Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Teri Thornton was born Shirley Enid Avery on September 1, 1934 in Detroit, Michigan. Encouraged by her mother to study classical music, as a teenager she turned to jazz, singing and playing piano. Thornton first performed in local Detroit clubs in the 1950s but her debut as a professional took place at the Ebony Club in Cleveland, Ohio. She moved to Chicago, Illinois and worked with Cannonball Adderley and Johnny Griffin Her debut release of “Devil May Care ” in 1961 for Riverside brought her national attention, with and a subsequent move to New York City where she established herself on the jazz and club scene. She would go on to work with Duke Ellington and Clark Terry.
Scoring her biggest hit with the theme to the television show Naked City “Somewhere in the Night ” in 1963, she would next appear on the Ed Sullivan Show, get a recording contract from Columbia Records and receive a personal stamp of approval from Ella Fitzgerald as her favorite singer. Thornton also found work during this period singing for television ads and recording for several different labels.
By the late Sixties, Teri faded from public view, due to poor managers, alcohol, drugs and her unfailing dedication to taking care of her children. She moved to Los Angeles and it wasn’t until 1979 that she reemerged singing in small piano bars. It was decades later that she was discovered to have been singing on various song poem records in Los Angeles on the Preview label as “Teri Summers.”
Teri moved back to New York in 1983 and once again started performing on the club circuit. In 1998 she fully revived her career after a surprise win at the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz Vocal Competition. Thornton signed with Verve Records, releasing I’ll Be Easy to Find. Fame short-lived however, diagnosed with bladder cancer, jazz vocalist Teri Thornton passed away of the disease on May 2, 2000 in Englewood, New Jersey.
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SAMARA JOY, CHRISTIAN MCBRIDE, MEI SEMONES & FRIENDS
Samara Joy and Christian McBride Celebrate Verve’s 70th Anniversary & Mei Semones & Friends play the music of Getz/Gilberto | Sparklmami delivers a DJ set. Presented by the Mayor’s Office of Media & Entertainment.
Performers for this celebration of the label’s 70th anniversary include Samara Joy, a six-time GRAMMY winner and Bronx native, and Christian McBride, a world-class bassist and bandleader, a Juilliard graduate and 11-time GRAMMY winner who has recorded with legends of both the jazz (McCoy Tyner, Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, Wynton Marsalis, Eddie Palmieri, and more) and pop (Sting, Paul McCartney, Celine Dion) spheres. Also, Mei Semones, an American indie rock musician who writes jazz-influenced songs in both English and Japanese, has invited her own crew of friends including aron!, Liana Flores, and John Roseboro to perform music from Getz/Gilberto, the classic collaborative album by João Gilberto and Stan Getz released on Verve in 1964. Sparklmami will begin the show with a DJ set.
Tickets: Free
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BRANFORD MARSALIS & DIANNE REEVES
Saxophone great and NEA Jazz Master Branford Marsalis and his superlative quartet are joined by fellow NEA Jazz Master and jazz’s greatest vocalist, Dianne Reeves, for a week devoted to the immortal music of John Coltrane, in honor of the centennial of his birth.
Saxophonist Branford Marsalis is one of the most influential and revered figures in contemporary music. The NEA Jazz master, three-time Grammy Award winner, and Tony and EMMY Award nominee is equally at home performing concertos with symphony orchestras and sitting in with members of the Grateful Dead, but the core of his musical universe remains the Branford Marsalis Quartet. After more than three decades of existence with minimal personnel changes, this celebrated ensemble is revered for its uncompromising interpretation of a kaleidoscopic range of both original compositions and jazz and popular classics.
The Branford Marsalis Quartet and Dianne Reeves will release a tribute album which revisits Coltrane’s seminal 1963 collaboration with Johnny Hartman. Originally recorded at Rudy Van Gelder’s studio in March of 1963, John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman was a sublime showcase for Coltrane, McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison, and Elvin Jones, who gave remarkable depth and sensitivity to a selection of standards including Irving Berlin’s “They Say It’s Wonderful,” Guy Wood’s “My One and Only Love,” and the definitive version of Billy Strayhorn’s “Lush Life.” Bringing the songs to life was the distinctive, evocative baritone of crooner Johnny Hartman, who was the only vocalist Coltrane ever collaborated with.
Interpreting the songs with her own singular gifts, Reeves is a five-time GRAMMY winner who is accurately called “The most admired jazz diva since the heyday of Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday” (NY Times). She is an artist who embodies the music’s enduring values of elegance, class, and improvisational poise, with an innate feel for swing.
Personnel:
Branford Marsalis ~ tenor saxophone
Dianne Reeves ~ vocals
Joey Calderazzo ~ piano
Eric Revis ~ bass
Justin Faulkner ~ drums
Tickets: $50.00 ~ $165.00
Thursday: Sold Out | Friday: Tickets Available | Saturday: Almost Sold Out | Sunday: Tickets Available
Showtimes: Thursday ~ Saturday @ 7:30pm | Sunday: 3:00pm
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LEESA RICHARDS
Miami vocalist, songwriter, vocal teacher, arranger and producer Leesa Richards celebrates the 40th Anniversary of The Sunshine Jazz Organization. Bringing her voice to the Historic Lyric Theater stage for one night only, she’ll give tribute to the legendary women of jazz featuring the new canon chamber collective.
Not only is this talented women the above, her journey began as a dancer with Whitney Houston , then captured the role of Mary Magdalene in the national touring company of the Broadway musical, Jesus Christ Superstar, earning critical acclaim which led to featured performances throughout the US and Europe. She is the founder and director of an outstanding youth theater company.
Conductor: Waldrion Dunkley
Tickets: $ TBD
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Jewel Brown was born on August 30, 1937 in Houston, Texas and her first professional performance was at the age of 12 in the Manhattan Club in Galveston, Texas. Before she graduated from Jack Yates High School Lionel Hampton heard her sing and offered the opportunity to tour professionally in Europe.
In 1957 while on a vacation in Los Angeles, California, Jewel sat in with organist Earl Grant at the Club Pigalle and he hired her that night. Their collaboration lasted for a year. She went on to work for nightclub owner Jack Ruby in Dallas, Texas.
In the Sixties she was offered singing positions with Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong, and she chose the later, appearing with Armstrong in the films, “Louis Armstrong and All Stars” and “Solo”.
Brown recorded an exuberant solo of “Jerry” and vocal backup and “twist choreography” on “When the Saints” on the 1962 live performance “Jazz Festival, Vol. 1 with ‘Louis Armstrong All Stars”, “With Louis Armstrong: Best Live Concert 1: Jazz In Paris” and also recorded with Milton Hopkins.
She retired in 1971 to care for ailing members of her family, establishing a successful hair salon in Houston. In recent years she has revived her career, singing in the Heritage Hall Jazz Band. Vocalist Jewel Brown’s publicist announced her death from colon cancer on June 26, 2024 at the age of 86.
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