Posted in Shows on Nov 19th, 2007
Dick and Kiz Harp were a husband-and-wife, piano-and-vocals duo who ran their own nightclub (converted from a warehouse and called “The 90th Floor,” after a lesser-known Cole Porter song they performed) in Dallas, Texas at the end of the 1950s. They’ve developed a cult following among jazz-vocal aficionados …
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Posted in Shows on Nov 5th, 2007
In 1939 and 1940 Billie Holiday recorded a handful of poignant songs co-written by a good friend of hers, Irene Wilson (later known as Irene Kitchings). Wilson was grieving over the breakup of her marriage to pianist Teddy Wilson, and “Some Other Spring,” in particular, was said to have been inspired by her loss. Before her marriage to Wilson (whom she influenced in many ways, introducing him to classical music and accelerating his development as a piano player), she had worked in Chicago (under the names of Irene Armstrong and Irene Armstrong Eadie) as the leader of an all-female jazz trio called Three Classy Misses…
Posted in Jazz Notes on Jul 29th, 2007
Several days ago I got a very nice e-mail from the person who runs All Things Emily, a fantastically-detailed site devoted to the late guitarist Emily Remler. She had happened upon the March 2007 Night Lights show “Emily Remler: a Musical Remembrance”, which included an interview with Remler friend and sometime musical associate Robert Jospe. Some clips…
Posted in Shows on Jul 15th, 2007
“Betty Roche was an unforgettable singer,” Duke Ellington wrote of his former vocalist in 1973. “She never sounded like anybody but Betty Roche.” Roche, the so-called “blues specialist” whom some consider to be one of the best vocalists Ellington ever…
Posted in Shows on Jun 16th, 2007
This week on Night Lights we pay tribute to the pianist and singer who passed away this past week at the age of 94. In the late 1940s Lutcher scored a series of hits such as “Hurry On Down” and “Fine Brown Frame” that blended jazz, pop, blues and R & B in a way that made her one of the era’s first crossover stars…
Posted in Shows on Mar 31st, 2007
Emily Remler was a rising-star jazz guitarist in the 1980s whose style, influenced by Wes Montgomery, fused hard swing and lyricism with Brazilian and other forms of music, making her one of the most compelling newcomers around. Remler did not let…
Posted in Shows on Mar 24th, 2007
In late 1966 the fiercely individualistic singer and pianist Nina Simone signed with RCA Records and continued her genre-bending explorations of jazz, blues, pop, folk, and soul, recording songs such as Burt Bacharach and Hal David’s “The Look of Love,” Leonard Cohen’s “Suzanne,” civil-rights anthems such as “I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free,” and occasional standards…
Posted in Shows on Mar 17th, 2007
The International Sweethearts of Rhythm, considered today to be the most renowned of the 1940s “all-girl” bands, emerged in the late 1930s from the Piney Woods School, a foster-child institution for African-American children in Mississippi. The “International” part of their moniker was inspired by the Chinese, Hawaiian, Mexican, and Native American heritage of some of the members. By 1941 the Sweethearts were playing the Apollo Theater…
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