SLIGHTED WOMEN OF JAZZ, BLUES GET STARRING ROLES AT BELLA VIA

Joanie Somers has spent more than 20 years singing jazz in nightclubs across the country. She frequently headlines in glittery resorts like Las Vegas and Atlantic City.

But most people remember her solely for “Johnny Get Angry,” the novelty pop hit that launched her singing career in 1963.

In the 1950s, Clora Bryant’s improvisational skills, both vocally and on the trumpet, played a significant role in the development of be-bop.

But over the years, she has received so little recognition that Dizzy Gillespie recently called her “one of the most underrated jazz trumpet players” in the world.

And so it goes for the women in jazz. No matter how significant their contributions, no matter how considerable their talents, they are perpetual underdogs in the quest for recognition.

As the first couple of North County jazz, John and Valerie Rubino, owners of the Bella Via nightclub in the Cardiff area, have taken it upon themselves to even the score.

This month, they are presenting a “Tribute to the Women of Jazz and Blues,” an 11-date concert series with which they hope to lift the veil of obscurity from the heads of nine female jazz and blues artists from all over the country.

Some of the scheduled performers, like Somers, who will appear Aug. 14, are known only through a quirk of fate. Others, like Bryant, who will play Aug. 15, are hardly known at all.

“So many great jazz and blues artists, especially women, just don’t get the recognition they deserve,” John Rubino said.

“They might in pop, and they might in rock ‘n’ roll. But somehow, the women in jazz and blues always get overlooked.”

Aside from Somers and Bryant, the Bella Via series spotlights Barbara Morrison, Hadda Brooks, Ella Mae Morse, Ruth Olay, Ruth Price, Kevyn Lettau and Anita O’Day.

Nearly all of them are critically acclaimed heavyweights whose relative anonymity belies their musical significance.

Barbara Morrison, who opened the series, is a dynamic jazz, blues and gospel singer who has performed with Stevie Wonder, Smokey Robinson and Dionne Warwick.

Hadda Brooks, who appeared Thursday, gained fame in the 1940s and ‘50s as a boogie-woogie and rhythm-and-blues singer and keyboardist. Her many years of retirement ended just recently.

In town tonight and Saturday is Ella Mae Morse, a veteran of the swing era. In the 1940s, her recording of “Cow Cow Boogie” sold 11 million copies; Elvis Presley was once quoted as saying, “She was the lady that taught me to sing.”

Veteran jazz singer Ruth Olay, a cabaret favorite in Los Angeles during the 1950s, will perform Aug. 20, followed by Ruth Price, a jazzy interpreter of old pop standards, on Aug. 21.

San Diego’s own Kevyn Lettau, nationally known for her vocal work with Brazil’s Sergio Mendes and locally on the nightclub circuit, will perform Aug. 22. Her latest endeavor is singing on the new Lee Ritenour album.

The “Tribute to the Women of Jazz and Blues” series concludes Aug. 28 and 29 with two shows by Anita O’Day, the only real superstar of the bunch. She first achieved fame in the 1940s, when she sang with the Stan Kenton and Gene Kruppa big bands. A writer for the New York Times recently called her “one of the sturdiest remaining pillars . . . of the swing era.”

“Usually when you try to produce a concert series around a theme, you have trouble finding enough high-caliber artists to fill the series,” Rubino said.

“But in this case, there are so many talented women in jazz and blues that I could do this for three or four months--if not longer.”