The dazzling ladies of jazz
The new film of F Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby has cast the jazz age back into the limelight. But as conversation turns to jazz itself, can you hold your own?
Fortunately, it is a wonderful subject for bluffers. For a start, whoever has the gall to contradict you is almost certainly bluffing as well. If you want to sound like an aficionado, start with some names. You can make some up if you like – after all, the history of jazz is littered with names that might as well have been invented by a fertile imagination; names such as Howdy Quicksell, Harlan Lattimore, Chester Sherburne, Thurman Teague and Virgil Scoggins.
Of course, they were all men – but ladies should really know their jazz dames. So here are some to be getting on with.
The ladies of the genre during its formative years, from the 1920s to the 1940s, were largely pianists and singers.
Lil Hardin (1898-1971), for example, was a cornerstone of Louis Armstrong’s classic Hot Fives and Hot Sevens of the 1920s. A thoroughly schooled musician she not only played in both bands but also composed much of the repertoire. What’s more, for a while she was married to Louis.
Marriage rescued Mary Elfrieda Scruggs from a lifetime of being Mary Elfrieda Scruggs. As Mary Lou Williams (1910-1981) she became an inventive pianist of panache, and a brilliant arranger. When she worked in the 1930s with Andy Kirk’s 12 Clouds Of Joy, everybody said she was the best man in the band.
Cleo Brown (1909-1995) added a light, almost breathless vocal style to her own vigorous piano-playing, raising the odd eyebrow with songs such as The Stuff Is Here And It’s Mellow. She eventually forsook the wicked ways of jazz to sing and play for the Seventh Day Adventist Church.
Singer, songwriter and pianist Una Mae Carlisle (1915-1956) was briefly the protégée of Fats Waller, ‘my mother’s 285lb of jam, jive and everything’.
Like her mountainous mentor, Una Mae packed a powerful left hand, matched with a nimble right.
And so did Julia Lee (1902-1958), another fine, rocking pianist with a sly vocal touch, perfect for a cheekily smutty song such as I Didn’t Like It The First Time. It’s ostensibly about spinach, but Julia leaves no illusions about its real meaning.
In the early days, women who played any instrument other than the piano, or sometimes the guitar, were so rare as to be dismissed as mere curiosities. Valaida Snow (1903-1956) was a hot trumpet player much admired by Louis Armstrong, and even more so by piano genius Earl Hines, who became her lover. She came to London in a stage show called Blackbirds Of 1934, taking time out to make some records. One was I Can’t Dance I’ve Got Ants In My Pants (banned, of course, by the prim BBC). The drummer was George Elrick, who became famous later as the presenter of Housewives’ Choice on the BBC Light Programme: worth a bonus point.
Perhaps the most widely known of all jazz singers was Ella Fitzgerald (1917-1996), thanks largely to her version of Cole Porter’s sentimental dirge Every Time We Say Goodbye, a firm favourite for funerals, ranked equivalent with Sinatra’s solipsistic anthem My Way and Louis Armstrong’s saccharine What A Wonderful World. What a terrible irony it is that artists with otherwise impeccable jazz credentials should be best remembered for revealing their unfortunate feet of clay.
Ella’s own vocal idol was Connee Boswell (1907-1976). Wheelchairbound, a victim of polio, she was raised in New Orleans, the cradle of jazz, but not born there as many people think. And here’s another irony: she was a white girl, though to hear her you’d never know it. She had a deep, furry sound and an instinct for the rhythmic possibilities of whatever she sang. She acknowledged her own influences to be Bessie Smith (1894-1937), the Empress of the Blues, along with Louis Armstrong, Bing Crosby and Enrico Caruso.
Quite a few jazz singers claimed inspiration from operatic tenors. Connee’s was Caruso, while Crosby revered Count John McCormack. There’s no proof that Louis Armstrong swooned at the sound of Beniamino Gigli, but there’s no proof that he didn’t either, so deal it in.
Teddy Grace (1905-1992) wasn’t born in New Orleans, but sang as though she should have been. She literally sang her voice to destruction, losing it for good during a Second World War morale-boosting tour, and thus barely able to speak. Teddy is worth dealing into any bluffing bout, if only to bamboozle other bluffers who think she was a man. This gender confusion has parallels in literary bluffing. ‘Oh, Evelyn Waugh, she’s such a good writer. And as for George Eliot, he has no equal.’
Some might say that the likes of Teddy and Connee, Julia and Una Mae are examples of the small change of jazz, but they are the bits of precious metal, there to be found when you sort through humbler coinage.
Bluffers should always have a pocketful to scatter among their poorer bluffees, and if your bounteous gesture persuades them to actually start listening, they should be eternally grateful.
The Bluffer’s Guide To Jazz by Paul Barnes (Oval Books, £6.99) is out now. For information on Bluffer’s Guides: www.bluffers.com
Fortunately, it is a wonderful subject for bluffers. For a start, whoever has the gall to contradict you is almost certainly bluffing as well. If you want to sound like an aficionado, start with some names. You can make some up if you like – after all, the history of jazz is littered with names that might as well have been invented by a fertile imagination; names such as Howdy Quicksell, Harlan Lattimore, Chester Sherburne, Thurman Teague and Virgil Scoggins.
Of course, they were all men – but ladies should really know their jazz dames. So here are some to be getting on with.
The ladies of the genre during its formative years, from the 1920s to the 1940s, were largely pianists and singers.
Lil Hardin (1898-1971), for example, was a cornerstone of Louis Armstrong’s classic Hot Fives and Hot Sevens of the 1920s. A thoroughly schooled musician she not only played in both bands but also composed much of the repertoire. What’s more, for a while she was married to Louis.
Marriage rescued Mary Elfrieda Scruggs from a lifetime of being Mary Elfrieda Scruggs. As Mary Lou Williams (1910-1981) she became an inventive pianist of panache, and a brilliant arranger. When she worked in the 1930s with Andy Kirk’s 12 Clouds Of Joy, everybody said she was the best man in the band.
Cleo Brown (1909-1995) added a light, almost breathless vocal style to her own vigorous piano-playing, raising the odd eyebrow with songs such as The Stuff Is Here And It’s Mellow. She eventually forsook the wicked ways of jazz to sing and play for the Seventh Day Adventist Church.
Singer, songwriter and pianist Una Mae Carlisle (1915-1956) was briefly the protégée of Fats Waller, ‘my mother’s 285lb of jam, jive and everything’.
Like her mountainous mentor, Una Mae packed a powerful left hand, matched with a nimble right.
And so did Julia Lee (1902-1958), another fine, rocking pianist with a sly vocal touch, perfect for a cheekily smutty song such as I Didn’t Like It The First Time. It’s ostensibly about spinach, but Julia leaves no illusions about its real meaning.
In the early days, women who played any instrument other than the piano, or sometimes the guitar, were so rare as to be dismissed as mere curiosities. Valaida Snow (1903-1956) was a hot trumpet player much admired by Louis Armstrong, and even more so by piano genius Earl Hines, who became her lover. She came to London in a stage show called Blackbirds Of 1934, taking time out to make some records. One was I Can’t Dance I’ve Got Ants In My Pants (banned, of course, by the prim BBC). The drummer was George Elrick, who became famous later as the presenter of Housewives’ Choice on the BBC Light Programme: worth a bonus point.
Perhaps the most widely known of all jazz singers was Ella Fitzgerald (1917-1996), thanks largely to her version of Cole Porter’s sentimental dirge Every Time We Say Goodbye, a firm favourite for funerals, ranked equivalent with Sinatra’s solipsistic anthem My Way and Louis Armstrong’s saccharine What A Wonderful World. What a terrible irony it is that artists with otherwise impeccable jazz credentials should be best remembered for revealing their unfortunate feet of clay.
Ella’s own vocal idol was Connee Boswell (1907-1976). Wheelchairbound, a victim of polio, she was raised in New Orleans, the cradle of jazz, but not born there as many people think. And here’s another irony: she was a white girl, though to hear her you’d never know it. She had a deep, furry sound and an instinct for the rhythmic possibilities of whatever she sang. She acknowledged her own influences to be Bessie Smith (1894-1937), the Empress of the Blues, along with Louis Armstrong, Bing Crosby and Enrico Caruso.
Quite a few jazz singers claimed inspiration from operatic tenors. Connee’s was Caruso, while Crosby revered Count John McCormack. There’s no proof that Louis Armstrong swooned at the sound of Beniamino Gigli, but there’s no proof that he didn’t either, so deal it in.
Teddy Grace (1905-1992) wasn’t born in New Orleans, but sang as though she should have been. She literally sang her voice to destruction, losing it for good during a Second World War morale-boosting tour, and thus barely able to speak. Teddy is worth dealing into any bluffing bout, if only to bamboozle other bluffers who think she was a man. This gender confusion has parallels in literary bluffing. ‘Oh, Evelyn Waugh, she’s such a good writer. And as for George Eliot, he has no equal.’
Some might say that the likes of Teddy and Connee, Julia and Una Mae are examples of the small change of jazz, but they are the bits of precious metal, there to be found when you sort through humbler coinage.
Bluffers should always have a pocketful to scatter among their poorer bluffees, and if your bounteous gesture persuades them to actually start listening, they should be eternally grateful.
The Bluffer’s Guide To Jazz by Paul Barnes (Oval Books, £6.99) is out now. For information on Bluffer’s Guides: www.bluffers.com