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#27 2022-03-22 07:57:34
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Re: Icons of Cool: Blossom Dearie
If you'd like to dabble, try 'Voices In Modern'.
#28 2022-03-23 03:32:19
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Re: Icons of Cool: Blossom Dearie
^ You also get Lambert, Hendricks and Ross (Annie in fine voice, naturally), plus a French outfit called... something or other... the name escapes me...
#30 2022-03-23 07:32:46
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Re: Icons of Cool: Blossom Dearie
That's nice stuff.
I don't know anything about jazz really. But it does seem to me that the white girls of the time and genre have largely been written out. Or barged aside?
There's nothing to knock about Holiday or Simone, but putting every issue around them aside, there still seems to be a lot of people clamouring to listen to and understand them. People who wouldn't look twice at a Julie London comp?
#31 2022-03-23 07:44:35
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Re: Icons of Cool: Blossom Dearie
Holiday I first heard as a teenager (at home) then with friends. 'Strange Fruit' was always much admired. But not by me.
Some professional writers find plenty to knock about Simone.
Julie London was, I think, something of a one-hit wonder.
The trouble with jazz, as someone once said, is there's an awful lot of it. Where to begin? I'd guess with Parker, Davis and Coltrane. Maybe. But take someone and play them 'Potato Head Blues' followed closely by 'A Love Supreme' and watch confusion descend.
My old man went right off Parker. He was (IMHO, you understand) better when he played at a slower pace. All the same, listen to anything Parker plays just a time or two and you'll find yourself whistling it ten years later. The mark of genius.
#32 2022-03-23 07:49:23
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Re: Icons of Cool: Blossom Dearie
Blossom Dearie is out there on her own, really. No-one else that I know of did what she did. She was sexy and with a terrific, sometimes slightly acidic, sense of humour. I used to play 'May I Come In?' late at night, ten years back, when living alone and rather the worse for wear, thinking of the woman I was in love with and who was back home with her husband. Sex and sophistication. Anita O'Day also did it but on a different level.
#33 2022-05-13 08:53:41
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Re: Icons of Cool: Blossom Dearie
It was Whitney Balliett - who adored her - who made the dolls' house comment Coolidge referred to.
A good many years have passed since that original posting but, remaining addicted to her understated style, I listen to her most days. I'm just listening to her version of 'Satin Doll', which is certainly on a par with that by Billy Eckstine. The lyrics never fail to bring a smile to my face and are the perfect example of that side of jazz: Ellington/Strayhorn/Mercer.