rosa
Full Member
Starting 5-Founding Member
Posts: 185
|
Post by rosa on Oct 27, 2009 19:28:29 GMT -7
|
|
rosa
Full Member
Starting 5-Founding Member
Posts: 185
|
Post by rosa on Oct 27, 2009 19:32:17 GMT -7
From the New York Times
Music
By STEPHEN HOLDEN Published: September 1, 2009 Chris Connor, the great jazz singer whose lush, foggy voice and compressed emotional intensity distilled a 1950s jazz reverie of faraway longing in a sad cafe, died on Saturday in Toms River, N.J. She was 81 and lived in Toms River.
The cause was cancer, her publicist, Alan Eichler, said.
A singer who used little vibrato and was admired for her inventive rhythmic alterations of ballads, Ms. Connor belonged to the cool school of jazz singers that included Anita O’Day, June Christy, Chet Baker and Julie London.
In her finest records, she conveyed the sound of a singer rapt in a romantic spell. Both O’Day and Christy, whom she emulated, preceded her as vocalists with the Stan Kenton band, which she joined briefly in 1953, replacing Kay Brown. Ms. Connor had earlier sung with the Claude Thornhill band.
During her solo recording career, which began in 1953, Ms. Connor had only two charted hits: “I Miss You So” (1956) and “Trust In Me” (1957), both for Atlantic Records. But for jazz vocal aficionados, her signature song, “All About Ronnie,” Joe Greene’s smoldering ballad of romantic obsession, is a pop-jazz milestone of dreamy cool. Originally recorded with Kenton, she re-recorded it on Bethlehem Records after she went solo.
Today, many of Ms. Connor’s 1950s and ’60s albums are regarded as pop-jazz classics. Among the strongest are three from 1956, “Chris Connor,” “I Miss You So” and “He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not,” as well as “Chris Connor Sings the George Gershwin Almanac of Song” (1957) and “A Portrait of Chris” (1960).
She recorded two highly regarded albums, one for the Atlantic, the other for ABC Paramount, with the Maynard Ferguson big band.
Especially during the Atlantic years, Ms. Connor worked with the best arrangers, including Ralph Burns and Jimmy Jones, and jazz players like John Lewis, Oscar Pettiford, Phil Woods, Kenny Burrell, Milt Hinton, Clark Terry and Oliver Nelson. Other songs with which she is associated include “Lush Life,” “Good Morning Heartache,” “Something to Live For,” “High on a Windy Hill,” “Round About,” Lullaby of Birdland,” “Witchcraft,” “Glad to Be Unhappy” and “Get Out of Town.”
Born Mary Loutsenhizer in Kansas City, Mo., on Nov. 8, 1927, Ms. Connor studied clarinet for eight years as a child before becoming a singer in her late teens. She decided to pursue a fulltime career after her public singing debut in 1945 at the Jefferson City (Mo.) Junior College graduation was warmly received.
Ms. Connor worked as a stenographer by day and sang on weekends in the Kansas City area. Then, determined to hit the big time, she moved to New York City. There she met Thornhill, who was seeking a singer to fill out his vocal group, the Snowflakes. She toured with the band on and off until late 1952.
Her dream of singing with Kenton was realized when Christy heard her on a live broadcast in early 1953 and recommended her as a replacement. Within days, Ms. Connor auditioned and began touring with the band.
The rigors of the road, however, took their toll, and she left after less than 5 months to go solo. She signed with Bethlehem Records, which simultaneously released two 10-inch LPs, “Chris Connor Sings Lullabys of Birdland and “Chris Connor Sings Lullabys for Lovers.” They were hugely successful.
In 1956, she became one of the first white female jazz singers signed to Atlantic Records and recorded more than a dozen albums for the label. In 1963, however, when it came time to renew her contract, she decided instead to sign with her manager Monte Kay’s small label, FM. The label declared bankruptcy the following year.
That unfortunate decision coincided with the rock ’n’ roll insurgence, which swept aside singers like Ms. Connor, and her career never fully recovered. She endured what she later described as a bad period that lasted until the early ’70s.
Her setbacks were compounded by a worsening drinking problem, which she eventually overcame. Her 1980s comeback revealed a voice that was physically stronger than ever, but its emotional elixir was diluted. She continued to perform and to record for small labels. Her last three records, “Haunted Heart,” “I Walk With Music,” and “Everything I Love,” were released on Highnote Records, the final album in 2003.
Ms. Connor is survived by her longtime partner and manager, Lori Muscarelle.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: September 8, 2009 An obituary last Tuesday about the jazz vocalist Chris Connor included several errors. She joined the Stan Kenton Band in 1953, as the obituary indicated at one point, not 1952, and she spent less than 5 months singing with the band, not 10 months. The singer whom Ms. Connor replaced in the Kenton band was Kay Brown, not June Christy. And Ms. Christy was not “planning to leave Kenton” when she recommended that he hire Ms. Connor in 1953; she had already left the band, in late 1951.
|
|