I have been listening to Mildred Bailey’s singing since the early Seventies, when I found the three-record Columbia set devoted to her recordings from 1929-47.  And she never fails to move me — with her tenderness, her technique, her wit.  But Mildred has very few champions these days.  Even the late Whitney Balliett, whose taste and judgment were unparalleled, wrote that Mildred succeeded neither as a pop singer or a jazz one.  And if you were to ask the most well-informed listener who the greatest women jazz singers are, Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald would head the list (if not two dozen others ranging from Diana Krall to Shirley Horn to Ella Logan to Marion Harris) . . . but Mildred is forgotten, or all but forgotten.

Why?

It can’t be because of her race.  We finally have come to accept that White folks can swing, can’t we?

Some of her invisibility has to do with her elusiveness.  Billie and Ella have established, defined “personalities,” which ironically might have little relationship to what they sang.  ”Billie Holiday” as an iconic figure equals self-destructive heroin addict, short-lived victim, a tortured figure, someone for whom MY MAN or DON’T EXPLAIN was painful autobiography.  Subject of a bad melodramatic movie; a ghost-written “autobiography” and several biographies as well as documentary films.  And the most accessible visual image of Billie is from the 1957 THE SOUND OF JAZZ – careworn, rueful, lovely.  There is the engaging rasp of her voice in te Thirties, the moody cry and croak of her later recordings.

“Ella Fitzgerald” is sunny exuberance, scat-singing, someone making a jazzy version of the American songbook accessible to anyone in the Fifties who owned a record player.  A cheerful endurance, whether alongside Chick Webb, Louis, Basie, or Ellington.  Everyman and woman’s identifiable Jazz Singer, easy to understand. 

Today marketers call this ”branding,” boiling down the unique self into a few immediately recognizable qualities — as if people were products to be put in the shopping cart in a hurry.   

Then there is the issue of size. 

In Charles Peterson’s 1939 photographs of Billie that I have posted recently, we see a seriously chubby young woman.  Ella was always a large woman, but no one said anything about it.  Some astute listeners did not worry about a woman singer’s weight.  Think of Wagnerian sopranos.  Think of Kate Smith.  Did anyone care that Connee Boswell could not get off the piano bench?  And men are forgiven a great deal.   

But in pop music, listeners tend to be much more fickle, visually oriented, even shallow.  It is difficult to escape Mildred Bailey’s appearance.  She was fat, and not “fat” in a jolly way — not the way that some Twenties blues singers could use to their advantage: Helen Humes or Edith Wilson singing about their weight as a sexual asset (Miss Wilson’s lyric: “Why should men approach with caution / For this extry-special portion?”).  Aside from laughing at herself during the January 1944 Metropolitan Opera House jam session — while singing “Pick me up / On your knee” in SQUEEZE ME, she and the band are chuckling at the difficulty of such a task — Mildred did not joke about her size, nor did she make it part of “an act.” 

Many listeners want their popular icons to be erotically desirable.  Sex sells; sex appeals.  Eventually, as they age,  singers pass an invisible boundary and become Venerable.  Think of all the cover pictures of singers, male and female, posed as if on magazine covers — Lee Wiley reclining on a couch on one of the Fifties RCA Victors; Julie London smoldering, her long red-blonde hair flowing.  Misses Krall and Tierney Sutton, today.  (I receive many new CDs by young women who consider themselves singers.  They look like models.  They credit a hair stylist, a wardrobe consultant, a make-up artist.  I think, “Can you sing?”)

Consider Mildred’s contemporaries: pretty, svelte, apparently youthful forever: Peggy Lee, Edythe Wright, Helen Ward, even Doris Day.  But Mildred’s photographs make her look matronly, and she is making no effort to woo the viewer. 

Let us even give audiences of the Thirties and Forties the benefit of the doubt.  If you did not live in a big American city, how many opportunities would you have to see Mildred Bailey and to judge her on the basis of her size rather than her art?  Possibly you saw her on the cover of a piece of sheet music or stared at the label of one of her Vocalion 78s, heard her on the radio.  No film footage exists of her.   

There is the nature of Mildred’s art.  Many artists have one approach, whether they are singing EMPTY BED BLUES of SILENT NIGHT.  If she was singing DOWNHEARTED BLUES, she was lowdown and melancholy (while swinging); LITTLE HIGH CHAIRMAN and GIVE ME TIME brought out different kinds of tenderness.  On CONCENTRATIN’ ON YOU and ARTHUR MURRAY TAUGHT ME DANCING IN A HURRY, she was hilarious.  IT’S SO PEACEFUL IN THE COUNTRY was calm and pastoral, THANKS FOR THE MEMORY rueful, knowing.  And IN LOVE IN VAIN is, althought masterfully understated, a heartbreaking performance.  Versatility is bad for branding; it confuses the consumer.   

As a band singer — the first woman to be hired in that role — with Paul Whiteman and her husband Red Norvo, she recorded a good many songs that were forgettable: THREE LITTLE FISHIES, for one.  Perhaps the girlish quality of Mildred’s upper register may have disconcerted some listeners, who would prefer their jazz singers to be plaintive and husky.  But arguing over the definitions of a jazz singer and a pop singer seems a silly business.  Do you like what you hear?  

Although we can feel both fascinated and sympathetic while considering Billie’s difficult life, Ella’s poor childhood, Mildred would have had a hard time making diabetes and obesity intriguing to us. 

I also suspect that those who ignore her Mildred do so not because her voice displeases them, but because she subliminally represents OLD.  I don’t mean OLD in the sense of the past, but in the sense of elderly, of senior citizen.  What bad luck made Mildred identify herself “The Rockin’ Chair Lady?”  Of course, her performance of Hoagy Carmichael’s ROCKIN’ CHAIR was superb; she took it as her theme song.  But — when we want our stars to be aerobically bouncy — for Mildred to portray herself as immobilized, unable to get out of her chair, was not a good way to market herself.  (And artists were products even in the Thirties.)     

Alas, poor Mildred.  Were she to apply for a job and be turned down because of her appearance, she could sue, win, and collect a substantial settlement.  But dead artists can’t sue an ignorant public for discrimination. 

Listen to her sing. 

COPYRIGHT, MICHAEL STEINMAN AND JAZZ LIVES, 2009
Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.  Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Michael Steinman and Jazz Lives with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Time for some well seasoned greetings! Here’s my favorite five holiday videos this year, a little blog Christmas package from our family to yours.

Lights and Dancers on Tiki Tender for Fun – Merry Christmas Everyone!
Each year my industrious brother Kent outfits his houseboat “Tiki Tender” with an incredible light display for the Chattanooga, Tennessee Grand Illumination lighted boat parade. But of course cool lights aren’t enough, so dancing girls atop the boat are the icing on his nautical cake! Click link, watch the video > Enjoy….

TIKI Tender 2009 Christmas Grand Illumination, Chattanooga TN from Kent Ready on Vimeo.

Merry Christmas Baby – the Genius of Ray Charles

Best trailer trash Christmas ever! Robert Earl Keen – Merry Christmas from the Family

Swing It! Diana Krall – Jingle Bells

Winter Wonderland – Wynton Marsalis

Thanks for watching, here’s wishing you a very Merry Christmas and a joyous New Year!

Tracy Ready is a Writer / Producer / Vocalist and Director of Photography based in Dallas, Texas. All sites and social networks are listed here > TraceTV sites
Follow Trace on Twitter @TraceTV

Sitting at the south-west end of the Taku Arm of Tagish Lake, at the mouth of the Swanson River, Ben-My-Chree is a Northern legend. Otto and Kate Partridge had come north during the Klondike Gold Rush, but never made it to Dawson. Otto got involved in shipbuilding, cutting lumber and then mining in the Southern Lakes region, and in 1911, they started developing property near their gold mine as a home. Otto named it “Ben-My-Chree,” Manx for “Girl of My Heart.” A combination of Otto’s story-telling, Kate’s hospitality and musical ability, and a spectacular garden in a remote glacial valley prompted tourists to start arriving, and during the 1920s it became a must-see for visitors to the Yukon. Otto and Kate both died in 1930, but Ben-My-Chree tours continued to be offered by the White Pass & Yukon Route into the 1950s, using the sternwheeler Tutshi (seen in the postcard above) to take people down the lake system. Click here to see a lengthy review of a film about such a tour. For more information and some photos of Ben-My-Chree, see Eric Irvine’s site at AtlinHistory.com. The story below, which appeared in Canadian Home Journal in 1938, describes a trip to Ben-My-Chree in the summer of 1930. 

 A Lady in the Wilderness By Frederick Niven You cannot be presented to the lady in the first paragraph. The stage has to be set, here, as it was set for us before she stepped forth and won our hearts. A thousand miles northward from Vancouver to Skagway we had voyaged, noting, nightly, the Pole Star drawing nearer. We had journeyed on beyond Skagway (the “Gateway of the North”) up the spectacular White Pass and heard, when the train stopped to let us look down on the great gorge of it, the roar of all its cataracts like the sound one hears holding a shell to the ear. We had seen, mounting onward, fragments of the trail of ‘98 in the steep gulch alongside, a foot-wide scar between the rock-slides that have descended over it in the years – as though Nature would fain wipe out the memory of it. Climbing on, at the boundary between Alaska and British Columbia we had remarked other evidence that we were indeed more than entering, that we had entered, the North, seeing on a blackboard on the wall when we halted there the imperative command that all mushers must report. We were going in. Men and women of the North speak of going in, coming out, not just going and coming. The phrase is inevitable. Here was a far cry from Vancouver. Here was a far cry even from Skagway as we rolled on by Lake Bennett that twisted under cliffs and round the butt-ends of rock-slides, with only the rufflings of passing winds on its surface and the twinkling pin-points of sunlight, though in ‘98 as many as four hundred rafts were counted at one time on it, rowed by sweeps, sculled by sweeps, aided on their way by blankets rigged up for sails on lopped trees for masts. Going in – indubitably were we going in. There is a feeling as of having come to another planet up there on the divide. And at Carcross, sixty miles or so north of Skagway (that once had a name more vocal of the land – Caribou Crossing – changed to Carcross because of muddles with the mail caused by the existence of the district of Cariboo in B. C.’s far interior) one is aware of the ambient silence and vastness of the Yukon. The sledge-dogs loafing there in summer-time hint of the winter life. It has a quality like that of a little village on the shore of a great sea. It is a jumping-off place for that wilderness, the peaks of which keep watch on it, the twisting waters of which come to its doors.

When they tell you that Yukon Territory has an area of 207,076 square miles – 206,427 of land and 649 covered by water – you are not surprised. When they tell you that the Pelly River, lying wholly within the territory, is three hundred and thirty miles in length and its main tributary, the Macmillan, two hundred, you are not unprepared for that statistical information. You can quite believe it. It feels like that here. The silence of the great hinterland laps the place as the waves play among the piles and breakwaters of an ocean-fronting village. Aboard the Tutshi (pronounced Tooshy), thrashing out of Carcross to investigate that silence, the realization must come to many that the old phrase, the Lure of the North, is not just poppy-cock. Most, I think, must be aware of it and to some of these it comes as a call to be answered, to some as a warning; better to be gone, they feel, before it has them in thrall. Of the lady whom we were to see later we had heard nothing at Carcross. A story or two we had been told, to be sure, of women in the North, such as that of the trapper’s wife who was brought in by dog-sled in mid-winter to the hospital at White Horse, some way further on northward, and two weeks later departed – with the new baby – for their back-of-beyond. Two other children there were also, whom they had brought along with them. On their return journey to their lodge in the wilderness blizzard assailed them. The storm continued and the husband built a shelter in which that woman of the North remained with the two children – and two-weeks young baby – while the man mushed back through the storm for more supplies. “That,” I suggested, “finished her for the North.” “Bless you, no,” was the answer. “You couldn’t drive her out with a club.” I thought of her as the Tutshi slapped with its stern-wheel on its way into that waiting immensity. Here was a land that seemed empty as the sky.

A gaggle of geese passed overhead and, dropping beyond a range to the southeast, left an added sense of emptiness. A flight of ptarmigan, piebald, white and brown, strung across the blue bloom of the dwarfed spruce trees, and there was the impression that this was more rightly their domain than ours. We were intruders among mystery. Beyond that silvery blue of the spruce trees were staring cliffs mutely, heedlessly, watching us. Beyond and above the cliffs were obdurate peaks with snow in their lower creases and glaciers lying in their upper hollows. From Tagish Lake to Taku Arm we churned on, the uninhabited shores slipping past. The reflected silvery light off the water touched, as with a veneer of unreality, the white-painted boat, the high pilot-house – and the faces of those who clustered on deck looking at this austerity of desolation. Valleys that we opened up seemed vast as Old Country shires. The mountains that hung along their far ends might have been of stationary clouds. The airplane, I considered, will make a great change in this land. I spoke the thought aloud, and a man who stood by me had a story to tell of adventure and fortitude of the pilots of these airplanes that are indeed changing the Northland’s life.

This article, however, is not of them but of a lady of the wilderness, and I would merely prepare the stage for her entrance as it was prepared for us going in, going on. When we had dropped Engineer Mountain astern and the little cluster of the houses of the Engineer Mine dotted along its base had dwindled to the value of crumbs- “Where are we going to now?” I asked the first officer, having been invited by then up into the pilot-house. He glanced over his shoulder, surveyed me for a moment, and then replied that he was not going to tell me; I was to see for myself without any preparation and so have my own uninfluenced impression. I accepted the decree and sat mute behind him, his robust figure, as he stood at the wheel, blotting out a section of the everlasting mountains. I looked down at the water that came rippling toward us, as if forever. I looked to the shores, and the blue-sifted spruce trees slid past on either side – as if forever.

The skipper came up; the first mate departed. We took a bend into West Taku Arm and at last I saw what seemed to be the twisting water’s end, and caught there the gleam of a few roofs, very small in the immensity. Yes, we were indeed, at last, at the end. But even though these stern-wheel steamers of the inland lakes and rivers are of shallow draft to make landings on beaches, we could not land at the apex here, shelving as it did into seepage and quagmire. We slowed down and crept close to high cliffs to west, along the base of which lay what I can but describe as a floating sidewalk. It disappeared round a projection of the cliffs, and as we drifted alongside a dapper Japanese – I say dapper advisedly, for he wore a boiled shirt and his trousers were creased – appeared at the cliff’s base, as if by some magic of this land. He caught the rope thrown down and tied us up to a knob of rock. With the other creatures of my dream – or the other incredulous mortals (on each face was an expression as of incredulity) – I went down the gang-plank. With them I passed round the base of the cliffs to where that floating side-walk touched land and with them, speechless, followed the path beyond. It brought us to a garden. “A garden is a lovesome thing, God wot.” But a garden here – what did it portend? How came it? The flowers were sweet-peas, delphiniums, asters, columbines, peonies, pansies, monster pansies, and many others besides – a pool of colour under the sheer precipices. And at the gate a lady stood to welcome us – dressed, by the way, as ladies are dressed who welcome us at garden-gates in the sophisticated hubs. As erroneous is it to imagine that women in these distant places (that is, places distant from wherever is our own centre) are clad in skins of beasts, as to imagine that men who can cope with the trials and affronts of the wilderness must needs be roughnecks. Stevenson once remarked that he had seen a London lawyer in the cottage of a Hebridean fisherman and not for worlds would reveal which he thought the greater gentleman! There’s a sophistication of the crowded centres that is no more than a veneer. Scratch it and you find the barbarian. And those who take their good manners and civilization into what we call the ends of the earth do not discard them there if they are the real thing.

 But this is a deflection from the lady who so charmingly met us at the gate of that sanctuary of flowers – not that she, memorable though her greeting remains, is the lady of this article. Would we care to walk round the garden? she suggested. Assuredly we would, and we passed on, a little quiet, spell-bound, for we had expected nothing like this, wilder wilderness, perhaps, but not a garden in it. And, finding it, the contrast with the scene round us made it all the stranger. Having walked through that oasis of colour we came to a house beside which was a small conservatory. There we clustered, looking back at that tended and multicolored enclosure, looking up at the contrasting severe summits, deeply aware of the quiet ashore here, the throbbing of the steamboat’s engine and thrash of her stern-wheel no longer sounding in our ears. It was then that a little silver-haired lady in velvet and lace came to the door – our lady of the wilderness – and bade us enter. “You must introduce yourselves, she told us, “for you know me now, but I don’t know you. It was a large main room into which we moved, with space for us all. There was a salver for our visiting-cards on a table to one side, cards of our hostess beside it; and a book lay there also for us to sign our names as her guests. The Japanese servant who had appeared round the cliff to meet the boat, and another, carried trays among us laden with glasses of home-made wine. When we had all drunk to our hostess she began to speak. She told us that this was a place far off to most and that it had been her husband’s custom to keep open house for all comers. He had recently died, but she was here to carry on the tradition. (He and she – from the Isle of Man – had been long in the North). Stories of the land and the old days, such as those with which he had been wont to entertain guests, she could not tell, but the house, said she, was still open house to all, as when he was there. And one usage that he had when visitors arrived she would ask us to acknowledge: Here, where all the boundaries were so close – of Alaska, Yukon Territory, and British Columbia (into the northern border of which, by the way, our twining inland voyage had brought us again, out of the Yukon) – it had been one of his aims to work toward friendship between the English-speaking peoples; and would we, to commence the evening, sing our two national anthems? “You see,” said she, “he had the two flags side by side on that wall.” There they were, the Union Jack and the Stars and Stripes. We were all moved as one is moved , if not inhuman, by humanity and sincerity, by direct simplicity of speech and largeness of heart. In a corner-niche was a little old harmonium – it had been in the country close on fifty years I heard later – and sitting down before it she played, a frail figure in velvet, silver-haired, with lace at her throat and wrists. There were about thirty of us in the room and of these but five were of British stock – the others all American – two New Zealand girls (one of English, one of Scots extraction), a Canadian (from Calgary), my wife (an English-woman), myself (a Scot, born in South America). “We bring the Empire together,” the Calgary man would say when by chance the girls from New Zealand, my wife and I, and he happened at any time to meet. Now more than Empire was brought together. I was moved, deeply moved. I wished that Ramsay MacDonald and Hoover might have been there. It would have moved them I know, this peace-parley in the heart of that quiet North, this little old lady gathering us together in friendship. We sang first, in deference to the majority, led by our hostess, My Country ‘Tis of Thee. And when the Americans sang with us God Save the King I regretted that there were words of their anthem of which I had been uncertain, so well they knew ours and so enthusiastically sang – to us and to that lady in the wilderness who kept open house for us. After that we had community singing. We sang Scots songs that all knew, and old English songs, and songs of the war – Pack Up Your Troubles . . . , Tipperary – that recalled to some the bitter war years and made the spirit of this gathering doubly valuable, and plantation songs. But soon our hostess was prevailed upon by her friend and companion (who had met us at the gate) to lie down. Before she obeyed, however, she had to make another little speech, one of apology. She said that she had known a lot of trouble recently, and that very morning she had been upset. A murmur of condolence passed, and she went on to explain that there was a moose she was trying to tame. It had been coming very close to the door, but that morning, just as it drew near, an airplane roared overhead and frightened it away. The wilderness with its moose and its caribou and its wolves; the wilderness, and this garden, and airplanes: that’s the North today. I did not know if all was true or but a dream and that at any moment I might awaken. From her friend I heard of how, lately, our hostess (Mrs. Partridge) had been widowed but, loving the place and its memories, and all that had been made of it, hoped to stay on, with these memories. Twice a week in summer the steamer from Carcross called and everybody came ashore, as on that day. They had a motor-boat that the gardener ran. In winter they had their dog-team. They had their books. To my wife Mrs. Partridge said that perhaps, for this winter, she might go out. That, thought my wife, might presumably mean Vancouver, Victoria, or at least Skagway. “Oh, no,” was the response; “I might go out to White Horse.” Even in that reply was something of the charm of it all, the sense of other-worldliness, the spirit that made this visit memorable, an event of one’s life, an experience so unexpected that even now I wonder at times if it is something I have dreamt or imagined. A glance at the map will show how far out is White Horse, that tiny metropolis of the Yukon. When gold was found in place in the neighbouring mountains Mr. Partridge built here a home that would be worthy of a woman of civilized refinements, and banked it round with flowers.

Ben-My-Chree he called it, which is Manx for Girl of My Heart. And still his widow lingers here with her happy memories – to carry on, carrying on. After the singing there were new odours in the room and the servants brought among us trays of tea, coffee, and cakes. I need hardly tell you that before we left we all trooped past that couch where our hostess lay, to give her our sincere adieux. And then I stole off alone beyond the house, up the slope a little way (past a cluster of trees, the very boughs of which seemed to hold the hush), to look at the place where she lived. I got beyond the voices. I felt the enfolding silence, the silence one reads about, the silence of the Yukon. The sense of all being but a dream within a dream caught me; the strangeness caught me; the silence caught me. In fact what I felt there was perhaps that spell of the North of which I had often read. I realized that, for better or worse, it might easily take hold of one – till death do us part, as it were – and it was a spell, it seemed, at one and the same time tranquil and sinister, beneficent and terrible. I understood the Lure of the North, that Lure other than the one that is in the hope for sudden fortune in the gold of its rocks and sands. These phrases one reads – “Come and find me;” “What lies beyond the ranges;” and so forth – are not mere nonsense. I tore myself away from that arresting and detaining quiet, that spell, and joined the others below. Our heels sounded muffled on the floating side-walk as we returned to the boat. It was well on in the evening by the evidence of our watches but day lingers long in these high latitudes in summer, and even after we had cast loose and backed away from the cliff the sky above us was full of bright memories of day – and would hold them almost till a new day dawned. In the water through which again we thrashed the day had not gone. It clung there, beautiful and a little sad. But in the place we had left, under the towering precipices, lights were being lit. Yes, Ben-My-Chree was real. It was true, and we were leaving it alone there as the night of the valleys brimmed round it. I watched the lights diminish in size beyond our grey wake in the spectral water, watched till they were eclipsed at a bend, and then climbed again to the pilot-house in that queer drizile of lingering day through the gathering night. The first officer was there. He looked at me as I entered, raising his eyebrows in an inquiry. But, somewhat as he had wanted to give me no word of preparation for what I was to see, I felt unable to say anything to him in reply to that lift of his brows. And I think he understood. Of course he understood. I shall never, so long as I live, forget that lady in the wilderness, the lady of Ben-My-Chree. Reprinted from Canadian Home Journal, 1938. FOR BEN-MY-CHREE There’s a dear place in the Yukon, Where my heart is ever homing, When the birds return with springtime From the south; And I long, as flowers for sunlight, For that golden Northern gloaming, And the touch of Tagish waters On my mouth. I could tell you how the moose drink In the starlit upland meadow, Where the beaver builds his dam Across the stream; How the little fox slips swiftly Ere the moonbeams catch his shadow, When the lakes enchanted lie In winter dream. Of those mountains in the moonlight Words can never paint the glory- Pendant glaciers gleam like diamonds Viewed afar. Monarchs, they, of many winters And their snow-bound heads are hoary, Laved in northern lights Or golden evening star. Silver mists at dawn and twilight Drift above the sapphire water, Wreathe with haloed grace the site Of Ben-My-Chree; Though the Wilderness returns there, Takes her own I and gives no quarter, Dreams immortalize its loveliness For me. Kathleen Keats White.

And talking about special ladies how about this Super Star Jazz Singer and Musician who has in her own right put Canada on the map for some of the finest talents in the world.

If you know where Diana Krall was born and raised then you know where our first day of our Girlfriend’s getaway to B.C will be.

See you tomorrow

Cheryl Young, Realtor

Victoria B.C

(originally aired June 03, 2007 )

when the music goes around, everybody goes to town
but, here’s something you should know, ho, ho, baby, ho ho ho

Ella Fitzgerald – A-Tisket A-tasket
Louis Armstrong – When the Saints come marching in
Billie Holiday – Swing! Brother, swing!
Harry Belafonte – Day -O
Nat King Cole – Route 66
Nina Simone – My Baby Just Cares for me
Ella & Duke Ellington – It don’t mean a thing (if it Ain’t got that swing)
Frank Sinatra – That’s Life
Diana Krall – Hit that Jive, Jack
The Manhattan Transfer – The Boy From New York City

1. John Denver’s “SILVER BELLS”

2. The Carpenters’ “WHAT ARE YOU DOING NEW YEAR’S EVE”

3. Mindy Smith’s “MY HOLIDAY”

4. “THE HALLELUJAH CHORUS” by Johnny Mathis
I have several versions of this song. But his is the one I listen to most.

5. Amy Grant’s “BREATH OF HEAVEN”

6. Diana Krall’s “HAVE YOURSELF A MERRY LITTLE CHRISTMAS”

7. “LITTLE DRUMMER BOY” by Harry Connick Jr.
8. “A CHRISTMAS LOVE SONG” by The Manhattan Transfer

9. “LITTLE ALTAR BOY” by The Carpenters

10.”THE LITTLE BOY THAT SANTA CLAUS FORGOT” by Nat King Cole

11. “I’M THE HAPPIEST CHRISTMAS TREE” by Nat King Cole

12. “SILENT NIGHT” by The Manhattan Transfer

13. “AWAY IN A MANGER” by Mindy Smith

You know, I could go on and on. The Redneck and I have a TON of Christmas music.

Suggested from Timo (www.tim-o.de) and being part of my list for a while – today is “her” day, performing a few classics. She for sure is one of the greatest Jazz singers – and sooo wonderful on the piano… Enjoy!

With Natalie Cole – Route 66

Fly me to the moon

Walk on by (very nice version!!)

Look of love

Boy from Ipanema

Thanks again to everyone for listening – and thanks again to Mandy, this time, for picking me up.

Here’s what was played this time around… Sorry for no links. It’s late, I’m tired. I sleep soon:

The Kyrie K Groove – Symmetry
Metric – Hustle Rose
Alanis Morissette – Head Over Feet
Sarah Harmer – Will He Be Waiting For Me
Joni Mitchell – This Flight Tonight
K.D. Lang – Help Me
Basia Bulat – Snakes and Ladders
Holly McNarland – Twisty Mirror
Megan Lane – Walking Alone
Jakalope – Don’t Cry
Holly McNarland – Numb
Sarah Slean – Awake Soon
Diana Krall – Departure Bay

CLICK THIS POSTCARD TO ENLARGE AND PRINT:

Jonny Blu returns to the legendary Herb Alpert’s “Vibrato Jazz Club” in Bel Air for his “Latin Sessions” Tour!
Performing songs from his new album “Taboo!”, including the hits “Babaloo”, “Besame Mucho”, and “Taboo”!

And Jonny will debut his new holiday song “A Holiday For Two”!

One night only! Call and make your reservations because this place seats only 300 and will fill up fast!

-Box Office: 1-310-474-9400
-Cover: $20
-Website: www.vibratogrilljazz.com

The Band:
Jonny Blu- Vocals
Bob Malone-Piano
Doug Webb- Sax, Woodwinds
Mike Scott- Guitar
Adam Gust- Drums
Lynn Keller- Bass
Shef Bruton- Trombone
Steve Stassi- Trumpet

PLEASE Consider Jonny Blu Music for your Holiday Gifts!
(Click this banner below)

Category 46
Best Improvised Jazz Solo
(For an instrumental jazz solo performance. Two equal performers on one recording may be eligible as one entry. If the soloist listed appears on a recording billed to another artist, the latter’s name is in parenthesis for identification. Singles or Tracks only.)
•All Of You
Gerald Clayton, soloist
Track from: Two-Shade
[ArtistShare]

Category 47
Best Jazz Instrumental Album, Individual or Group
(For albums containing 51% or more playing time of INSTRUMENTAL tracks.)
•Brother To Brother
Clayton Brothers
[ArtistShare]

John Clayton also arranged a song and performed with Yo-Yo Ma and Diana Krall in the following Grammy © Nominated Album:

Category 107
Best Classical Crossover Album

‘Yo-Yo Ma & Friends: Songs Of Joy And Peace,’ Yo-Yo Ma (Odair Assad, Sergio Assad, Chris Botti, Dave Brubeck, Matt Brubeck, John Clayton, Paquito d’Rivera, Renée Fleming, Diana Krall, Alison Krauss, Natalie McMaster, Edgar Meyer, Cristina Pato, Joshua Redman, Jake Shimabukuro, Silk Road Ensemble, James Taylor, Chris Thile, Wu Tong, Alon Yavnai & Amelia Zirin-Brown)

Sound familiar, my friends? I just sat here, ready to write something nice and cheerful to you, as I am sitting here, listening to Diana Kralls Christmas songs, but it was not to be.

Just now, a guy came in, talking down to me about a thing, that was not my fault. Sometimes, I really ask myself, why I am doing this. I guess its the money. I must be.

Anyway. 3rd of December today… I am still ill, or ill again whatever way you want to look at it. The christmas feeling just does not want to come to me this year, no matter how many times I listen to Etta Jones and Louis Armstrong. Perhaps I am frustrated. No, I did not even half finish my NaNoWriMo Novel. I spent half of my time in bed to be exact. So I have decided to finish the Novel for Christmas and then give it to BFF, who it was originally for. I swear, if I dont finish this until Christmas, I might as well never write again! (See what I did there? I never actually said that I would NEVER WRITE AGAIN! )

To my friends overseas – please dont be upset with me for not writing. Work is terribly busy, I am constantly sick and tired. Really, I know you are probably all really annoyed with me! P, I am on it! I will be doing the thing I promised. I just have not been in the right frame of mind. Sorry!!

Miss you guys and the Christmas lights of London!

Kiss,

Me x

What better gift for the Holidays than to introduce a friend or your whole family to the music of Jonny Blu!

Get 30% Off Now through the Holidays on your order of 2 CDs or more from CDBaby.com!  Click the banner below and order your Jonny Blu music now!

You can also visit my Official Website to listen to music and check out my shows! (click below)

Cheers!

Jonny

Was there something more I could have done?
Or was I not meant to be the one?
Where’s the life I thought we would share?
And should I care?

And will someone else get more of you?
Will she go to sleep more sure of you?
Will she wake up knowing you’re still there?
And why should I care?

There’s always one to turn and walk away
And one who just wants to stay
But who said that love is always fair?
And why should I care?

Should I leave you alone here in the dark?
Holding my broken heart
While a promise still hangs in the air
Why should I care?

Diana Krall
“Why should I care?” (1999)

first of all jazz is meant to be listened to live and not at home, second of all i adore people who feel music & don’t just sing music. third the smile on riki’s face tonight made me realize i too was smiling..that is the healing power of good music. words have no place because some feelings can’t be written down…
the concert was great, diana krall is a great pianist and i soulful singer and i love that you feel connected and that she tells you little stories before a song. the band: the drummer was amazing, the contrabass (?) guy was really funny and witty, the guitarist looked like eric clapton. on a different note (and don’t read this in a racist way because i am not) black people feel music differently and it is inspiring.
it was truly a great experience.
last but not least, some songs are never meant to be translated. Corocovado is meant to be sang in Portuguese. and…since diana’s version on Walk on by gave me the chills that is what i’ll share…

‘Llórame un río’, sería la traducción literal. O si lo preferís: ‘llora un río de lágrimas por mí’.
Sigue la primera versión que vio la luz, interpretada por Julie London en 1955 en la película “The girl can’t help it“.

Anteriormente, Ella Fitzgerald debía interpretar el tema compuesto por Arthur Hamilton en la película “Pete Kelly’s Blues“, sin embargo, el significado que el público pudiera dar al término ‘plebeyo’ en boca de una mujer negra hizo que la canción fuera eliminada de la película.
Una versión que me gusta mucho (y más en vídeo) es la de Diana Krall, que os dejo a continuación.

También podéis leer la traducción y ver algún vídeo más en este blog y en youtube, donde hay otras versiones muy interesantes.

Y si no te gusta, ya sabes… ¡Llórame un río!

Mâine, 22 noiembrie, de la ora 20, va concerta la Sala Palatului „diva jazz-ului modern”, Diana Krall.