and television with Happy Days, Hill Street Blues, The Jeffersons, MacGyver, Cold Case and My Name Is Earl.
The late nineties saw his participation on Charlie Haden’s album “The Art Of The Song” alongside Shirley Horn, followed by a Live at the Kennedy Center and Beautiful Memory: Live at The Vic releases. Still in great form at the age of 86, vocalist and actor Bill Henderson, who amassed some four-dozen albums and 45s over his career, continued to perform around Los Angeles until his death at age 90 on April 3, 2016 from Alzheimer’s Disease.
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