CLAUDETTE by Floyd Levin ( In the AMERICAN RAG, July 2003)
Female vocalists and the jazz idiom have matured together over the years. It began during the '20s, when bootleg booze and bawdy blues singers braced the scene. The parallel maturation also occurred on the vaudeville circuits, in cabarets, and on the Broadway stage.
The covey of stylized songstresses that evolved from those varied roots included Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, Sophie Tucker, Billie Holliday, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Kay Starr, Pat Yankee, Helen Forrest, Mildred Bailey, Maxine Sullivan, etc.
During the swing era of the '30s and '40s, an attractive young gal always decorated the bandstand - and occasionally warbled a ballad between the big bands' "killer-diller" dance numbers.
When festivals became the prime source of traditional jazz entertainment, we grew accustomed to hearing hip-swaying "Red Hot Mamas" dressed in frilly flapper gowns. Sometimes they displayed more skin than tuneful savvy, but we tolerated them awaiting the next instrumental number.
Then Dick Johnson's Mardi Gras Band came upon the scene with a classy vocalist, Claudette Stone. She showed us how a lady who sings with a band should dress - and how she should sing a song!
In her new CD; reviewed below, that color-coordinated, attractively attired singer confirms that she is far more than a bandstand decoration. As easy on the eyes as she is on the ears, this accomplished artist has a unique manner of bending a note, toying with the beat, and shaping the lyrics of a song.
This CD is all about CLAUDETTE STONE. Her many fans will welcome this collection. It is also about Dick Johnson's Mardi Gras Band. Together, they form an integral unit that has continued to please festival audiences for many years. When these players merge their individual skills with Claudette's voice, their avowed commitment, "Quality and Entertainment," is fully achieved.
Producer/conductor Johnson's fine arrangements, expertly performed by his popular band, greatly enhance Claudette's vocalizing. All of the band members are gifted accompanists. Pianist Tome Shove, guitarist Charlie Robinson, and saxophonist Howard Dudune are distinctively featured on several numbers.
This flawless set, filled with superior material, is sung with care and imagination by a vocalist who shades her work with endless colors and timbres.
During there fifteen tunes, you will hear her clearly caressing every syllable while interpreting each word with substance and perception. The lady fearlessly delves into slow tempos many vocalists avoid, and she can swing with the best of them during finger-snapping numbers
Claudette's distinctive manner is completely her own. "I wanted to establish my own style," she told me, "but I have an affection for the great singers, - Carmen MacRae, Judy Garland, Ella Fitzgerald, Petty Lee, Barbra Streisand, Edie Gorme, - and especially my mother, Maybelle Carter, who was a wonderful vocalist, a fine stride pianist, and a dancer. (she names me after her good friend, the film star Claudette Colbert.) My all-time idols have always been my mother and Ella!"
The carefully chosen program has been gathered from popular American music's elegant trove of material written between 1928 and 1982. This is Claudette's salute to the great lyricists and their composer partners whose rich legacy will never be forgotten.
Romance is the key element here - note that the word "Love" appears in four of the titles. Beer and chips are not suggested; the amorous program indicates candle light and wine! Also, the tempos are for dancing - close dancing!
These songs are seldom heard at classic jazz festivals (unless played by the Mardi Gras Band), and few have been recorded by the circuit's participating groups.
The title tune, composed by Michel Legrand, asks the question, "How Do You Keep the Music Playing?" Claudette warmly acknowledges the query with Marilyn and Alan Bergman's responsive lyric: "With any luck, the music never ends!" Throughout these musical moments you will probably find yourself wishing it will not end.
The program's earliest tune, "The Man I Love," surprisingly, was dropped from a 1924 Broadway show, and rejected from succeeding scores in two additional productions - yet, it is one of the Gershwin's most performed songs. After slowly expressing the tune's ardent romantic theme with pianist Tome Shove's delicate accompaniment, Claudette turns on the heat and swings through her last chorus - propelled by drummer Ron Jones' sensuous "pulse."
Singing "Night Flight To Love," she allows Richard O'Day's heartfelt words and music to include us on a musical journey to an anticipated love. The musical dignity of her interpretation makes the new song sound ageless. (Conversely, in her hands, lyrics we've heard zillions of times assume a fresh quality and a new meaning.)
Displaying another facet of her talents, Claudette, interpreting with deep emotion, her original tune, "I Really Care About You," cogently evokes the bittersweet sadness of a lost love.
It is probably a coincidence, but the famed actress-singer Doris Day introduced several of the CD's songs in films and on hit recordings. Three consecutive numbers are attributed to Miss Day: "My Secret Love," from the film "Calamity Jane," won an Oscar in 1953, and was her biggest selling record. She sand "My Romance," in the movie "Jumbo," and "When I Fall In Love" was a "Top 20" record in 1952. Claudette Stone, creatively restructuring each of these tunes in her distinctive manner, tips her signature feather-plumed hat in Doris Day's direction. (Claudette sings "My Secret Love" over a floating cushion of wire brushes and guitar.)
Two Broadway show tunes by Roders and Hart are appropriately included here, including, as mentioned above, "My Romance," and another dories Day record hit, "Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered." Claudette converts the latter into a memorable statement with only piano accompaniment. "Cancel the aforementioned "only" - Tom Shove masterfully echoes and cushions her melodic lines and frames the purity of her voice.)
"Send in The Clowns" is generally considered a circus number because, traditionally, clowns are always summoned to distract the audience's attention, usually after a trapeze act mishap. The song is actually Stephen Sondheim's thinly veiled lament to un-reciprocated love. Listen carefully as Claudette perceptively reaches metaphoric references to a high wire team. )"Are we a pair?" "You're in mid-air!")
The acclaimed composers of the opening tune, "How Do You Keep the Music Playing?," asked another musical question in 1969 with "What are You Doing the Rest of Your Life?" This is one "standard" without a hit recording. That might occur after fact - this rendition by Miss Stone could qualify as the tune's definitive version! (Brad Hammett effectively emerges from the soft background ensembles to add a zestful trombone solo."
"Lullaby of Birdland" is presumably based on the improvised piano chorus George Shearing played on "Love Me Or Leave Me," about fifty years ago at New York's Birdland. The impromptu melody is usually heard in an instrumental setting. Claudette, aware that George David Weiss' romantic lyrics are often overlooked, has wisely included them here.
"How Do You Keep the Music Playing?" You will discover, by repeating the program, that, fortunately "...the music never ends."
Floyd Levin, July,2003
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