Results for "Vocalist"

Dave Lambert

Born: June 19, 1917

Coming.

Lambert, Hendricks & Ross

The premier jazz vocal act of all time, Lambert, Hendricks & Ross revolutionized vocal music during the late '50s and early '60s by turning away from the increasingly crossover slant of the pop world to embrace the sheer musicianship inherent in vocal jazz. Applying the concepts of bop harmonies to swinging vocal music, the trio transformed dozens of instrumental jazz classics into their own songs, taking scat solos and trading off licks and riffs in precisely the same fashion of their favorite improvising musicians. Vocal arranger Dave Lambert wrote dense clusters of vocal lines for each voice that, while only distantly related, came together splendidly

Cleo Laine

Born: October 28, 1927

The showroom at the Suncoast Hotel and Casino, in Las Vegas, Nevada, sparkled brilliantly the weekend of October 17-19, 2003, with the luminary talent of the legendary British couple, Dame Cleo Laine and John Dankworth. The audience was on the edge of their seats all night with excitement and awe. The jazz composition and sounds that emanated from behind the footlights brought Friday night's audience to their feet as they hailed "The Queen of Jazz" and her professional partner and husband with thunderous applause.

The lady next to me smiled with pride, as if the legendary performers were her personal treasure. "I watched you tapping your feet all night, I'm so glad you enjoyed the performance as much as I did! I've been a fan of theirs for years, and you?" "I'm a new fan, and I feel so lucky to be here, wow, what an evening," I enthusiastically replied. The awe and wonder for the evening's incredible jazz experience overwhelmed me. I had never felt such a deep appreciation for being a member of the audience as I did that night.

Karin Krog

Born: May 15, 1937

Karin Krog is perhaps Norway's leading jazz singer and certainly its most idiomatic. She is a unique song artist with a great international reputation possessing her own recognizable style and voice. Her constant creative approach towards contemporary jazz has never been bound by tradition, even though her music bears a deep respect for its forms. Karin is equally at home with jazz standards, blues or electronic experimental techniques. In addition, she has been active in improving the working conditions for musicians and contributing towards a vital jazz milieu. In 1994 she celebrated 30 years since her first released LP as a solo artist. Karin Krog was born in Oslo, Norway, on the 15th of May, 1937, and started to sing during her teenage years together with various local musicians

Irene Kral

Born: January 18, 1932

Irene Kral was not just another jazz singer. She had a delicate style, yet every note was placed with deliberate aim, and she always hit her mark with unerring accuracy. She had a brilliant flair for picking tasty, little-known material, often by up and coming young, jazz-influenced songwriters. She recorded only a small number of albums, often on small, jazz labels and she never sang in a show-off way, never scatted, never belted or raunched out her voice. Most aficionados of female vocalists have never heard of her, and she remains largely forgotten in the jazz history books. Yet her work deserves to be searched out, for her intimate style and purity of tone. Irene Kral was born to Czechoslovakian parents on Jan. 18th, 1932 in Chicago. Her earliest musical influence was her brother, Roy, who at 18 formed his own big band and would rehearse the group in their parent's basement. While watching her brother and his band, she decided that she wanted to sing. She was 8 years old at the time. Her brother, Roy, became well known later as half of 'Jackie and Roy', a highly influential bebop vocal duo, well-respected in jazz circles. By the time she was 16, she was singing and accompanying herself on piano, performing at school and the occasional wedding. Her vocal skills impressed her professional musician brother enough for him to take her by the hand to audition for a swinging Chicago big band, led by Jay Burkhardt. Burkhardt's band had been the starting point for two other singers, who went on to bigger things, Joe Williams and Jackie Cain (who later married her brother, and was the 'Jackie' of 'Jackie and Roy'). A series of jobs with other bands came and went, over the next few years, including a brief stint with Woody Herman. In 1954, she landed a job singing with a jazz vocal group called the Tattle Tales. She played drums, and sang lead with the group, which traveled from coast to coast, and to Canada, Bermuda and Puerto Rico. The group recorded for Columbia Records, but nothing much came of the records. She stayed with the group for a little over a year. Following her heart to stretch out as a solo artist, she left the Tattle Tales and began picking up the occasional weekend solo job, and auditioning for any band that she thought might be going places. When she was 25, in 1957, her friend Carmen McRae recommended her to band-leader Maynard Ferguson. The next time Ferguson came through Chicago, she got up on the stand and sang one tune with the band. After Ferguson heard Kral finish singing 'Sometimes I'm Happy', he hired her on the spot and she started that night with no rehearsal. In Fergusons' band she met Joe Burnett, a trumpet and fluegelhorn player, whom she married in 1958. She stayed with the Ferguson band for nearly two years, recording one album with them, before she was offered her own contract to record solo. In 1959, while in Los Angeles, she became a regular vocalist on The Steve Allen Show. Her exposure on the Allen show led to the recording of her first solo LP for United Artist Records, an entire album of songs written by Steve Allen entitled SteveIreneo. The same year, she cut the LP The Band And I, with the Herb Pomeroy Orchestra, working with legendary saxophonist and arranger Al Cohn. Next. she became the featured vocalist with Shelly Manne and his Men, a popular leader of 'West Coast cool jazz'. She also appeared solo at the Stardust Hotel in Las Vegas. By 1961, Irene and her husband, Joe, had relocated to Tarzana, California, a small suburb of Los Angeles where their daughter, Jodi was born. Their second daughter, Melissa, followed. She limited her yearly out of town performances to a half- dozen choice engagements around the country, in order to spend time with her family. Throughout her career, she felt like she had been born too late, and had just missed the height of the Big Band Era. She recalled, "When I was in high school, I bought every Woody Herman and Stan Kenton record that came out. June Christy seemed to be in the greatest spot in life, and gave me my first inspiration. I'm sorry I missed hearing some of the really good big bands around earlier, like Jimmie Lunceford's and Billy Eckstine's, and Dizzy Gillespie's first band. Now when I'm old enough to appreciate them, almost all the really good bands are gone." She named a few of her other favorite singers as being Peggy Lee, Sarah Vaughn, Dinah Washington and Helen Merrill. Although she could swing with the best of them, she thought of herself as primarily a ballad singer. "I love to sing ballads more than anything, and consequently I know three times more ballads as 'up' tunes. I dig tunes that have a warm laziness about them." Jazz vocalist Carmen McRae who, talking about Irene, said, "Besides being a marvelous singer, Irene has great taste in tunes. In fact, I've 'stolen' quite a few from her!" In 1964, she sang on Laurindo Almeida's Grammy© Award-winning album, Guitar From Ipanema. The following year, she recorded an album of her own, called Wonderful Life, on the small Mainstream label. In addition to her usual choice of great songs, unfortunately, the company insisted that she record three tunes aimed at the Top 40 'teen' market. On these songs, she seems like a fish out of water. Nothing came of the attempt to make her more 'commercial', and the songs stand as the only blemish on her recorded output of classy material. Ten years passed before she recorded again. She continued to perform regularly at jazz clubs around the country. By the mid 70's, her relationship with her husband, Joe, had begun to deteriorate and shortly after their divorce, she met a Los Angeles disc jockey named Dennis Smith. "They got along wonderfully and really hit it off right," her brother, Roy Kral recalls. "Dennis was the best thing that could have happened to her. It was his love and warmth, and his protection, and his caring for her that brought out this wonderful sound from her, at the time. Before that, her vocal tone had been a little more strident. Her relationship with Dennis brought all this warmth out of her, and that really showed in her singing on the Where Is Love album." Where Is Love was released in 1975 on the Choice label. On this album of solely ballads, she is accompanied by just piano, thoughtfully played by Alan Broadbent. The material is so laid back, it almost stands still. In the liner notes, she wrote, "This is meant to be heard only during that quiet time of the day, preferably with someone you love, when you can sink into your favorite chair, close your eyes and let in no outside thoughts to detract." In her 1984 book on women in jazz, Stormy Weather, Lorraine Dahl wrote: "Irene Kral had a lovely, resonant voice with a discreet vibrato, flawless diction and intonation, and a slight, attractive nasality and shaping of phrases that resembled Carmen McRae's. But where McRae's readings tend to the astringent, Kral's melt like butter. She was a master of quiet understatement and good taste." Her album, Kral Space, was released in 1977, and was a welcome return to the swinging trio sound of her earlier efforts. The album brought together the songs of contemporary jazz songwriters like Dave Frishberg and Bob Dorough, as well as Cole Porter and Jerome Kern. Kral Space was nominated for a Grammy© for Best Jazz Vocal performance. The following year, another quiet album of voice and piano, Gentle Rain was released. Again she was nominated for a Grammy© for her work. Both years, she lost the award to her good friend Al Jarreau. Downbeat Magazine, in its' review of Gentle Rain, had this to say about her voice: "Irene Kral is one of today's most engaging vocalists. Though she doesn't possess a great natural instrument, Kral projects intelligence and emotional depth. This gives her performance a worldly dimension akin to that of Tony Bennett and Frank Sinatra." Jazz singer/songwriter/pianist Dave Frishberg remembers, "Irene had a definite direction in her singing. I accompanied her many times as I've done for other singers. Usually, when you accompany a singer, there are times when the piano player can lead the singer into different directions. With Irene, she definitely led you and you followed. She knew exactly what she wanted, and she was firmly in command." "She had a great respect for her own music," remembers her brother, Roy. "Once, she was appearing at Carnegie Hall at one of the jazz festivals, and Jackie and I were driving her in to town. And in the car she was very quiet, just watching the cars passing by. After a long silence, she finally said 'Oh, I want to be so good.' And of course, she was." Irene Kral died on August 15th, 1978 at age 46, in Encino, CA, after having battled breast cancer for 6 years. She had performed up to three weeks prior to her death. Roy Kral says "she managed to express her pleasure at finally being acknowledged when she said to me, 'It looks like we've finally made it.'"

King Pleasure

Born: March 24, 1922

Vocalese is a term given to a small niche style of jazz and blues music. It is created by giving a vocal chorus to the instrumental improvisation played by a jazz or blues master. The vocal chorus is in tempo and syntax, and fits greatly with the ideas of the originator of the solo. It is a very difficult and exacting task and very few can master this art. The first was probably Eddie Jefferson, but the most famous of its practitioners was a guy known by the flowery and imaginative name of King Pleasure. The King came to be at the legendary amateur night at the Apollo Theater in New York City one night in late 1951

Morgana King

Born: June 4, 1930

None of the more than 30 albums recorded by singer Morgana King since the mid-'50s have been embraced by the size of the audience that bought tickets to see the first two chapters of The Godfather film trilogy, in which King acted in the role of Mama Corleone. But it would be wrong to assume she has had more impact as an actress than as a vocalist. Her acting roles, few and far between, are chosen with care, but do not have the resonance of some of her finest recordings. Millions saw her onscreen in The Godfather films, but her performance was certainly overshadowed by performers such as Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino, not to mention the famous turn by Marlon Brando as her husband

Nancy King

Born: June 15, 1940

She’s been called everything from a “Cult figure” and an “uncompromising artist,” (Earshot Jazz) to “the greatest living jazz singer,” (Herb Ellis). As one of the few improvisers in vocal jazz to master the vocabulary, Nancy King has “indefatigable scat chops and a remarkably elastic range.” (The Oregonian)

Nancy came to the San Francisco jazz scene of the early 1960’s from Springfield, Oregon. It was at the legendary Jazz Workshop that she met Sonny King, her future mate, and joined his band. They headlined Monday nights at the Workshop for two years. Others she worked with in San Francisco included Vince Guaraldi, John Handy, Sonny Donaldson, and Flip Nunez. Another major influence was meeting and studying with Jon Hendricks.

Denise King

Born: October 31

"When people ask me about my music and how I got started, I tell them that my singing career really started by accident. Music was never something that I planned to do or something that I picked. It just happened. After all that I've experienced, and all of the wonderful people that I've met, I don't think I would trade this gig for any other in the world." One day a shy girl from Philadelphia, PA, was sweeping her front stoop and sweetly singing "Summertime” when a guitarist/writer from Philadelphia International Records walked by and heard her singing. He was so impressed by what he heard that he auditioned her, hired her and the rest is history

Rebecca Kilgore

Born: September 24, 1949

She regularly performs worldwide at jazz festivals, jazz parties, and on jazz cruises. She has been a frequent guest on National Public Radio’s ‘Fresh Air’ with Terry Gross, has appeared on ‘A Prairie Home Companion’, and with Michael Feinstein at Carnegie Hall.

The Rebecca Kilgore Quartet (formerly known as BED) was a popular favorite on the jazz festival circuit: with Eddie Erickson (guitar/banjo/voice), Dan Barrett (trombone), and Joel Forbes (bass).

She has performed with the Statesmen Of Jazz, dedicated to perpetuating the art of jazz for future generations.