Obscure & Neglected Female Singers Of Jazz & Standards (1930s to 1960s)

Did Margaret leave a series of "Capitol Transcriptions"? I have all of her stuff, but my memory fails me.

At any rate, if Mosaic had maintained a very healthy CD business (that is, if customers kept buying) and continued to be successful at obtaining licences, it seems certain that they would have continued more frequent vocalist issues. However, the obsession with many new customers for precise reproductions of original LPs also seriously hurt Mosaic's box set concept. The point is, they would have moved on to more singers. Earlier on, Mosaic seemed to have an "anti-orchestra" hang-up (as far as singers go), even to the point of excluding some essential Nat Cole from their box - but they may have ultimately overcome that and issued more of the great 50's album by vocalists with orchestras.

 

When you have Top 10 List of you favorites, you are buying Complete sets and you are buying separate albums - whatever comes first with a good sound.
That why I said: guys, make you Top 10 List just to know what to concentrate on.

I recently bought this:
Chick Webb & Ella Fitzgerald Decca Sessions (1934-41) (#252)Mosaic Records Limited Edition 8CD Box Set



Before-the-War Ella and After-the-War Ella, they are two different singers.
I love more the first one (she was fighting for the 10th place in my Top 10).

Obscure and Neglected Ella Fitzgerald - cute as only could be:

I Got Spring Fever Blues


When I Get Low I Get High
When I get Low I get High-Ella Fitzgerald

Ella Fitzgerald - Undecided

 

As I said, I avoid top 10 lists, no matter what the criteria or definitions. But I do have many sentimental favorites.

I am blessed because a woman I call one of my sentimental favorite singers of all time, with a catalog of about 20 albums, tells me that she thinks about me each and every day and ends each phone call with the words "I love you." Now that is nice. Oh, you think I'm gonna tell her name?

 

Jazz or Pop? Black or White?
Exact number of albums?

 

The FBI knows.

 

At least with their KC3 box, this was done only because of a contractual arrangement with the Cole estate and nothing to do with Mosaic's own philosophy.

 

In Cole's case, yes. I'm not sure if it has to do with contractual arrangements for other artists, though. The Mildred Bailey and Peggy Lee/June Christy boxes do not contain full discs either.

 

Point taken. The Peggy Lee/June Christy box only covered their Capitol transcriptions. Margaret Whiting never recorded any Capitol transcriptions, a condition that I find very strange, although she was very busy with radio appearances at that time. Perhaps she preferred to sing as a guest star on live programs, and the idea of transcriptions didn't appeal to her. We'll probably never know!

 

Margaret was Whiting's third full-length album (unless one counts Love Songs, then it becomes fourth). I have that SHM CD and it sounds very nice. In fact, it's one of the nicest sounding remasters I have in my collection. The Japanese have done a great job remastering and reissuing some of her original albums, although they have not done all. Anyway, my lamentation was for the absence of a serious, chronological box set. Jasmine have produced two boxes for Margaret, but they contain overlap without chronology and none of the tracks are from proper sources. I suppose it's best that Mosaic didn't take a stab at her artistry -- I'd be really ticked if certain songs were omitted just because the producers felt they weren't "jazzy" enough. That appears to be what was done with the Johnny Mercer set.

 

for that matter, I don't think Nat Cole ever recorded Capitol transcriptions (?).

 

I was in a Boston/Cambridge store today and they had two copies of Mildred Bailey's 3LP Columbia box for $5. One was an advance promo. I picked that one up, though I have had a copy since I was 19 years old.

 

The FBI also knows that I just bought a back-up copy of the 3LP Mildred Bailey box set. Right at this moment, they have a team trying to figure out what that means. They are asking what else I have back-ups of, and why do I need back-ups. Who are they for, really?

 

I also picked up a rare 10 inch LP by Joyce Bryant

 

Not wanting to be upstaged, Bryant colored her hair silver using radiator paint, and performed wearing a tight silver dress and silver floor-length mink. Bryant recalled when she arrived onstage, "I stopped everything!"[2] Bryant's silver hair and tight, backless, cleavage-revealing mermaid dresses became her trademark look and, combined with her four octave voice,[4] further elevated her status into one of the major headlining stars of the early 1950s, by which time she became known by such nicknames as "The Bronze Blond Bombshell", "the black Marilyn Monroe", "The Belter", and "The Voice You'll Always Remember"

 

Traveling for years through the South, Bryant grew angry when she saw hospitals refuse care for those in critical need because they were black.[10] As a result, she organized fundraisers for blacks to buy food, clothing, and medicine, and she continued to put on concerts – wearing her natural black hair and no makeup – to raise money for her church.[10][14][24] She met frequently with Martin Luther King, Jr.–a fan of her singing–to support his efforts to bring basic material comforts to blacks.[10][25] Bryant believed the struggle for civil rights to be the struggle for all people who believed in God, but when she confronted her church, asking it to take a stand against discrimination, the church refused with the reasoning, "But these are of earthly matters and thus of no spiritual importance."

 

He did loads of them from 1946-1950.

 

These stories seem to be sickeningly ubiquitous . I am constantly amazed at the ability for these artists to endure, the music really must have had the power to sustain these people in ways that I really believe is why we are so focused on the first half of the last century as being a high water mark of the art.
The sad truth being that the art meant so much more to these artists then simply their job
Survival really.
Sorry if this seems hyperbolic but I can’t fathom this sort of life

 

I'm always irritated by the use of "dated".

 

"...MARILYN IS THE WHITE JOYCE BRYANT!" (comment)

 

"I had never heard of this talented woman before today. So many legends have not gotten their recognition. The fact that she had reached such heights during those overtly painful years, and then gave it up for a higher purpose, makes her story all the more special." (it's not me, who said that, but could be me)


Joyce Bryant - After you`ve gone - Female Voices 900

"50's cabaret and nightclub sensation, Joyce Bryant, also known as the "Bronze Blonde Bombshell". Miss Bryant left the stage at the height of her career because she was unable to reconcile her hyper-sexual image with her Christian faith. 'Love For Sale' was banned from the radio because it was thought too provocative by censors. Bryant was under consideration for the lead role in the musical 'Carmen Jones' which ultimately went to Dorothy Dandridge." (comment)
Joyce Bryant - Love For Sale

 

Another Black Beauty



Dorothy Dandridge
(1922-1965)

A short biography of Dorothy Dandridge, who began at Harlem's Cotton Club and Apollo Theatre and became the first African American woman to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress. (3 min bio)


Does Dorothy fit to our List? I think so:
(one of the best version)
Dorothy Dandridge / I've Got A Crush On You

Dorothy Dandridge
1941 w/Glen
Nicholas Brothers .. Dorothy Dandridge .. Glenn Mller
1942
Dorothy DANDRIDGE "Zoot Suit" (1942) !!!
1944 w/Louis
Dorothy Dandridge and Louis Armstrong "Whatcha Say?" 1944

She maybe a great actress, but her standards...!
The Nearness of You
Dorothy Dandridge - The Nearness of You

Dorothy Dandridge - I Got Rhythm

Dorothy Dandridge clip singing at Velvet Niteclub 1953

Dorothy Dandridge ''My Heart Belonga to Daddy''

Cow Cow Boogie With A Harlem Beat - Dorothy Dandridge

(knocks Frank's version out)
dorothy dandridge a smile of angel

1962
Dorothy Dandridge (1962) - The Man I Love

"I like it like that", I really do.
Dorothy Dandridge / Smooth Operator

 

thats right they just mixed them in the mosaic box

 

Dorothy Dandridge was incredibly good. I encourage people to get the CD reissue that covers most of her recordings. You will be very sad that there were few recordings

 

If you decide you don't need a backup after all, PM me sometime.