Reprinted from http://jazzwax.com
June 01, 2016
Yesterday I was listening to Meredith d'Ambrosio accompany herself on piano while singing Love Is a Simple Thing. The song appears on her sterling album Another Time(1981), which is one of my favorites. Meredith and I have emailed for years, since she loves JazzWax and I love her voice and piano. As I listened, I thought I'd give you a treat today by uniting all five parts of my 2009 interview in a single post. As you'll soon read, Meredith's biography is a harrowing story of an artist's struggles to endure tremendous emotional pain and suffering only to survive and thrive.
I hope you enjoy my complete five-part interview from 2009 with Meredith—a jazz composer, pianist, singer and painter...
JazzWax: Where did you grow up?
Meredith d’Ambrosio: I grew up in Boston. I have two
brothers and a sister. One brother and my sister are quite a bit younger than I am. My mother had them late in life. My mother was a pianist-singer whose voice was similar to Lee Wiley’s. She performed around Boston using the stage name Sherry Linden. Her real name was Sarah Kleiman. She was the last of the red-hot mamas, a performer who sang songs by the Gershwins, Rodgers and Hart, Kern, Berlin, Coward and others. She also performed risqué material.
JW: Sounds like she was quite a character.
Md’A: She was. Her romantic style of singing would often bring tears to people's eyes. As for my father, he had been a small-band radio singer. Later, using his own formulas, he created a refinishing and re-upholstery business. I remember my early childhood in the 1940s vividly. I was a terrible tomboy. Those are the years I remember most fondly.
Md’A: She was. Her romantic style of singing would often bring tears to people's eyes. As for my father, he had been a small-band radio singer. Later, using his own formulas, he created a refinishing and re-upholstery business. I remember my early childhood in the 1940s vividly. I was a terrible tomboy. Those are the years I remember most fondly.
JW: Why? Were your teenage years unhappy?
Md’A: Very messy. My mother and father didn’t get along, and neither gave me much encouragement. My father was a womanizer and it broke my mother’s heart. She resented him terribly for it. My father's issues probably stem from his rough start in life.
Md’A: Very messy. My mother and father didn’t get along, and neither gave me much encouragement. My father was a womanizer and it broke my mother’s heart. She resented him terribly for it. My father's issues probably stem from his rough start in life.
JW: What happened?
Md’A: He was born out of wedlock in Boston to a Russian mother and a merchant seaman from Florence, Italy. His
mother gave him up to the care of the state when he was five. After years bouncing around foster homes, orphanages and farms, he was sent at age 14 to live at the home of a family on Cape Cod. But just as the family was ready to adopt him, his mother surfaced and blocked the adoption. Up until then my father thought she was dead.
Md’A: He was born out of wedlock in Boston to a Russian mother and a merchant seaman from Florence, Italy. His
mother gave him up to the care of the state when he was five. After years bouncing around foster homes, orphanages and farms, he was sent at age 14 to live at the home of a family on Cape Cod. But just as the family was ready to adopt him, his mother surfaced and blocked the adoption. Up until then my father thought she was dead.
JW: Did his mother take him away?
Md’A: Yes. She took him to live with her in the Beacon Hill section of Boston, where it turned out she was the town madam who ran her business out of a four- story townhouse. Just before she took my father back to Boston, though, she married a man whose last name was d’Ambrosio.
Md’A: Yes. She took him to live with her in the Beacon Hill section of Boston, where it turned out she was the town madam who ran her business out of a four- story townhouse. Just before she took my father back to Boston, though, she married a man whose last name was d’Ambrosio.
JW: When did you know you could sing?
Md’A: When I was six years old, I was harmonizing along
with my mother’s large collection of swing records. I then studied classical piano and art from that point forward. My classical training lasted up to age 11. Then I went to Boston’s Schillinger House of Music [pictured], which later changed its name to the Berklee School and then moved its location to become the Berklee College of Music.
Md’A: When I was six years old, I was harmonizing along
with my mother’s large collection of swing records. I then studied classical piano and art from that point forward. My classical training lasted up to age 11. Then I went to Boston’s Schillinger House of Music [pictured], which later changed its name to the Berklee School and then moved its location to become the Berklee College of Music.
JW: Which singers moved you most as a kid?
Md’A: Dick Haymes [pictured] and Peggy Lee. My mother had a collection of 12-inch swing records that had to be played on a Victrola. I thought Haymes had the best phrasing of them all and the most romantic voice.
Md’A: Dick Haymes [pictured] and Peggy Lee. My mother had a collection of 12-inch swing records that had to be played on a Victrola. I thought Haymes had the best phrasing of them all and the most romantic voice.
JW: Did you have formal voice training?
Md’A: No, my father wouldn’t allow it. He was a bass baritone and had been classically trained at the New England Conservatory of Music. When he heard me singing and harmonizing along with my mother’s records at age 11, he decided voice training would be bad for me. He didn’t want my voice to be spoiled with formal instruction, though he had a hand in coaching me to understand how to breathe and shade.
Md’A: No, my father wouldn’t allow it. He was a bass baritone and had been classically trained at the New England Conservatory of Music. When he heard me singing and harmonizing along with my mother’s records at age 11, he decided voice training would be bad for me. He didn’t want my voice to be spoiled with formal instruction, though he had a hand in coaching me to understand how to breathe and shade.
JW: What did you sound like?
Md’D: I had a style back then, a voice that sounded like no one else. I was a mezzo-soprano then—the same range as my mother's. Much later I became a tenor, the same range as a cello or flugelhorn.
Md’D: I had a style back then, a voice that sounded like no one else. I was a mezzo-soprano then—the same range as my mother's. Much later I became a tenor, the same range as a cello or flugelhorn.
JW: Did painting and visual art play a more important role in your youth than singing and playing piano?
Md’A: Yes, and it still does. When I was 5 years old, in
kindergarten, I drew a picture of a face that was in perfect proportion. I immediately sensed I had an advanced talent. So my mother bought me an easel, and a year later I started taking formal art instruction. After school, I’d take piano and ballet lessons. And each Saturday I’d go for additional art lessons at the Rutledge School of Music and then Hebrew School. I had no time to play on the streets. It was a grueling schedule. [Pictured: Quarter to Three, 1986, watercolor, Meredith d'Ambrosio]
Md’A: Yes, and it still does. When I was 5 years old, in
kindergarten, I drew a picture of a face that was in perfect proportion. I immediately sensed I had an advanced talent. So my mother bought me an easel, and a year later I started taking formal art instruction. After school, I’d take piano and ballet lessons. And each Saturday I’d go for additional art lessons at the Rutledge School of Music and then Hebrew School. I had no time to play on the streets. It was a grueling schedule. [Pictured: Quarter to Three, 1986, watercolor, Meredith d'Ambrosio]
JW: Was your family well off?
Md’A: Actually no. When I was 13 years old, I got my social security card and had to go to work over the summer at a hearing-aid and transistor parts factory. The check was used to help my family make ends meet. By then my mother had two more children in addition to my brother Jerry, who was born three years after I was.
Md’A: Actually no. When I was 13 years old, I got my social security card and had to go to work over the summer at a hearing-aid and transistor parts factory. The check was used to help my family make ends meet. By then my mother had two more children in addition to my brother Jerry, who was born three years after I was.
JW: Why did your mother have two more children so many years later?
Md'A: She later confessed to me that she had had my brother Stanley and my sister Elaine later in her life to keep my father from straying. So I had to help take care of my new siblings, since my mother was in her forties and had had nervous breakdowns with both births. The newborns were exhausting and stressful for her.
Md'A: She later confessed to me that she had had my brother Stanley and my sister Elaine later in her life to keep my father from straying. So I had to help take care of my new siblings, since my mother was in her forties and had had nervous breakdowns with both births. The newborns were exhausting and stressful for her.
JW: You must have been gratified to get out of the house 
when it was time for college.
Md’A: It was liberating. When I was 17 years old, I won a scholarship to the Boston Museum School, which was at the time considered the second best fine arts college in the country after the Chicago Art Institute. By then, I was living a pretty bohemian life, which angered my mother to no end, since she was rather traditional. [Pictured: Debut of Spring, 1996, watercolor, by Meredith d'Ambrosio]
when it was time for college.Md’A: It was liberating. When I was 17 years old, I won a scholarship to the Boston Museum School, which was at the time considered the second best fine arts college in the country after the Chicago Art Institute. By then, I was living a pretty bohemian life, which angered my mother to no end, since she was rather traditional. [Pictured: Debut of Spring, 1996, watercolor, by Meredith d'Ambrosio]
JW: Just before college began in 1958, you and your mother fought regularly. What was her big issue with you?
Md'A: Several things. For one, I couldn’t hold a waitress job in Maine over the summer to pay for textbooks, and my mother was furious that I didn’t apply myself and take the job more seriously. Just before my studies began at the Boston Museum School, our disagreements grew so bad and so frequent that I moved out.
Md'A: Several things. For one, I couldn’t hold a waitress job in Maine over the summer to pay for textbooks, and my mother was furious that I didn’t apply myself and take the job more seriously. Just before my studies began at the Boston Museum School, our disagreements grew so bad and so frequent that I moved out.
JW: Did you enjoy the Boston Museum School?
Md’A: I loved it. But even before college started, my life was complicated, which certainly didn't help matters with my mother. When I was 17, I had the misfortune of 
falling deeply in love with a man who was a jazz pianist and three years older than me. He asked me to marry him, and we became engaged. But soon I learned from his closest friend that within a two-year period, he had been engaged to 22 other women. He disappeared soon after I found out. I think my parents chased him away once they learned about his past. It took me many years to get over the emotional devastation of being deceived by someone who I thought was my soulmate. I had even thought about suicide. By then I had moved back home. [Pictured: First Snow, oil on canvas, 2008, by Meredith d'Ambrosio]
read complete interview at: http://jazzwax.comfalling deeply in love with a man who was a jazz pianist and three years older than me. He asked me to marry him, and we became engaged. But soon I learned from his closest friend that within a two-year period, he had been engaged to 22 other women. He disappeared soon after I found out. I think my parents chased him away once they learned about his past. It took me many years to get over the emotional devastation of being deceived by someone who I thought was my soulmate. I had even thought about suicide. By then I had moved back home. [Pictured: First Snow, oil on canvas, 2008, by Meredith d'Ambrosio]
Used with permission by Marc Myers
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