independent and unofficial
Prince fan community
Welcome! Sign up or enter username and password to remember me
Forum jump
Forums > Music: Non-Prince > Carmen McRae fans?
« Previous topic  Next topic »
  New topic   Printable     (Log in to 'subscribe' to this topic)
Author

Tweet     Share

Message
Thread started 10/29/18 9:04pm

JoeBala

Carmen McRae fans?

I gotta be honest I've never heard of her till last week. She did a Sinatra cover of Fly Me To The Moon on a jazz mix from Amazon music and I fell in love with her voice. Shame she is not known like a Holliday/Vaughn. There are a couple of concerts on YouTube. I bought a couple of compilations should be here next week.
Just Music-No Categories-Enjoy It!
  - E-mail - orgNote - Report post to moderator
Reply #1 posted 10/31/18 8:37am

JoeBala

November 12, 1994, The New York Times Archives
Related image

Carmen McRae, the jazz singer known for her probing interpretations of lyrics and her bruised but unbowed point of view, died on Thursday evening at her home in Beverly Hills, Calif. She was 74.

She had fallen into a semi-coma four days earlier, a month after being hospitalized for a stroke, said her secretary, Jan March. She withdrew from public performance in May 1991 after an episode of respiratory failure only hours after she completed an engagement at the Blue Note jazz club in New York.

Image result for Carmen McRae Is Dead at 74; Jazz Career Spanned 5 Decades

Although Ms. McRae never reached the heights of popularity attained by Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan and Billie Holiday, she was widely regarded as their artistic equal. In a prolific recording career that spanned nearly five decades, she had only two minor hits, both in the mid-1950's. But the scores of songs on she which stamped her bittersweet, gently mocking signature included "Alfie," "The Music That Makes Me Dance," "Guess Who I Saw Today?," "Blame It on My Youth," "Yesterdays" and "Mean to Me." In January, she received a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Fellowship award for lifetime achievement.

Image result for Carmen McRae Is Dead at 74; Jazz Career Spanned 5 Decades

Ms. McRae was born in Harlem on April 8, 1920, one of four children of immigrants from the West Indies. Growing up in Brooklyn, she attended Julia Richman High School in Manhattan and received her musical grounding in five years of formal piano lessons.

Image result for Carmen McRae

Like many other jazz giants of her generation, she had her first break when she won an amateur talent contest at the Apollo Theater in Harlem. It was there that she was discovered in 1939 by Irene Kitchings, who was then married to the jazz pianist Teddy Wilson. Through Wilson, who worked with Billie Holiday, Ms. McRae met the woman who became her biggest influence and who recorded Ms. McRae's song "Dream of Life."

Related image

"If Billie Holiday had never existed," Ms. McRae later recalled, "I probably wouldn't have, either."

Ms. McRae's parents, who opposed a show-business career, persuaded their daughter to take a secretarial course, and she spent two years in Washington doing clerical work for the Government. Returning to Brooklyn in 1943, she did office work by day while performing in clubs at night.

Related image

Gradually music took over, and she began substituting for other singers in bands led by Benny Carter, Count Basie and Earl (Fatha) Hines. She eventually landed an 18-month engagement with a band led by Mercer Ellington, Duke's son, and in 1946 she made her recording debut with the band, singing under the name Carmen Clarke.

Related image

In Chicago, when the Ellington band broke up, Ms. McRae remained there and embarked on a solo career. A two-week engagement in a club as a singing pianist expanded to 17 weeks, and she ended up staying in Chicago three and a half years.

Image result for Carmen McRae

Her career took off when she returned to New York and developed an act as a stand-up singer at Minton's Playhouse in Harlem, receiving enough notice to be named best new female singer by Down Beatmagazine.

Image result for Carmen McRae Is Dead at 74; Jazz Career Spanned 5 Decades

Ms. McRae released her first solo album for Bethlehem in 1955, the same year she made her first recordings for Decca, where she remained until 1958. From there she moved to Kapp (1958-60) and Columbia (1960-62), then jumped to several smaller labels before ending up on Atlantic for five years (1967-71). Her longest record company affiliation was with Concord Jazz (1980-88). Her last two albums, for RCA, were tributes to Thelonious Monk and Sarah Vaughan.

Image result for Carmen McRae Is Dead at 74; Jazz Career Spanned 5 Decades

In these four decades as a jazz star, Ms. McRae toured constantly. Although she left New York for Southern California in the late 1960's, she appeared in New York regularly, usually at the Blue Note, where she did two engagements a year through most of the 1980's.

Image result for Carmen McRae Is Dead at 74; Jazz Career Spanned 5 Decades

From the moment she made her mark, Ms. McRae was recognized as a supremely insightful interpreter of lyrics.

Image result for Carmen McRae

"Every word is very important to me," she said. "Lyrics come first, then the melody. The lyric of a song I might decide to sing must have something that I can convince you with. It's like an actress who selects a role that contains something she wants to portray."

Image result for Carmen McRae Is Dead at 74; Jazz Career Spanned 5 Decades

The singer's two marriages, to the be-bop drummer Kenny Clarke and the pianist Ike Isaacs, both ended in divorce. There was no immediate word on survivors.

Image result for Carmen McRae Is Dead at 74; Jazz Career Spanned 5 Decades

Just Music-No Categories-Enjoy It!
  - E-mail - orgNote - Report post to moderator
Reply #2 posted 10/31/18 12:50pm

StrangeButTrue

avatar

She has a lovely voice, I was introduced to her via Verve Remixed series as one of my favorite producers remixed her take on Gershwin "How Long Has This Been Going On?"

.

.

.

She's on my "artists to dig deeper into" list, her Wikipedia suggests several record labels to investigate for recordings.

if it was just a dream, call me a dreamer 2
  - E-mail - orgNote - Report post to moderator
Reply #3 posted 11/01/18 8:36am

namepeace

Love her voice.

Good night, sweet Prince | 7 June 1958 - 21 April 2016

Props will be withheld until the showing and proving has commenced. -- Aaron McGruder
  - E-mail - orgNote - Report post to moderator
Reply #4 posted 11/01/18 3:56pm

Hamad

avatar

Great haunting voice! Her pinned song "Dream of Life" that she gave to Billie Holiday is one of my fave songs.

Thats how I came to know about her actually, her association with Billie Holiday. Her interview was really interesting in the documentary "Many faces of Billie Holiday".

Every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future...

Twitter: https://twitter.com/QLH82
  - E-mail - orgNote - Report post to moderator
Reply #5 posted 11/05/18 9:04am

TD3

avatar

Was listening to Ms. McRae album....


"New York State of Mind", this weekend.

  - E-mail - orgNote - Report post to moderator
Reply #6 posted 11/05/18 6:45pm

JoeBala

TD3 said:

Was listening to Ms. McRae album....




"New York State of Mind", this weekend.


HI TD3 You always had/have a good ear for great vocalists. Thanks everyone for chiming in.
Just Music-No Categories-Enjoy It!
  - E-mail - orgNote - Report post to moderator
Reply #7 posted 11/10/18 4:56pm

Brendan

avatar

Yes, I’m getting there. And thanks to your great writeup I’ll likely get there that much quicker. Thank you.

I’ve known of Carmen McRae most of my life, but it wasn’t until I was feverishly and joyously discovering the night club mastery and vocal genius of Sammy Davis, Jr.’s catalogue, especially That’s All! from 1967, (Sammy did a duet album with Carmen in the 50s called Boy Meets Girl) while also running across a thread here about the greatest singers of all time (Tevin Campbell’s list started it).

Namepeace on this thread listed her amongst a group I was already mostly intimately familiar with. In here lies the power of lists.

It immediately inspired me to pick up a copy of her The Great American Songbook, live from 1972 (sounds way cooler than it was cause really I just instantly struck up a new digital stream). I soon thereafter was in rapturous agreement. Music doesn’t get much better than this.

If instruments were capable of human feelings, they’d all end up in the front row in full blush. Her version of Donny Hathaway’s “A Song for You” is achingly, devastatingly brilliant.

Thanks to all who share.
  - E-mail - orgNote - Report post to moderator
Reply #8 posted 11/12/18 8:34am

namepeace

Brendan said:

Namepeace on this thread listed her amongst a group I was already mostly intimately familiar with. In here lies the power of lists. It immediately inspired me to pick up a copy of her The Great American Songbook, live from 1972 (sounds way cooler than it was cause really I just instantly struck up a new digital stream). I soon thereafter was in rapturous agreement. Music doesn’t get much better than this. If instruments were capable of human feelings, they’d all end up in the front row in full blush. Her version of Donny Hathaway’s “A Song for You” is achingly, devastatingly brilliant. Thanks to all who share.


Paying it forward, friend. I've had so many great finds of old and new sounds here.


Indeed.



Keep it going all, and never be afraid to share your favorite artists, even if you think Orgers may know them well.

Good night, sweet Prince | 7 June 1958 - 21 April 2016

Props will be withheld until the showing and proving has commenced. -- Aaron McGruder
  - E-mail - orgNote - Report post to moderator
Reply #9 posted 11/15/18 6:45am

MotorBootyAffa
ir

Her live stuff from the 70s-80s are amazing. She can be very humorous, and sometimes x-rated, almost in a Millie Jackson kinda way.

Check out Live At Ratso's Volume 2. "Just A Little Lovin". A Masterpiece.

Katie Kinisky: "So What Are The Latest Dances, Nell?"
Nell Carter: "Anything The Black Folks did Last Year"
  - E-mail - orgNote - Report post to moderator
Reply #10 posted 11/15/18 6:31pm

onlyforaminute

avatar

Beautiful voice.

Time keeps on slipping into the future...


This moment is all there is...
  - E-mail - orgNote - Report post to moderator
  New topic   Printable     (Log in to 'subscribe' to this topic)
« Previous topic  Next topic »
Forums > Music: Non-Prince > Carmen McRae fans?