JENKINS Beverly 1963
Please, don't look at the pictures to choose this album!!! It is a very great album and Beverly Jenkins is an exceptional singer!!! Download it, you won't regret, and you'll be one of the very few able to say to your friends "Hey brother, I know a really great singer, listen! I'm sure you won't ever guess how she looks like!". If you love jazz and the singers, you'll never regret this download! Listen and leave a comment!
The blues song expresses the dominant emotion underlying life all over the world –the deeply felt relationship between man and woman- and nowhere is the expression more articulate than in America's blues-based popular music.
The blues song expresses the dominant emotion underlying life all over the world –the deeply felt relationship between man and woman- and nowhere is the expression more articulate than in America's blues-based popular music.
As the lyrics in one of the tunes in this album states, "the blues just ain't nothin' but a woman cryin' for her man" or vice versa. This basic theme evidences itself in a variety of moods ranging from joy and gladness to despair and sadness held together by a thread of humor.
Wether one is performing or listening to the blues there is always a feeling about them that intrigues and excites. They are a personal thing to the renderer with which all mankind can identify.Here in "My wife the blues singer", Beverly Jenkins offers an unusual collection of blues songs. Some of them are old, others are comparatively new, but only one or two are currently avalaible on other recordings (at the time of this writing, 1963).
Beverly Jenkins, born Beverly Mahr, is originally from Bristow, Oklahoma, an area that produced singers Lee Wiley and Kay Starr as well as many male jazz stars. She studied piano at an early age, played viola in her high school orchestra, and was the pipe organist in her local church. During her early years at home she was fascinated by the spirituals and shouts emanating from Negro revival meetings in Bristow –this is the identical influence acknowledged by Texas born Jack Teagarden, the great blues trombonist and vocalist. While attending Oklahoma University, Miss Mahr organized a singing trio and appeared regularly on radio station KBOO in Tulsa. This succes led to the organization of another group known as "Jan, Jude and Jerry" and this time the three girls hightailed it straight to New York City without any advance warning. Their bravado and reckless decision paid off –they obtained a job singing at WMCA on the day of their arrival. And it wasn't long before they were on Broadway in the last Earl Carroll "Sketchbook", a musical revue.
The popular singing Sooners from Oklahoma were asked to appear on the Columbia Broadcasting Corporation's noted "Saturday Night Swing Session", a network radio experiment with jazz that lasted over two years. The regulars on this show –the late trumpeter Bunny Berigan, trombonist Jerry Colonna and drummer John Williams- were so taken with Beverly's blues singing that she began to do solo work.
The young singer, now firmly established in radio, went on to become a member of The Blue Flames, a vocal group on the Canadian broadcasting Corporation network, and, a short time later, she joined Kay Thompson's singing group and worked with them on both the "Lucky Strike" and "Chesterfield" shows. When she moved on to the "Phillip Morris" show [at that time, they had many "smoking" shows] she became a full-time soloist with orchestras conducted by Russ Morgan, Johnny Greer and Ray Bloch.
Miss Mahr moved to California in the middle forties and became the "Miss" of "Six Hits and a Miss". With this vocal group she sang on the Frank Sinatra and later the Dick Haymes network radio shows.
On the Haymes show she met and married the musical director, Gordon Jenkins, who was the composer of such well-known songs as "P.S. I love you", "When a woman loves a man", "Goodbye" (the theme song used by Benny Goodman's first swing band), "Blue prelude" (lyrics), "You have taken my heart" and many others.
One of the best known and most popular of Jenkins' composition is the lenghy descriptive score "Manhattan Tower", originaly recorded in 1946 with Beverly Jenkins singing the vocal on the song "New York's my home". When the work was recorded a decade later, Beverly sang the entire female role. On another major Jenkins record album "Seven dreams", Beverly sang the blues about New Orleans in Crescent City Blues".
Wether one is performing or listening to the blues there is always a feeling about them that intrigues and excites. They are a personal thing to the renderer with which all mankind can identify.Here in "My wife the blues singer", Beverly Jenkins offers an unusual collection of blues songs. Some of them are old, others are comparatively new, but only one or two are currently avalaible on other recordings (at the time of this writing, 1963).
Beverly Jenkins, born Beverly Mahr, is originally from Bristow, Oklahoma, an area that produced singers Lee Wiley and Kay Starr as well as many male jazz stars. She studied piano at an early age, played viola in her high school orchestra, and was the pipe organist in her local church. During her early years at home she was fascinated by the spirituals and shouts emanating from Negro revival meetings in Bristow –this is the identical influence acknowledged by Texas born Jack Teagarden, the great blues trombonist and vocalist. While attending Oklahoma University, Miss Mahr organized a singing trio and appeared regularly on radio station KBOO in Tulsa. This succes led to the organization of another group known as "Jan, Jude and Jerry" and this time the three girls hightailed it straight to New York City without any advance warning. Their bravado and reckless decision paid off –they obtained a job singing at WMCA on the day of their arrival. And it wasn't long before they were on Broadway in the last Earl Carroll "Sketchbook", a musical revue.
The popular singing Sooners from Oklahoma were asked to appear on the Columbia Broadcasting Corporation's noted "Saturday Night Swing Session", a network radio experiment with jazz that lasted over two years. The regulars on this show –the late trumpeter Bunny Berigan, trombonist Jerry Colonna and drummer John Williams- were so taken with Beverly's blues singing that she began to do solo work.
The young singer, now firmly established in radio, went on to become a member of The Blue Flames, a vocal group on the Canadian broadcasting Corporation network, and, a short time later, she joined Kay Thompson's singing group and worked with them on both the "Lucky Strike" and "Chesterfield" shows. When she moved on to the "Phillip Morris" show [at that time, they had many "smoking" shows] she became a full-time soloist with orchestras conducted by Russ Morgan, Johnny Greer and Ray Bloch.
Miss Mahr moved to California in the middle forties and became the "Miss" of "Six Hits and a Miss". With this vocal group she sang on the Frank Sinatra and later the Dick Haymes network radio shows.
On the Haymes show she met and married the musical director, Gordon Jenkins, who was the composer of such well-known songs as "P.S. I love you", "When a woman loves a man", "Goodbye" (the theme song used by Benny Goodman's first swing band), "Blue prelude" (lyrics), "You have taken my heart" and many others.
One of the best known and most popular of Jenkins' composition is the lenghy descriptive score "Manhattan Tower", originaly recorded in 1946 with Beverly Jenkins singing the vocal on the song "New York's my home". When the work was recorded a decade later, Beverly sang the entire female role. On another major Jenkins record album "Seven dreams", Beverly sang the blues about New Orleans in Crescent City Blues".
Although both Gordon Jenkins and Beverly Jenkins have had outstanding careers in the so-called "commercial music" field, this album "My wife the blues singer", reveals they have a deep love for the most basic of all jazz forms, the blues. They have one of the largest collection of blues records in the world in their Malibu home.There are no written arrangements on this set. Jenkins, who was on hand at the date as a sort of overseer, worked with the musicians in sketching out "head" arrangements. It was the true jazzman approach of depending on the creative impulses of the moment –the idea was to sustain the spontaneity of the "play it as you feel it" spirit.
After the session, Beverly said "I'd forgotten how much fun it is to sing the blues". Likewise, as indicated by the results, the star instrumentalists accompanying her also had a ball.
A really unknown blues singer ! Fantastic voice and first class musicians. Listen to Eddie Miller on tenor sax... and his friends ! Enjoy !
MY WIFE THE BLUES SINGER BEVERLY JENKINS 1963 LP
The great musicians are Eddy Miller tenor (as good as always, what a sound!), Matty Matlock clarinet, Al Hendrickson guitar, Ray Sherman piano, Moe Schneider trombone, Nick Fatool drums, Walt Yoder bass. except for tracks 5, 6, 9 and 10 where Jack Sperling drums, Morty Corb bass replace Fatool and Yoder. The great Eddie Miller is still there… on those tracks.
1 comment:
Fun jazzy blues covers. LOVE it. Thanks again Daniel.
L
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