THE LINEUP! TONIGHT 8-10pm PT - Joshua Breakstone guitar Chris Connor bass Roy McCurdy drums LISTEN>https://t.co/OpYDchPy6v #jazzlive pic.twitter.com/ddd7bVBd80— San Diego's Jazz 88 (@Jazz88) 9 de novembro de 2016
Thursday, November 10, 2016
#JoshuaBreakstone guitar ...
Tuesday, March 29, 2016
Chris Connor: Live with Kenton
Reprinted from http://jazzwax.com
Following my Friday post on vocalist Chris Connor and her months with Stan Kenton in 1953, many readers emailed wanting to know where I had acquired the tracks that I featured. Truth is I have a rather extensive collection of Chris's recordings, and many of my live Kenton recordings in 1953 come from Stan Kenton's Concert in Miniature and Concert Encore road broadcasts.
Chris joined Stan Kenton's band in January 1953. She began singing at the University of Missouri in the late 1940s and then teamed up with Bob Brookmeyer's jazz group in Kansas City before going on to New York to join Claude Thornhill in '49. During a radio broadcast of her singing with Jerry Wald's orchestra in '52, Kenton vocalist June Christy heard Chris and recommended her to Kenton. Christy had left Kenton's band in '51 but continued to make guest appearances with the band. Kenton hired Chris and soon after she began appearing on the band's road broadcasts between March and June of '53.
Here are Chris's live appearances with Kenton, thanks to the meticulous work of Terry Vosbein:
March 17, 1953—Trianon Ballroom, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma (go here)
March 28, 1953—Blue Note Club, Chicago (go here).
April 4, 1953—Blue Note Club, Chicago (go here).
April 14, 1953—Sampson Air Force Base, Geneva, N.Y. (go here).
April 21, 1953—Municipal Auditorium, Springfield, Mass. (go here).
April 24, 1953—Birdland, New York City (go here).
April 28, 1953—Birdland, New York City (go here).
April 29, 1953—Birdland, New York City (go here).
May 1, 1953—Birdland, New York City (go here).
May 5, 1953—Birdland, New York City (go here).
May 12, 1953—Glen Echo Park Ballroom, Washington, D.C. (go here).
May 19, 1953—Palm Gardens, Columbus, Ohio (go here).
June 2, 1953—Star Ballroom, Dakota City, Iowa (go here).
Notes: Chris's June 30 appearance was her last known broadcast with Kenton. She recorded in the studio with Kenton's band for Capitol on July 8, 1953. Then she left to become a solo recording artist.
Reader Ed Frank sent along a link to an in-depth discography of Chris Connor by Iván Santiago Mercado (go here).
You'll find a main menu of Kenton's complete road broadcasts between 1952 and '56, compiled by Terry Vosbein, here.
Used with permission by Marc Myers
Sunday, March 27, 2016
Early Chris Connor: 1953
Reprinted from http://jazzwax.com
It's no secret that three of my favorite female vocalists are Julie London, Sarah Vaughan and Chris Connor. Yesterday, I spent time listening to Chris with Stan Kenton in the spring of 1953 and Sy Oliver in December of that year, especially her electrifying tracks on the road with Kenton. Prior to Kenton, Chris in 1952 recorded as a solo singer with Jerry Wald and then Claude Thornhill. She had already been with Thornhill in 1949 as part of his Snowflakes vocal group. Much of her 1952 work was good but unfortunately she was framed either by Wald's rinky-dink arrangements or Thornhill's time-for-bed charts. The excitement picked up dramatically when Chris was provoked by Kenton's and Oliver's brass sections.
Here's Chris Connor with Kenton in 1953 on Jeepers Creepers...
Here's Chris with Kenton on Bill Russo's arrangement of All About Ronnie...
Here's Chris with Kenton on Russo's chart for I Get a Kick Out of You...
Here's Chris with Kenton on Lullaby in Rhythm...
And here's she is with Sy Oliver's band on Everything I Love...
JazzWax note: To read my multipart interview with Chris Connor, go here.
Used with permission by Marc Myers
Wednesday, February 26, 2014
Chris Connor: Gershwin Almanac
Reprinted from http://jazzwax.com
The late Chris Connor remains one of my favorite singers. Unfairly likened to June Christy, Chris had a lower, huskier sound and greater vocal control. Both sang with Stan Kenton and, while Christy was West Coast and Chris was East Coast, both had a bruised, slick-chick sound—the ache of being jilted. Chris was a songsmith. She told me she often spent downtime at music stores leafing through sheet music in search of songs other singers had missed. Back then, you were hip when you sang great songs everyone else had missed. They called that taste.
When I interviewed Chris in 2008, she told me one of her favorite albums was Chris Connor Sings the George Gershwin Almanac of Song for Atlantic. Interestingly, her recording in February 1957 came two years before Ella Fitzgerald's own Gershwin album—though in all fairness Fitzgerald had already started her songbook series in '56 with Cole Porter and Rodgers and Hart albums.
Yesterday I spent hours listening to the Gershwin album and fell in love again with Chris's voice and vocal savvy. On the album, Chris wound up with two different arrangers—always a challenge when such a switch occurs midway through a recording project. [Photo above of Chris Connor in St. Louis by Bernie Thrasher, c. 1957]
Said Chris in 2008...
"[Pianist] Ralph Sharon was with me for eight years, before I signed with Atlantic and while I was there. But he left suddenly for Tony Bennett, who offered him much more money. Ralph left me in the middle of my Sings the Gershwin Almanac album. Ray Ellis came in and arranged the rest of it. I love this album. Actually, I love all my Atlantic records. And they're still selling more than 50 years later."
These sessions were recorded with the very best East Coast jazz musicians—including Al Cohn, Herbie Mann, Peanuts Hucko, Jimmy Cleveland, Hank Jones, Barry Galbraith, Mundell Lowe and two dozen others on different dates. The Sharon-arranged tracks are mostly quartet and quintet sessions while the Ellis tracks are brassy, with an emphasis on trombones.
As you listen to Chris, dig how deftly she slides up and down the song's chord changes, how she lingers and how she takes risks, choosing unusual notes only to resolve them perfectly. All while pouring breath into that tenor sax of a voice of hers. Nearly six years after our chats, I still remember Chris as gracious, shy and fun.
JazzWax tracks: You'll find Chris Connor Sings the George 
Gershwin Almanac of Song here.
Gershwin Almanac of Song here.
JazzWax clips: Here are four songs from the album to give you a sense of how gorgeous Chris's voice was in 1957...
Used with permission by Marc Myers
Saturday, September 5, 2009
Chris Connor Dies at 81
By Christopher Loudon
Influential jazz vocalist Chris Connor died on Aug. 28, 2009 in her adopted hometown of Tom’s Rivers, N.J. She was 81 years old. The cause of death was cancer. Born Mary Loutsenhizer in Kansas City on Nov. 8, 1927, Connor rose to stardom in the late 1940s and early ’50s, first with the Claude Thornhill Band, as a member of Thornhill’s four-member singing group The Snowflakes, then with bandleader Jerry Wald. While with Wald, she was heard on the radio by Stan Kenton’s departing vocalist June Christy, who recommended Connor as her replacement. To this day, the stylistic similarity among Kenton’s three successive vocalists—Anita O’Day, Christy and Connor—remains widely noted.
During her Kenton years, she scored a handful of hits, most notably “All About Ronnie.” (In a 1995 interview, she cited “All About Ronnie” and “Lush Life” as her two favorite songs to perform.) Connor launched her solo career in 1953, signing with Bethlehem. She moved to Atlantic Records in 1956, releasing 14 albums before departing the label in 1962. Among her greatest Atlantic successes were I Miss You So (1956), the title track of which was a surprise chart hit; Chris Craft (1958); and Free Spirits (1961). Indeed, 1961 would prove Connor’s busiest recording year, also marking the release of back-to-back albums with Maynard Ferguson, Double Exposure on Atlantic and Two’s Company for Ferguson’s label, Roulette. She moved briefly to FM Records for the live 1963 album Chris Connor at the Village Gate, but the label folded before a second album, A Weekend in Paris, could be released. Two albums for ABC followed, including the pop-oriented Now!.
She was known for her husky voice that rarely used vibrato, thereby giving rise to an unfair reputation as an overly cool or emotionless singer. Throughout the late ’60s and ’70s, Connor was under the radar, recording sporadically and battling alcoholism. However, by the early ’80s Connor had reestablished herself as an internationally recognized artist, with much influence on a younger generation of baby-boomer singers. Throughout her career she performed and recorded with renowned pianists Hank Jones, Fred Hersch, Ellis Larkins and Ralph Sharon, all famous for their talents in accompanying notable singers. The late Joel Siegel, writing in the Jan/Feb 2000 issue of JazzTimes, said about Connor: “Chris Connor’s most distinctive qualities are her daredevil sense of time and her signature sound. She swings at all tempos, phrasing so far ahead or behind the beat that you fear she’ll never reclaim it, but somehow she always does. The complex timbre of her voice is difficult to describe—misty yet strong, slightly strained but mellow. Her approach to lyrics is similarly ineffable. She never indulges in overt emoting, but imbues rueful ballads with a bruised, introspective quality. She shares with her ’50s movie counterpart Kim Novak a stolid but vulnerable sensibility, implying that she knows much more about pain than she’s willing to articulate.”
Her most recent recordings were for Joe Fields’ label HighNote, comprising three albums released between 2001 and 2003. Connor is survived by her manager and longtime companion, Lori Muscarelle.
http://jazztimes.com/sections/news/articles/25034-chris-connor-dies-at-81
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