Music Preview: Singer Julie Kelly highlights jazz songwriters who inhabit a ‘special little world’
Jazz song, an adjunct of the American pop mainstream, has a small number but nonetheless distinctive fraternity: Jack Segal, Bob Dorough, Mose Allison, Oscar Brown Jr., Blossom Dearie and Dave Frishberg all crafted their own songbooks. Their songs more or less relate to the Great American Songbook but draw on parts of the jazz lexicon that are personal to them. Julie Kelly will be singing songs by two of them on Thursday at Mambo’s Café in Glendale — singer/pianists Dorough (born 1923) and Dearie (1924-2009).
They’re two idiosyncratic artists. Both have grounding in the classic pop songs that spring from the Tin Pan Alley and American musical-theater traditions. Dorough’s warmly laconic versions of standards like “Baltimore Oriole” have been favored by several generations of jazz musicians and audiences. Dearie’s métier was understated interpretations of choice songs, underpinned by delicious piano chords.
As singers, Dorough and Dearie have always been sui generis. She had a tiny, bell-like voice; New Yorker critic Whitney Balliett wrote that she had to shout to be heard from the second story of a dollhouse. Dorough’s warm, mid-range vocals have been slow-cooked in his Arkansas and Texas roots.
They were also reared in post-war bebop. Dorough essayed and wrote lyrics to instrumental jazz standards like Charlie Parker’s “Yardbird Suite.” Dearie was the vocal foil for King Pleasure’s famous recording of “Moody’s Mood” and she sang in a sophisticated jazz vocal ensemble in ‘50s Paris. In both cases their hipness was not a badge to be flashed but was conferred by their impeccable musicality, exquisite timing and phrasing.
Kelly, from her Studio City home, has some thoughts on jazz songs. “They’re informed by a different point of view,” she points out, “than the Tin Pan Alley group of early 20th-century immigrant writers and their sense of European art songs. Jazz songwriters like Bob and Blossom are coming from inside the jazz tradition.”
Of their respective vocal styles, Kelly says: “Blossom’s singing was a miracle of interpretation; ever since I heard her sing ‘Manhattan,’ I can’t touch it. And Bob has such a melodic, poetic way with a song. I think his version of ‘Baltimore Oriole’ is definitive.”
Dearie didn’t begin writing in earnest until the mid ‘60s; Dorough had been at it since the early ‘50s. Irene Kral sang his “Love Came on Stealthy Fingers” in L.A. during the ‘60s to her passing in ’78.
From his home in Pennsylvania, Dorough clarifies his creative motives: “The folksiness you hear in my songs has always been personal. I always wanted to write songs for my voice, in my voice, the way Mose Allison did for himself.” Chuckling, he adds, “That son of a gun had a lot more success at it than I did. We were jam session buddies in the New York lofts, waiting for a chance to play piano for Al Cohn and Zoot Sims and all the horn players. Those were exciting times.”
Dorough’s hand could be discerned in the music of ‘60s rock groups as diverse as Spanky and Our Gang and the Fugs. He wrote and sang two imperishable jazz songs for Miles Davis: “Blue Xmas” and “Nothing Like You.”
He also coordinated the music for the ‘70s TV series “Schoolhouse Rock,” teaching a generation math and government concepts. One of the singers Dorough used was Dearie; she sang “Figure 8” and “Unpack Your Adjectives.” The two briefly worked as a package in ‘81, appearing at McCabe’s in Santa Monica.
Kelly sees a connecting thread between Dearie and Dorough. “They’re both natural singers,” she asserts, “there’s nothing forced. They’re also storytellers and they know how to use space in their singing to enhance the lyrics. They’re special artists, and I want to pay tribute to that special little world they inhabit.”
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What: ‘Julie Kelly Sings Blossom Dearie & Bob Dorough’
Where: Mambo’s Cafe, 1701 Victory Blvd., Glendale
When: Thursday, Aug. 4
Contact: (818) 545-8613
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KIRK SILSBEE writes about jazz and culture for Marquee.