edgar, Sarah Vaughn was my older sister's favorite vocalist. I think it had to do with her romance at the time.
Couldn't find this one by Sarah, folks, so we'll have to make do with Sonny.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=or8ow7lqXo4
And the lyrics to go with that sax.
The very thought of you makes my heart sing,
Like an April breeze on the wings of spring.
And you appear in all your splendor, my one and only love.
The shadows fall and spread their mystic charms
In the hush of night while you are in my arms.
I feel your lips so warm and tender, my one and only love.
You fill my eager heart with such desire,
Every kiss you give sets my soul on fire,
I give myself in sweet surrender, my one and only love.
The touch of your hand is like heaven, a heaven that I've never known.
The blush on your cheek whenever I speak tells me that you are my own,
You fill my eager heart with such desire, every kiss you give sets my soul on fire,
I give myself in sweet surrender, my one and only love.
Ferde Grofé
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ferde Grofé, (March 27, 1892 - April 3, 1972) was an American pianist, arranger and composer.
Biography
Born Ferdinand Rudolph von Grofé, in New York City, Grofe came by his myriad musical interests naturally. Of French Huguenot extraction, his family had four generations of classical musicians. His father, Emil von Grofé, was a baritone who sang mainly light opera and his mother, Elsa Johanna von Grofé, was a professional cellist. She was also a versatile music teacher who taught Ferde to play the violin and piano. Elsa's father, Bernardt Bierlich, was a cellist in the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra in New York and Elsa's brother, Julius Bierlich, was first violinist and concertmaster of the Los Angeles Symphony.
Ferde's father died in 1899 and Elsa took little Ferde abroad to study piano, viola and composition in Leipzig, Germany. Given such a musical background, it is perhaps understandable that Ferde became proficient over a remarkable range of instruments including piano (his favored instrument), violin, viola (he became a violist in the LA Symphony), baritone horn, alto horn and cornet.
This extraordinary command of musical instruments and composition, undoubtedly, gave Ferde the foundation to later become first a gifted arranger of other composers' music and then a masterful orchestrator of his own compositions.
Grofé left home at the age of 14 and variously worked as a milkman, truck driver, usher, newsboy, elevator operator, helper in a book bindery, iron factory worker, and as a piano player in a bar for two dollars a night and as an accompanist. He continued studying piano and violin. When he was 15 he was performing with dance bands. He also played the alto horn in brass bands. He was 17 when he wrote his first commissioned work. Beginning about 1920, he played the jazz piano with the Paul Whiteman orchestra.
Radio
During the 1930s, he was the orchestra leader on several radio programs, including Fred Allen's show and his own The Ferde Grofé Show. In 1944 he was a panelist on A Song Is Born, judging the works of unknown composers.
He served as Whiteman's chief arranger from 1920-1932. He made literally hundreds of arrangements of popular songs, Broadway show music, and tunes of all types for Whiteman.
Among Grofé's most memorable arrangements is that of George Gershwin's music Rhapsody in Blue, which established Grofé's reputation among jazz musicians. Grofé took what Gershwin had written for two pianos and orchestrated it for Whiteman's jazz orchestra. He transformed Gershwin's musical canvas with the colors and many of the creative touches for which it is so well known. He went on to create two more arrangements of the piece in later years. Grofé's 1942 orchestration for full orchestra of Rhapsody in Blue is the one most frequently heard today.
Due to Grofé's ubiquity as in arranging large-scale musical works and a perceived paucity of American achievements in serious music, the German conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler complained that "America has no composers, only arrangers."
Grofé was later employed as a conductor and faculty member at the Juilliard School of Music where he taught orchestration.
At the age of 80, Ferde Grofé died in Santa Monica, California. He was buried in the Mausoleum of the Golden West at the Inglewood Park Cemetery in Inglewood, California.
Today, Grofé remains most famous for his Grand Canyon Suite (1931) a work regarded highly enough to be recorded for RCA Victor with mastery by Arturo Toscanini and the NBC Symphony (in Carnegie Hall in 1945, with the composer present). The earlier Mississippi Suite is also occasionally performed and recorded. Grofé conducted the Grand Canyon Suite and his piano concerto (with pianist Jesús Maria Sanromá) for Everest Records in 1960.
Sarah Vaughan
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Birth name Sarah Lois Vaughan
Also known as "Sassy", "The Divine One"
Born March 27, 1924(1924-03-27)
Origin Newark, New Jersey, U.S.
Died April 3, 1990 (aged 66)
Genre(s) Bebop
Cool jazz
Traditional pop
Vocal jazz
Years active 1942-1989
Label(s) Mercury, Pablo
Sarah Lois Vaughan (nicknamed "Sassy" and "The Divine One") (March 27, 1924, Newark, New Jersey - April 3, 1990, Los Angeles, California) was an American jazz singer, described by Scott Yanow as having "one of the most wondrous voices of the 20th century". [1]
Sarah Vaughan was a three time Grammy Award winner.[1] The National Endowment for the Arts bestowed upon her its highest honor in jazz, the NEA Jazz Masters Award in 1989.
Early life
Sarah Vaughan's father, Asbury "Jake" Vaughan, was a carpenter and amateur guitarist. Her mother, Ada, was a laundress. Jake and Ada Vaughan migrated to Newark from Virginia during the First World War. Sarah was their only natural child, although in the 1960s they adopted Donna, the child of a woman who traveled on the road with Sarah Vaughan.
The Vaughans lived in a house on Newark's Brunswick street for Sarah's entire childhood. Jake Vaughan was deeply religious and the family was very active in the New Mount Zion Baptist Church on 186 Thomas Street. Sarah began piano lessons at the age of seven, sang in the church choir and occasionally played piano for rehearsals and services.
Vaughan developed an early love for popular music on records and the radio. In the 1930s, Newark had a very active live music scene and Vaughan frequently saw local and touring bands that played in the city at venues like the Montgomery Street Skating Rink, Adams Theatreand Proctor's Theatre. By her mid-teens, Vaughan began venturing (illegally) into Newark's night clubs and performing as a pianist and, occasionally, singer, most notably at the Piccadilly Club and the Newark Airport USO.
Vaughan initially attended Newark's East Side High School, later transferring to Arts High, which had opened in 1931 as the United States first arts "magnet" high school. However, her nocturnal adventures as a performer began to overwhelm her academic pursuits and Vaughan dropped out of high school during her junior year to concentrate more fully on music. Around this time, Vaughan and her friends also began venturing across the Hudson River into New York City to hear big bands at Harlem's Ballroom and Apollo Theatre.
Biographies of Vaughan frequently state that she was immediately thrust into stardom after a winning an Amateur Night performance at Harlem's Apollo Theatre. In fact, the story that biographer Leslie Gourse relates seems to be a bit more complex. Vaughan was frequently accompanied by a friend, Doris Robinson, on her trips into New York City. Sometime in the Fall of 1942 (when Sarah was 18 years old), Vaughan suggested that Robinson enter the Apollo Amateur Night contest. Vaughan played piano accompaniment for Robinson, who won second prize. Vaughan later decided to go back and compete herself as a singer. Vaughan sang "Body and Soul" and won, although the exact date of her victorious Apollo performance is uncertain. The prize, as Vaughan recalled later to Marian McPartland, was $10 and the promise of a week's engagement at the Apollo. After a considerable delay, Vaughan was contacted by the Apollo in the Spring of 1943 to open for Ella Fitzgerald.
Sometime during her week of performances at the Apollo, Vaughan was introduced to bandleader and pianist Earl Hines, although the exact details of that introduction are disputed. Singer Billy Eckstine, who was with Hines at the time, has been credited by Vaughan and others with hearing her at the Apollo and recommending her to Hines. Hines also claimed to have discovered her himself and offered her a job on the spot. Regardless, after a brief tryout at the Apollo, Hines officially replaced his existing female singer with Vaughan on April 4, 1943.
With Earl Hines and Billy Eckstine: 1943 - 1944
Vaughan spent the remainder of 1943 and part of 1944 touring the country with the Earl Hines big band that also featured baritone Billy Eckstine. Vaughan was hired as a pianist, reputedly so Hines could hire her under the jurisdiction of the musicians' union (American Federation of Musicians) rather than the singers union (American Guild of Variety Artists), but after Cliff Smalls joined the band as a trombonist and pianist, Sarah's duties became limited exclusively to singing. This Earl Hines band is best remembered today as an incubator of bebop, as it included trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, saxophonist Charlie Parker (playing tenor saxophone rather than the alto saxophone that he would become famous with later) and trombonist Benny Green. Gillespie also arranged for the band, although a recording ban by the musicians union prevented the band from recording and preserving its sound and style for posterity.
Eckstine left the Hines band in late 1943 and formed his own big band with Gillespie leaving Hines to become the new band's musical director. Parker came along too, and the Eckstine band over the next few years would host a startling cast of jazz talent: Miles Davis, Kenny Dorham, Art Blakey, Lucky Thompson, Gene Ammons, Dexter Gordon, among others.
Vaughan accepted Eckstine's invitation to join his new band in 1944, giving her an opportunity to develop her musicianship with the seminal figures in this era of jazz. Eckstine's band also afforded her first recording opportunity, a December 5, 1944 date that yielded the song "I'll Wait and Pray" for the Deluxe label. That date led to critic and producer Leonard Feather to ask her to cut four sides under her own name later that month for the Continental label, backed by a septet that included Dizzy Gillespie and Georgie Auld.
Band pianist John Malachi is credited with giving Vaughan the moniker "Sassy", a nickname that matched her personality. Vaughan liked it and the name (and its shortened variant "Sass") stuck with colleagues and, eventually, the press. In written communications, Vaughan often spelled it "Sassie".
Vaughan officially left the Eckstine band in late 1944 to pursue a solo career, although she remained very close to Eckstine personally and recorded with him frequently throughout her life.
Early solo career: 1945 - 1948
Vaughan began her solo career in 1945 by freelancing in clubs on New York's 52nd Street like the Three Deuces, the Famous Door, the Downbeat and the Onyx Club. Vaughan also hung around the Braddock Grill, next door to the Apollo Theatre in Harlem. On May 11, 1945, Vaughan recorded "Lover Man" for the Guild label with a quintet featuring Gillespie and Parker with Al Haig on piano, Curly Russell on double bass and Sid Catlett on drums. Later that month she went into the studio with a slightly different and larger Gillespie/Parker aggregation and recorded three more sides.
After being invited by violinist Stuff Smith to record the song "Time and Again" in October, Vaughan was offered a contract to record for the Musicraft label by owner Albert Marx, although she would not begin recording as a leader for Musicraft until May 7, 1946. In the intervening time, Vaughan made a handful of recordings for the Crown and Gotham labels and began performing regularly at Cafe Society Downtown, an integrated club in New York's Sheridan Square.
While at Cafe Society, Vaughan became friends with trumpeter George Treadwell. Treadwell became Vaughan's manager and she ultimately delegated to him most of the musical director responsibilities for her recording sessions, leaving her free to focus almost entirely on singing. Over the next few years, Treadwell also made significant positive changes in Vaughan's stage appearance. Aside from an improved wardrobe and hair style, Vaughan had her teeth capped, eliminating an unsightly gap between her two front teeth.
Many of Vaughan's 1946 Musicraft recordings became quite well-known among jazz aficionados and critics, including "If You Could See Me Now" (written and arranged by Tadd Dameron), "Don't Blame Me", "I've Got a Crush on You", "Everything I Have is Yours" and "Body and Soul." With Vaughan and Treadwell's professional relationship on solid footing, the couple married on September 16, 1946.
Vaughan's recording success for Musicraft continued through 1947 and 1948. Her recording of "Tenderly" became an unexpected pop hit in late 1947. Her December 27, 1947 recording of "It's Magic" (from the Doris Day film Romance on the High Seas) found chart success in early 1948. Her recording of "Nature Boy" from April 8, 1948 became a hit around the same time as the release of the famous Nat King Cole recording of the same song. Because of yet another recording ban by the musicians union, "Nature Boy" was recorded with an A Capella choir as the only accompaniment, adding an ethereal air to a song with a vaguely mystical lyric and melody.
Stardom and the Columbia years: 1948 - 1953
The musicians union ban pushed Musicraft to the brink of bankruptcy and Vaughan used the missed royalty payments as an opportunity to sign with the larger Columbia record label. Following the settling of the legal issues, her chart successes continued with the charting of "Black Coffee" in the Summer of 1949. During her tenure at Columbia through 1953, Vaughan was steered almost exclusively to commercial pop ballads, a number of which had chart success: "That Lucky Old Sun", "Make Believe (You Are Glad When You're Sorry)", "I'm Crazy to Love You", "Our Very Own", "I Love the Guy", "Thinking of You" (with pianist Bud Powell), "I Cried for You", "These Things I Offer You", "Vanity", "I Ran All the Way Home", "Saint or Sinner", "My Tormented Heart", and "Time", among others.
Vaughan also achieved substantial critical acclaim. She won Esquire magazine's New Star Award for 1947 as well as awards from Down Beat magazine continuously from 1947 through 1952, and from Metronome magazine from 1948 through 1953. A handful of critics disliked her singing as being "over-stylized," reflecting the heated controversies of the time over the new musical trends of the late 40's. However, the critical reception to the young singer was generally positive.
Recording and critical success led to numerous performing opportunities, packing clubs around the country almost continuously throughout the years of the late 1940s and early 1950s. In the Summer of 1949, Vaughan made her first appearance with a symphony orchestra in a benefit for the Philadelphia Orchestra entitled "100 Men and a Girl." Around this time, Chicago disk jockey Dave Garroway coined a second nickname for her, "The Divine One", that would follow her throughout her career. In 1951, she made her first tour of Europe.
With improving finances, in 1949 Vaughan and Treadwell purchased a three-story house on 21 Avon Avenue in Newark, occupying the top floor during their increasingly rare off-hours at home and relocating Vaughan's parents to the lower two floors. However, the business pressures and personality conflicts lead to a cooling in the personal relationship between Treadwell and Vaughan. Treadwell hired a road manager to handle Vaughan's touring needs and opened a management office in Manhattan so he could work with clients in addition to Vaughan.
Vaughan's relationship with Columbia Records also soured as she became dissatisfied with the commercial material she was required to record and lackluster financial success of her records. A set of small group sides recorded in 1950 with Miles Davis and Benny Green are among the best of her career, but they were atypical of her Columbia output.
The Mercury years: 1954 - 1958
In 1953, Treadwell negotiated a unique contract for Vaughan with Mercury Records. She would record commercial material for the Mercury label and more jazz-oriented material for its subsidiary EmArcy. Vaughan was paired with producer Bob Shad and their excellent working relationship yielded strong commercial and artistic success. Her debut Mercury recording session took place in February of 1954 and she stayed with the label through 1959. After a stint at Roulette Records (1960 to 1963), Vaughan returned to Mercury from 1964 to 1967.
Vaughan's commercial success at Mercury began with the 1954 hit, "Make Yourself Comfortable", recorded in the Fall of 1954, and continued with a succession of hits, including: "How Important Can It Be" (with Count Basie), "Whatever Lola Wants", "The Banana Boat Song", "You Ought to Have A Wife" and "Misty". Her commercial success peaked in 1959 with "Broken Hearted Melody", a song she considered to be "corny", but, nonetheless, became her first gold record and a regular part of her concert repertoire for years to come. Vaughan was reunited with Billy Eckstine for a series of duet recordings in 1957 that yielded the hit "Passing Strangers". Vaughan's commercial recordings were handled by a number of different arrangers and conductors, primarily Hugo Peretti and Hal Mooney.
The jazz "track" of her recording career also proceeded apace, backed either by her working trio or various combinations of stellar jazz players. One of her own favorite albums was a 1954 sextet date that included Clifford Brown.
The latter half of the 1950s often found Vaughan in the company of a veritable who's who of jazz as she followed a schedule of almost non-stop touring. She was featured at the first Newport Jazz Festival in the Summer of 1954 and would star in subsequent editions of that festival at Newport and in New York City for the remainder of her life. In the Fall of 1954, she performed at Carnegie Hall with the Count Basie Orchestra on a bill that also included Billie Holiday, Charlie Parker, Lester Young and the Modern Jazz Quartet. That fall, she again toured Europe successfully before embarking on a "Big Show" U. S. tour, a grueling succession of start-studded one-nighters that included Count Basie, George Shearing, Errol Garner and Jimmy Rushing. At the 1955 New York Jazz Festival on Randalls Island, Vaughan shared the bill with the Dave Brubeck quartet, Horace Silver, Jimmy Smith, and the Johnny Richards Orchestra
Although the professional relationship between Vaughan and Treadwell was quite successful through the 1950s, their personal relationship finally reached a breaking point and she filed for a divorce in 1958. Vaughan had entirely delegated financial matters to Treadwell, and despite stunning income figures reported through the 1950s, at the settlement Treadwell said that only $16,000 remained. The couple evenly divided that amount and their personal assets, terminating their business relationship.
The 1960s
The exit of Treadwell from Sarah Vaughan's life was also precipitated by the entry of Clyde "C.B." Atkins, a man of uncertain background whom she had met in Chicago and married on September 4, 1959. Although Atkins had no experience in artist management or music, Vaughan wished to have a mixed professional/personal relationship like the one she had with Treadwell. She made Atkins her personal manager, although, she was still feeling the sting of the problems she had with Treadwell and initially kept a slightly closer eye on Atkins. Vaughan and Atkins moved into a house in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.
When Vaughan's contract with Mercury Records ended in late 1959, she immediately signed on with Roulette Records, a small label owned by Morris Levy, one of the backers of New York's Birdland, where she frequently appeared. Roulette's roster also included Count Basie, Joe Williams, Dinah Washington, Lambert, Hendricks and Ross and Maynard Ferguson.
Vaughan began recording for Roulette in April 1960, making a string of strong large ensemble albums arranged and/or conducted by Billy May, Jimmy Jones, Joe Reisman, Quincy Jones, Benny Carter, Lalo Schifrin and Gerald Wilson. Surprisingly, she also had some pop chart success in 1960 with "Serenata" on Roulette and a couple of residual tracks from her Mercury contract, "Eternally" and "You're My Baby". She also made a pair of intimate vocal/guitar/double bass albums of jazz standards: After Hours (1961) with guitarist Mundell Lowe and double bassist George Duvivier and Sarah Plus Two (1962) with guitarist Barney Kessell and double bassist Joe Comfort.
Vaughan was incapable of having biological children, so, in 1961, she and Atkins adopted a daughter, Debra Lois. However, the relationship with Atkins proved difficult and violent so, following a series of strange incidents, she filed for divorce in November of 1963. She turned to two friends to help sort out the financial wreckage of the marriage: club owner John "Preacher" Wells, a childhood acquaintance, and Clyde "Pumpkin" Golden, Jr. Wells and Golden found that Atkins' gambling and profligate spending had put Vaughan around $150,000 in debt. The Englewood Cliffs house was ultimately seized by the IRS for nonpayment of taxes. Vaughan retained custody of the adopted child and Golden essentially took Atkins place as Vaughan's manager and lover for the remainder of the decade.
Around the time of her second divorce, she also became disenchanted with Roulette Records. Roulette' finances were even more deceptive and opaque than usual in the record business and its recording artists often had little to show for their efforts other than some excellent records. When her contract with Roulette ended in 1963, Vaughan returned to the more familiar confines of Mercury Records. In the Summer of 1963, Vaughan went to Denmark with producer Quincy Jones to record four days of live performances with her trio, Sassy Swings the Tivoli, an excellent example of her live show from this period. The following year, she made her first appearance at the White House, for President Johnson.
Unfortunately, the Tivoli recording would be the brightest moment of her second stint with Mercury. Changing demographics and tastes in the 1960s left jazz artists with shrinking audiences and inappropriate material. While Vaughan retained a following large and loyal enough to maintain her performing career, the quality and quantity of her recorded output dwindled even as her voice darkened and her skill remained undiminished. At the conclusion of her Mercury deal in 1967 she was left without a recording contract for the remainder of the decade.
In 1969 Vaughan terminated her professional relationship with Golden and relocated to the West Coast, settling first into a house near Benedict Canyon in Los Angeles and then into what would end up being her final home in Hidden Hills.
Rebirth in the 1970s
Vaughan met Marshall Fisher after a 1970 performance at a casino in Las Vegas and Fisher soon fell into the familiar dual role as Vaughan's lover and manager. Fisher was another man of uncertain background with no musical or entertainment business experience, but--unlike some of her earlier associates--he was a genuine fan devoted to furthering her career.
The seventies also heralded a rebirth in Vaughan's recording activity. In 1971, Bob Shad, who had worked with her as producer at Mercury Records, asked her to record for his new record label, Mainstream Records. Basie veteran Ernie Wilkins arranged and conducted her first Mainstream album, A Time In My Life in November 1971. In April of 1972, Vaughan recorded a collection of ballads written, arranged and conducted by Michel Legrand. Arrangers Legrand, Peter Matz, Jack Elliott and Allyn Ferguson teamed up for Vaughan's third Mainstream album, Feelin' Good. Vaughan also recorded Live in Japan, a live album in Tokyo with her trio in September of 1973.
During her sessions with Legrand, Bob Shad presented "Send In The Clowns", a Stephen Sondheim song from the Broadway musical A Little Night Music, to Vaughan for consideration. The song would become her signature, replacing the chestnut "Tenderly" that had been with her from the beginning of her solo career.
Unfortunately, Vaughan's relationship with Mainstream soured in 1974, allegedly in a conflict precipitated by Fisher over an album cover photograph and/or unpaid royalties[citation needed]. This left Vaughan again without a recording contract for three years.
In December 1974, Vaughan played a private concert for the United States President Gerald Ford and French president Giscard d'Estaing during their summit on Martinique.
Also in 1974, conductor Michael Tilson Thomas asked Vaughan to participate in an all-Gershwin show he was planning for a guest appearance with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl. The arrangements were by Marty Paich and the orchestra would be augmented by established jazz artists Dave Grusin on piano, Ray Brown on double bass, drummer Shelly Manne and saxophonists Bill Perkins and Pete Christlieb. The concert was a success and Thomas and Vaughan repeated the performance with Thomas' home orchestra in Buffalo, New York, followed by appearances in 1975 and 1976 with symphony orchestras around the country. These performances fulfilled a long-held interest by Vaughan in working with symphonies and she made orchestra performances without Thomas for the remainder of the decade.
In 1977, Vaughan terminated her personal and professional relationship with Marshall Fisher. Although Fisher is occasionally referenced as Vaughan's third husband, they were never legally married. Vaughan began a relationship with Waymond Reed, a trumpet player 16 years her junior who was playing with the Count Basie band. Reed joined her working trio as a musical director and trumpet player and became her third husband in 1978.
In 1977, Tom Guy, a young filmmaker and public TV producer, followed Vaughan around on tour, interviewing numerous artists speaking about her and capturing both concert and behind-the-scenes footage. The resulting sixteen hours of footage was pared down into an hour-and-a-half documentary, Listen To The Sun, that aired on September 21, 1978 on New Jersey Public Television, but was never commercially released.
In 1977 Norman Granz, who was also Ella Fitzgerald's manager, signed Vaughan to his Pablo Records label. Vaughan had not had a recording contract for three years, although she had recorded a 1977 album of Beatles songs with contemporary pop arrangements for Atlantic Records that was eventually released in 1981. Vaughan's first Pablo release was I Love Brazil, recorded with an all-star cast of Brazilian musicians in Rio de Janeiro in the fall of 1977. It garnered a Grammy nomination.
The Pablo contract resulted in five albums: How Long Has This Been Going On? (1978) with a quartet that included pianist Oscar Peterson, guitarist Joe Pass, bassist Ray Brown, and drummer Louis Bellson; two Duke Ellington Songbook albums (1979); Send In The Clowns (1981) with the Count Basie orchestra playing arrangements primarily by Sammy Nestico; and Crazy and Mixed Up (1982), another quartet album featuring Sir Roland Hanna, piano, Joe Pass, guitar, Andy Simpkins, bass, and Harold Jones drums.
Vaughan and Waymond Reed divorced in 1981.
Late career
Vaughan remained quite active as a performer during the 1980s and began receiving awards recognizing her contribution to American music and status as an important elder stateswoman of Jazz. In the Summer of 1980, Vaughan received a plaque on 52nd Street outside the CBS Building (Black Rock) commemorating the jazz clubs she had once frequented on "Swing Street" and which had long since been demolished and replaced with office buildings.
A performance of her symphonic Gershwin program with the New Jersey Symphony in 1980 was broadcast on PBS and won her an Emmy Award in 1981 for "Individual Achievement - Special Class". She was reunited with Michael Tilson Thomas for slightly modified version of the Gershwin program with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the CBS Records recording, Gershwin Live! won Vaughan the Grammy award for Best Jazz Vocal Performance, Female. In 1985 Vaughan received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 1988 Vaughan was inducted into American Jazz Hall of Fame.
After the conclusion of her Pablo contract in 1982, Vaughan did only a limited amount studio recording. Vaughan made a guest appearance in 1984 on Barry Manilow's 2:00 AM Paradise Cafe, an odd album of original pastiche compositions that featured a number of established jazz artists. In 1984 Vaughan participated in one of the more unusual projects of her career, The Planet is Alive, Let It Live a symphonic piece composed by Tito Fontana and Sante Palumbo on Italian translations of Polish poems by Karol Wojtyla, the future Pope John Paul II. The recording was made in Germany with an English translation by writer Gene Lees and was released by Lees on his own private label after the recording was turned down by the major labels. In 1986, Vaughn sang two songs, "Happy Talk" and "Bali Ha'i", in the role of Bloody Mary on an otherwise stiff studio recording by opera stars Kiri Te Kanawa and Jose Carreras of the score of the Broadway musical South Pacific, while sitting on the studio floor.
Vaughan's final complete album was Brazilian Romance, produced and composed by Sergio Mendes and recorded primarily in the early part of 1987 in New York and Detroit. In 1988, Vaughan contributed vocals to an album of Christmas carols recorded by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir with the Utah Symphony Orchestra and sold in Hallmark Cards stores. In 1989, Quincy Jones' album Back on the Block featured Vaughan in a brief scatting duet with Ella Fitzgerald. This was Vaughan's final studio recording and, fittingly, it was Vaughan's only formal studio recording with Fitzgerald in a career that had begun 46 years earlier opening for Fitzgerald at the Apollo.
Vaughan is featured in a number of video recordings from the 1980s. Sarah Vaughan Live from Monterrey was taped in 1983 or 1984 and featured her working trio with guest soloists. Sass and Brass was taped in 1986 in New Orleans and also features her working trio with guest soloists, including Dizzy Gillespie and Maynard Ferguson. Sarah Vaughan: The Divine One was featured in the American Masters series on PBS.
Death
In 1989, Vaughan's health began to decline, although she rarely betrayed any hints in her performances. Vaughan canceled a series of engagements in Europe in 1989 citing the need to seek treatment for arthritis in the hand, although she was able to complete a later series of performances in Japan. During a run at New York's Blue Note jazz club in 1989, Vaughan received a diagnosis of lung cancer and was too ill to finish the final day of what would turn out to be her final series of public performances.
Vaughan returned to her home in California to begin chemotherapy and spent her final months alternating stays in the hospital and at home. Toward the end, Vaughan tired of the struggle and demanded to be taken home, where she passed away on the evening of April 3, 1990 while watching a television movie featuring her daughter.
Vaughan's funeral was held at the First Mount Zion Baptist Church in Newark, which was the same congregation she grew up in, although relocated to a new building. Following the ceremony, a horse-drawn carriage transported her body to its final resting place in Glendale Cemetery in Bloomfield, New Jersey.[2]
Grammy Hall of Fame
Recordings of Sarah Vaughan were inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, which is a special Grammy award established in 1973 to honor recordings that are at least twenty-five years old, and that have "qualitative or historical significance."
Style and influence
Although Vaughan is usually considered a "Jazz Singer," she avoided classifying herself as such. Indeed, her approach to her "Jazz" work and her commercial "Pop" material was not radically different. Vaughan stuck throughout her career to the jazz-infused style of music that she came of age with, only rarely dabbling in rock-era styles that usually did not suit her unique vocal talents. Vaughan discussed the label in an 1982 interview for Down Beat:
"I don't know why people call me a jazz singer, though I guess people associate me with jazz because I was raised in it, from way back. I'm not putting jazz down, but I'm not a jazz singer. Betty Bebop (Carter) is a jazz singer, because that's all she does. I've even been called a blues singer. I've recorded all kinds of music, but (to them) I'm either a jazz singer or a blues singer. I can't sing a blues - just a right-out blues - but I can put the blues in whatever I sing. I might sing 'Send In the Clowns' and I might stick a little bluesy part in it, or any song. What I want to do, music-wise, is all kinds of music that I like, and I like all kinds of music."
Vaughan was a proficient pianist, but her most obvious gift was always her powerful voice. Her vocal range was vast in her youth, stretching from true female baritone lows to mezzo-soprano highs; as she aged, her lower register became stronger and her forays into her mezzo register became rare. The dynamic range, tonal quality and sheer beauty of her voice were near-operatic. While Vaughan was proficient at scatting, the improvisatory aspect of her art was focused more on ornamentation, phrasing and variation on melodies, which were almost always jazz standards. Perhaps her most noticeable musical mannerism was the creative use of often widely "swooping" glissandi through her wide entire vocal range, which was most sonorous in a dark chest register that grew deeper as she aged. Vaughan approached her voice more as a melodic instrument than a vehicle for dramatic interpretation of lyrics, although the expressive qualities of her style did accentuate lyrical meaning and she would often find unique and memorable ways of articulating and coloring individual key words in a lyric.
During her childhood in the 30s, Vaughan was strongly attracted to the popular music of the day, much to the consternation of her deeply-religious father. She was certainly influenced by the gospel traditions that she grew up with in a Baptist church, but the more radically melismatic elements of those influences are less obvious than they would be in later generations of singers in the R&B and hip-hop genres. That Vaughan was also influenced by (and an influence on) her friend and mentor, Billy Eckstine, is obvious in the numerous duet recordings they made together. However, since no recordings exist of Vaughan prior to her joining Eckstine in the Earl Hines band (nor with the Hines band) it is difficult to know with any certainty what stylistic nuances she absorbed during the critical first years of her performing career.
Perhaps because of the individuality of her style, Vaughan has rarely been overtly imitated by subsequent generations of singers, unlike such contemporaries of hers as Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra or, later, Aretha Franklin. However, even in death she retains a loyal following and attracts new fans through her recorded legacy, most of which remains in commercial release.
While Vaughan frequently performed and recorded with large ensembles, her live performances usually featured trio accompaniments. Aside from economy, there was an inherent advantage in working with musicians who knew her style and could anticipate her improvisational side trips.
Personal life
Vaughan was married three times: George Treadwell (1946-1958), Clyde Atkins (1958-1961) and Waymond Reed (1978-1981). Being unable to have biological children, Vaughan adopted a baby girl (Debra Lois) in 1961. Debra worked in the 1980s and 1990s as an actress under the name Paris Vaughan.
Sarah Vaughan's personal life was a jumble of paradoxes. She had a mercurial personality and could be extremely difficult to work with (especially in areas outside of music), but numerous fellow musicians recounted their experiences with her to be some of the best of their career. None of her marriages was successful, yet she maintained close long-running friendships with a number of male colleagues in the business and was devoted to her parents and adopted daughter. Despite effusive public acclaim, Vaughan was insecure and suffered from stage fright that was, at times, almost incapacitating[citation needed]. While shy and often aloof with strangers, she was quite gregarious and generous with friends.[citation needed]
Vaughan's appetite for night life was legendary and after performances she regularly stayed out partying until well into the next day. Vaughan was a heavy drinker, but there are no reported incidents of obvious on-stage intoxication that hampered her ability to perform. Vaughan was, reputedly, a regular marijuana and cocaine user throughout her career[citation needed], but she was apparently discreet about her usage and never suffered the debilitating addictions or run-ins with the law that derailed many of her colleagues.[citation needed] Vaughan, a life-long smoker, died from lung cancer at the age of 66.
David Janssen
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Born David Harold Meyer
March 27, 1931(1931-03-27)
Naponee, Nebraska, USA
Died February 13, 1980 (aged 48)
Malibu, California, USA
David Janssen (March 27, 1931 - February 13, 1980) was an American film and television actor who is best known for his starring role as Dr. Richard Kimble in the hit television series The Fugitive (1963-1967) with Barry Morse.
Janssen was born David Harold Meyer in Naponee, Nebraska. Following his parents' divorce when he was five, his mother took him to Los Angeles; she eventually married Eugene Janssen. David used his stepfather's name after he entered show business as a child. His first film part was at the age of thirteen, and by his twenty-fifth birthday, he had appeared in twenty films and served two years as an enlisted man in the U.S. Army.
He also starred in the television series Richard Diamond, Private Detective (1957-60), O'Hara, U.S. Treasury (1971-72), and Harry O (1974-76). His films include John Wayne's The Green Berets (1968), the science fiction film Marooned, and a starring role in Generation, a comedy that also featured Pete Duel, Kim Darby, and Carl Reiner. At the time of his death, Janssen had just begun filming a television movie playing the part of Father Damien, the priest who dedicated himself to the leper colony on the island of Molokai. The part was eventually reassigned to actor Ken Howard.
A smoker and a heavy drinker, plus a constant worker, Janssen died of a sudden heart attack in 1980 in Malibu, California two days into filming. He was interred in the Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery in Culver City, California.
He was married twice, first to Ellie Graham in 1958; they divorced in 1970. From 1975 to his death, he was married to Dani Crayne.
Michael York
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Born Michael Hugh Johnson
March 27, 1942 (1942-03-27) (age 66)
Fulmer, Buckinghamshire, United Kingdom
Years active 1965 - present
Michael York, OBE (born Michael Hugh Johnson; March 27, 1942) is a British actor. He is more recently known among mainstream audiences for his role as Basil Exposition in the Austin Powers series of comedy films.
Biography
Early life
York was born Michael Hugh Johnson in Fulmer, Buckinghamshire, the son of Florence Edith May (née Chown), a musician, and Joseph Gwynne Johnson, an ex-army officer and executive with Marks and Spencer department stores.[1] During his teenage years, York was educated at Bromley Grammar School for Boys, Bromley, Kent. He began his career in a 1956 production of The Yellow Jacket. In 1959 he made his West End debut with a brief part in a production of Hamlet.
Career
Prior to graduating with a degree in English from University College, Oxford in 1964, York had toured with the National Youth Theatre, also performing with the Oxford University Dramatic Society and the University College Players. After some time with the Dundee Repertory Theatre, York joined the National Theatre where he worked with Franco Zeffirelli during the 1965 staging of Much Ado About Nothing.
York made his film debut as Lucentio in Zeffirelli's The Taming of the Shrew (1967), then was cast as Tybalt in Zeffirelli's 1968 film adaptation of Romeo and Juliet with Leonard Whiting and Olivia Hussey. He also starred in an early Merchant Ivory Productions film, The Guru (1969). In Cabaret (1972) York played Brian Roberts, and in 1977 reunited with Zeffirelli as a fiery John the Baptist in Jesus of Nazareth.
York starred as D'Artagnan in the 1973 adaptation of The Three Musketeers. One year later the sequel was released (roughly covering events in the second half of the book) titled The Four Musketeers. These two films are still popular and generally accepted as the best film version of the famous Dumas adventure story.[2] Fifteen years later, most of the cast (and crew) joined together in a third film titled The Return of the Musketeers based on the Dumas novel Twenty Years After. York had already been on British TV as Jolyon (Jolly) in The Forsyte Saga (1967). He also played the title character in the film adaptation of Logan's Run (1976). He appeared in Jesus of Nazareth as the prophet and cousin of Jesus, John The Baptist (1977).
Since his auspicious early work, York has enjoyed a busy and varied career in film, television, and on the stage. His Broadway theatre credits include Bent, The Crucible, and the ill-fated musical The Little Prince and the Aviator, which closed during previews. He also has made many sound recordings as a reader, including Harper Audio's production of C. S. Lewis's The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.
He appeared in the Babylon 5 episode A Late Delivery From Avalon as the mentally disturbed and guilt-ridden David McIntyre, the Earthforce gunner who obeyed his Captain's orders to open fire on a Minbari vessel, which started the war between Minbar and Earth that would ultimately kill over 250,000 humans. He also appeared as Professor Asher Fleming, a 60 year-old Yale professor and boyfriend of Yale student Paris Geller (Liza Weil) in the fourth season of Gilmore Girls. He did the voice of the character Ares in the Justice League Unlimited episode "Hawk & Dove". York stared in both The Omega Code and its sequel, Megiddo: The Omega Code 2, as Stone Alexander, portraying the Antichrist of Christian eschatology.
York also played President Alexander Bourne of Macronesia (formerly New Australia) on seaQuest 2032, a role that was quickly fleshed out and would have remained a major player in the series had it lasted past the thirteen episodes it was ordered for in its third season before ultimately being canceled. He has played Basil Exposition in all three of the Austin Powers movies. He has made an appearance on The Simpsons as Mason Fairbanks, Homer's possible father in "Homer's Paternity Coot." He was also in the third season finale of Sliders as a character reminiscent of Dr. Moreau. In 2006, York played the Charles Sobhraj-like character, Bernard Fremont, on Law & Order: Criminal Intent. He has also appeared in Curb Your Enthusiasm.
York also voiced Petrie's uncle Pterano in The Land Before Time VII: The Stone of Cold Fire. It was once rumored that Pterano would return in The Land Before Time XII: The Great Day of the Flyers, but York confirmed that he isn't appearing. York has also recently been featured as the narrator in the audio New Testament project, the Word of Promise, which is being produced by Jim Caviezel. He is currently playing King Arthur in a revival of Lerner and Loewe's Camelot, which began its run at the La Mirada Theatre in Southern California, and is on a national tour with hopes of reaching New York.
Personal life
York resides in California. He married Patricia McCallum on 27 March 1968. His stepson is Star Wars producer Rick McCallum.
