SOUND PROJECTIONS

AN ONLINE QUARTERLY MUSIC MAGAZINE

EDITOR: KOFI NATAMBU

FALL, 2016

VOLUME THREE NUMBER TWO

ERIC DOLPHY

Featuring the Musics and Aesthetic Visions of:

BOBBY HUTCHERSON
September 10-16

GEORGE E. LEWIS
September 17-23

JAMES BLOOD ULMER
September 24-30

RACHELLE FERRELL
October 1-7

ANDREW HILL
October 8-14

CARMEN McRAE
(October 15-21)

PRINCE
(October 22-28)

LIANNE LA HAVAS
(October 29-November 4)

ANDRA DAY
(November 5-November 11)

ARCHIE SHEPP
(November 12-18)

WORLD SAXOPHONE QUARTET
(November 19-25)

ART BLAKEY
(November 26-December 2)

https://musicians.allaboutjazz.com/index_new.php?url=carmenmcrae&&width=1920

Carmen McRae

Biography
Articles
News

Considered by jazz aficionados to be among the top ten female vocalists of all time, Carmen McRae's distinctive behind-the-beat phrasing, impeccable vocal control, and witty, sometimes acerbic way of conveying a lyric are what set her apart as a singularly great singer. She considered jazz great Billie Holiday to be a musical mentor. But this Queen of Cool had her own sound and style; including an amazing ability to scat. The versatile McRae could swing hard when it was called for; next she could draw out a ballad, savoring each note and syllable without losing audience attention, she was in a class by herself.

McRae was fortunate enough to have been raised by a family prosperous enough to afford a piano and lessons. Early on she expressed a strong interest in an acting career. By age twenty, her interest in music had taken over and she began singing as well as playing the piano. Even at a young age, she was a woman with something to say and throughout her life was recognized not only for her musical talents but for her immense love for verbal expression through musical lyrics.

Her first break was getting hired as an intermission pianist at Harlem's world-famous Minton's Playhouse, a jazz club. She became acquainted with many of the top modern jazz musicians of the time. An important influence was songwriter Irene Wilson, who introduced her to Billie Holiday. Wilson continued to encourage McRae to write music; one of McRae's first attempts at songwriting, “Dream of Life,” was recorded by Billie Holiday in 1939.

McRae’s first important engagement as was as vocalist for Benny Carter's orchestra in 1944, she then went on to work with the Count Basie and Earl Hines bands between 1944-46.The periods of 1946-47, she appeared and recorded with Mercer Ellington's band (Recorded under the name of “Carmen Clarke.”) She entered into a brief marriage to bebop innovator Kenny Clarke in 1946-49, where she also embraced the technically difficult bebop style as only a few vocalists could at the time.

Although she was working regularly in front of combos and accompanying herself on piano at Minton's, she was at a gig in Brooklyn when she was discovered and signed by Decca Records. Decca released her first album as lead, “Carmen McRae,” in 1954 which led to Down Beat Magazine voting her “Best new female vocalist of 1954,” a year when there was plenty of competition for that slot.

Her five-year association with Decca served both to make her a bona fide singing star and to yield what would ultimately prove to be the most consistently excellent series of recordings of her entire forty-year career. These twelve LPs, indeed, rank among the greatest vocal records of all time. McRae is simultaneously cool and cutting-edge sharp, relaxed and swinging, putting over all manner of material in all manner of settings. These range from trios led by pianist Ray Bryant on “After Glow,” or her own piano “By Special Request,” to swinging big bands led by Tadd Dameron on “Blue Moon,” Ralph Burns on “Torchy,” or Ernie Wilkins on “Something to Swing About,” a full-sized string orchestra “Book of Ballads,” “When You’re Away,” and experimental jazz groups boasting such unusual accoutrements as accordion “By Special Request,”and cello “Carmen for Cool Ones.” She also tackles such unusual subjects for a jazz singer as, on “Mad About the Man,” the songs of Noël Coward, and, on “Birds of a Feather,” songs about our feathered friends.

As the years wore on, she developed an increasingly world-weary attitude in her singing. Contrastingly, the freshness and vitality of these, her earliest notable recordings, is remarkable. These tracks announced the coming of a major new artist, one whose light would be hidden no more, and nearly fifty years later they retain their power.

She would go on to record prolifically at a steady clip averaging at least one record per year until 1990. At Decca, Carmen McRae established herself as a versatile perfectionist. Whether the material was outré hard-bop or classics from the Great American Songbook, she made the difficult business of communicating with the listener on a deeper level sound like it was easy.

Carmen's career reached great heights, no little feat for a jazz musician. She recorded, performed nationally and toured internationally in Europe and Japan. She was tapped to participate in Dave Brubeck's audacious jazz operetta “The Real Ambassadors.” other performers on this singular opus which was basically a political protest against war and in support of civil rights included Louis Armstrong and the harmony trio of Lambert, Hendricks and Ross. “God Bless the Child,” Brubeck's “Take Five,” and “I've Got You Under My Skin” became her signature tunes as she cultivated a large international fan base.

The Great American Music Hall in San Francisco was the site of two of her last great recorded achievements. 1987 brought a critically acclaimed live album of duets with avant-garde jazz singer Betty Carter., and she also did “Fine and Mellow, Live at Birdland West,” the same year. One of her final great recordings was 1988's “Carmen Sings Monk,” she followed that with a tribute to her close friend Sarah Vaughan, “Sarah, Dedicated to You,” in 1990. She left a recorded legacy of over fifty albums up to the time of her death, and then there are over twenty more released since then, well over seventy five total, quite impressive by any standard.

A lifelong smoker, diagnosed with emphysema, she announced her retirement in 1991, after she collapsed after a performance at New York's venerable Blue Note jazz club. She survived merely four more years, dying in 1994.

In January of 1994, Carmen received the Jazz Master Award by the National Endowment for the Arts. She was an expert of rhythm, deft phrasing, and personal, bittersweet ballads. Her enigmatic, dark contralto voice relied upon the ironic interpretation of lyrics that has placed her among the pantheon of female jazz singers.

Source: James Nadal

https://www.arts.gov/honors/jazz/carmen-mcrae

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Bio(active tab)

Tender and warm with a ballad, Carmen McRae was one of the great singers of jazz, finding the depth of feeling in the lyrics of the songs she interpreted. An accomplished pianist who in her early career accompanied herself, she occasionally returned to the piano later in her career.

McRae learned piano through private lessons and was discovered by Irene Wilson Kitchings, a musician and former wife of pianist Teddy Wilson. McRae sang with the Benny Carter, Count Basie, and Mercer Ellington big bands during the 1940s and made her recorded debut as Carmen Clarke while the wife of drummer Kenny Clarke. During the bebop revolution at Minton's Playhouse, McRae was an intermission pianist. At the Playhouse is likely where she first heard Thelonious Monk's music, which influenced her piano playing and musical sense. In the early 1950s, she worked with the Mat Mathews Quintet. She signed her first significant recording contract with Decca in 1954.

Working as a soloist, she gained wide recognition and was often seen in the pantheon of jazz singers that included Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan, whom she idolized and later paid homage on a recording. Her greatest idol was Billie Holiday, whom she feted on record and in performances on many occasions. Although she admired these singers, she never resorted to sheer mimicry and developed her own original style.

She recorded notably alongside Louis Armstrong on Dave Brubeck's extended work The Real Ambassadors, a social commentary written with his wife Iola. She made several film and television appearances, and performed as an actress in the landmark television series Roots. In the late 1980s, she returned to her first love, recording a full album of Monk's music with lyrics by Jon Hendricks, Abbey Lincoln, Mike Ferro, Sally Swisher, and Bernie Hanighen. The album became one of her signature recordings.

McRae performed many times at the Monterey Jazz Festival, the North Sea Jazz Festival in the Netherlands, and the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland, where she shared the stage with Dizzy Gillespie and Phil Woods. She was forced to retire for health reasons in 1991.

Selected Discography

Here to Stay, MCA/GRP, 1955-59 Carmen McRae Sings Great American Songwriters, MCA/GRP, 1955-59, Sings Lover Man & Other Billie Holiday Classics, Columbia, 1961 Carmen Sings Monk, Novus, 1988 Sarah -- Dedicated to You, Novus, 1990

National Endowment for the Arts 400 7th Street, SW, Washington, DC 20506 202.682.5400 | webmgr@arts.gov

http://www.npr.org/2007/12/05/16892615/carmen-mcrae-painter-of-song

Carmen McRae: 'Painter of Song'

53:36

AUDIO: <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/16892615/16915263" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player"></iframe>

NPR's 'Jazz Profiles'

Carmen McRae: 'Painter of Song'

53:36

December 5, 2007

Carmen McRae.

Michael Ochs Archives / Getty Images

An outstanding song stylist, Carmen McRae's great strength was in her phrasing and interpretation of lyrics, especially in ballads. In a long and distinguished music career, she was also an excellent pianist, songwriter and storyteller.

McRae was born in Harlem on April 8, 1922. From an early age, she studied piano and became an excellent performer.
While still in her teens, McRae met composer and arranger Irene Wilson Kitchings, who became her mentor. McRae credited Kitchings for steering her career as a singer and for helping her connect with vocalist Billie Holiday. Holiday would also have a profound effect on McRae's career, helping her to shape her own sound.

For several years, McRae supported herself with secretarial work while performing occasionally as a singer and pianist. She worked briefly with the bands of Benny Carter, Count Basie, Earl "Fatha" Hines and Mercer Ellington, a childhood friend. She recorded for the first time as a pianist with the Ellington Orchestra in the mid-1940s.

McRae also landed a gig at Harlem's famed Minton's Playhouse as a stand-up singer for the Tony Scott band. While singing at Minton's, McRae captured the attention of the jazz world.

In 1954, she was named "Most Promising New Vocalist" in the Down Beat critics' poll and "Singer of the Year" by Metronome. She was then able to record her first album as a leader for Decca Records.

For years, McRae focused her attention on honing her art and her own musical personality. She collaborated with musicians such as pianist Dave Brubeck and guitarist Joe Pass. She also started acting, landing bit parts in the TV miniseries Roots and the movie Jo Jo Dancer with comedian Richard Pryor. However, her principal acting gig was in her interpretation of song lyrics. Writer Ralph Gleason once described McRae's singing as "a short one-woman exercise in dramatic art."

As McRae got older, she focused more on songs with lyrics that reflected personal meaning and experience. McRae's style, both on and off the bandstand, has been admired by her peers such as Etta Jones, Ernestine Anderson and Abbey Lincoln, and she was a role model for singers such as Carol Sloane.

In 1991, McRae realized that she was too ill to perform. A few years later, she suffered from a stroke and never recovered: She died on Nov. 10, 1994. Carmen McRae's music, however, lives on.

Carmen McRae

http://www.nytimes.com/1994/11/12/obituaries/carmen-mcrae-is-dead-at-74-jazz-career-spanned-5-decades.html

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

by STEPHEN HOLDEN
November 12, 1994
New York Times

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.

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.

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.

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."

"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. 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

"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."

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.

http://articles.latimes.com/1994-11-12/local/me-61649_1_jazz-singer-pianist-carmen-mcraeMasterful, Innovative Jazz Singer-Pianist Carmen McRae Dies

November 12, 1994
by BURT A. FOLKART
LOS ANGELES TIMES

Carmen McRae, one of this era's premier vocalists, whose subtle interpretations of complex tonalities made her a favorite among both jazz musicians and their fiercely loyal fans, has died at her Beverly Hills home.

Miss McRae died Thursday night at the age of 74, it was reported Friday.

She had fallen into a near-coma four days earlier, a month after being hospitalized for a stroke.

Although her work was often overshadowed by the popular successes of Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan, there was, said Dave Brubeck, "no one like her."

Benny Carter, the pioneer big-band leader who met Miss McRae at a Harlem nightclub when she was 18 and featured her as a singer six years later in 1944, was asked to assess her unique voice:

"I wouldn't try," he said Friday. "That's like asking me to define jazz. . . . She always had her own individual way with a song."

Last December, the National Endowment for the Arts named Miss McRae one of its masters of jazz, hailing her "instinctive feeling for rhythm, her skillful vocal technique, her innovative scat singing, as well as her relaxed manner of presentation."

That essentially was her final achievement and it came as she was bedridden. She had been experiencing respiratory problems since 1990, when she first had difficulty breathing during a performance at the Blue Note jazz club in New York City.

It proved to be her last public performance.

With Fitzgerald and the late Vaughan, Miss McRae formed the troika of female American jazz singers.

She resisted efforts to commercialize her art, staying true to her jazz experiences and interpreting classic show tunes and blues with dazzling improvisation.

The daughter of Jamaican immigrants, she spun a masterful web of song while moving around a bandstand in a crouch--cradling the microphone as if it were a saxophone and then pulling herself erect for a dramatic coda--sometimes a single note she seemed to hold for an eternity.

A pianist as well as a singer, Miss McRae performed a repertoire that included "God Bless the Child," a song closely associated with her biggest influence, Billie Holiday; Cole Porter's "I've Got You Under My Skin"; Billy Joel's "New York State of Mind," and Dave Brubeck's "Take Five."

Brubeck, known for his complex, contrapuntal arrangements, said Friday that Miss McRae was always easy to work with. They recorded often in the early 1960s.

Faced with the most convoluted of his tunes, she would say, "You just play it; I can sing it," he recalled.

Through Teddy Wilson, Holiday's accompanist and arranger, Miss McRae had met the addicted blues legend when she was in her late teens.

"I adored her before I ever met her," Miss McRae told the Washington Post in 1983. Like Holiday, she learned to inhale a lyric and then breathe life into the words she exhaled.

Miss McRae said she encouraged Holiday at a time when the legendary singer's talent was becoming diluted by alcohol and drugs.They would be out of an evening, but Miss McRae would have to leave early, she said.

"Halfway through the night I would be so stoned and out of it I'd have to leave and go home," she said.

Holiday eventually was destroyed by drugs and liquor, but Miss McRae quickly abandoned that lifestyle. Occasionally, though, she would "throw a note" in the Holiday tradition, a remembrance of her old friend.

Miss McRae was born in New York City's Harlem in 1920 (although some references say 1922). Her parents arranged for lessons so she might become a concert pianist, but "I'd keep sheet music of pop tunes hidden among the classical stuff in the piano bench, and when everyone was out of earshot I let go with the pops," she told the New York Post in 1966.

At 17, Miss McRae won an amateur talent contest at the Apollo Theater and went on to sing with Carter, Count Basie and Earl (Fatha) Hines.

After World War II, she became a solo singer-pianist, first in Chicago and then in New York.

With her expressive features surrounded by an arrangement of finely curled hair, and her dreamy expression, she quickly became popular through her appearances, and then through recordings.

Her first album came out in 1954, and in 1955 she tied with Ella Fitzgerald for best female vocalist in a Metronome magazine poll. She had won the Down Beat magazine award for best new star a year earlier.

In all, Miss McRae made more than 20 albums, including "I Am Music on Blue Note," "Sound of Silence," "Just a Little Lovin'," "Portrait of Carmen," "It Takes a Whole Lot of Human Feelings," "Carmen's Gold" and "You Can't Hide Love."

"Jazz is a feeling," she once said. "If it has to be explained, it don't mean a damn. If the performer gets it, that's it. If the audience gets it, that's it. . . . Jazz is an interpretation."

She was married twice: to be-bop drummer Kenny Clark and to pianist Ike Isaacs. Both marriages ended in divorce.

There will be no services, at Miss McRae's request.

"I don't want a memorial," she told friends. "I don't want a funeral. I don't want flowers. All I want to be remembered for is my music."

* REMEMBERING AN ARTIST

Carmen McRae was a peerless musical storyteller. An appreciation by Don Heckman. F2

http://www.jazzwax.com/2015/02/carmen-mcrae-for-cool-ones.html

« Exclusive: Bill Evans Interview | Main | Bill Evans' 'Kind of Blue' Notes »

February 11, 2015

Carmen McRae for Cool Ones

Between 1954 and 1958, singer Carmen McRae recorded 12 albums for Decca. She was signed by Milt Gabler, Decca's head of A&R, after he had seen her sing at a Brooklyn club. Gabler had great success producing Billie Holiday between 1944 and 1950 for Decca and Ella Fitzgerald between 1942 and 1955. When Fitzgerald announced in '54 that she would be leaving to join Verve the following year, Decca needed a replacement in a hurry. Not only did the label need to fill Fitzgerald's market niche with a soulful jazz-pop singer, but also the 12-inch LP was rolling out, compelling Decca to sign an endurance artist who could easily handle the demands of recording on the longer format.

One of McRae's last albums for the Decca was among her most fascinating. Carmen for Cool Ones, recorded in December 1957, featured arrangements by jazz cellist Fred Katz. The musicians on the first session—You're Mine, I Remember Clifford, A Shoulder to Cry On and Weak for the Man—included Buddy Collette (fl,as), Warren Webb (oboe), Justin Gordon (b-cl), George Smith (cl), Joe Marino (p), Joseph Gibbons (g), Ike Isaacs (b), Specs Wright (d) and 13 strings, with Katz conducting.

The second session—All the Things You Are, After I Say I'm Sorry and If I Were a Bell—featured Bill Green and Harry Klee (fl), George Smith (cl), Mahlon Clark and Justin Gordon (b-cl), Ike Isaacs (b), Specs Wright (d) and Fred Katz conducting.

The final session—Any Old Time, What's New?, Without a Word of Warning and The Night We Called It a Day—united Frank Flynn (vib,mar), Larry Bunker (vib), John Towner Williams and Joe Marino (p,celeste), Fred Katz (cello on The Night We Called It a Day), Ike Isaacs (b) and Specs Wright (d), with Katz conducting.

What makes this album special is the effortless juxtaposition between McRae's late-night vocal style and sterling articulation and Katz's moody and helter-skelter modern classical approach to string and ensemble writing. This must have been a highly difficult album for McRae and Katz (above) to record, since Katz's busy arrangements would have been a distraction for nearly any other singer, and Katz's charts are challenging to say the least. To McRae's credit, she smartly blocked out the orchestration, delivering flawless vocals as if singing with a trio.

This compartmentalized approach and McRae's execution left Katz's musicians free to do its jazz-classical thing, without having to worry about delivering a steady beat. It's as if McRae is singing a duet with a band that at times appears to be singing its own tune. The secret to the album's success is McRae's forceful attack, powerful tone and straight-up renditions. Think Miles Davis and Gil Evans. There's a splendid clashing of styles here, and like Davis and Evans, McRae and Katz pull it off with fascinating results. McRae's voice soothes the heart while Katz's arrangements hold the ear, providing two albums in one.

JazzWax tracks: You'll find Carmen for Cool Ones here as a two-fer combined with her Mad About the Man, her previous album.

JazzWax clip: Here Carmen McRae with Fred Katz's arrangement of Benny Golson's I Remember Clifford...

And here's If I Were a Bell, one of my favorite tracks...

If I Were a Bell

A JazzWax thanks to Michael Bloom of Michael Bloom Media Relations, which represents jazz artists.

Posted by Marc Myers at 12:05 AM | Permalink

Tags: Carmen for Cool Ones, Carmen McRae, Fred Katz

http://www.carmenmcrae.com/

Carmen McRae, the Definitive Website
This site is a tribute to one of the best – if not THE best – jazz singers in the history of the genre.

Eight years younger than her idol, Billie Holiday, Carmen McRae was a contemporary of Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan. Ella and Sarah were already well established by the time Carmen came onto the scene, but it wasn’t long before Carmen was considered their artistic equal, although she never achieved their wide popularity. She never had a huge hit nor did she ever receive a Grammy. But, on the other hand, she never made a bad record nor compromised her high standards.

Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan inspired awe with their vocal prowess. Ella – with her perfect pitch and unerring sense of time – could reproduce any instrumental jazz riff, and Sarah – with her multi-octave range and ultra-flexible voice – could change octave and color on a single note. Carmen, however, could bring a tear to the eye or a lump to the throat, with her reading of a lyric. That was her great talent. She combined the ability to project the emotional connotations of a song with a musical intelligence that was derived in part from her knowledge of the piano.

This site strives to present a complete picture of Carmen McRae the artist. The biography is approached in several ways – from the perfunctory listing in the Grove Dictionary of Jazz to a timeline from Leslie Gourse’s book, Miss Jazz, to audio clips from NPR interviews with Carmen. Carol Sloane and Hammond Guthrie tell charming stories of their first encounter with the singer and colleagues such as Mundell Lowe, who played guitar on Carmen's first major recording, and John Clayton, who led his orchestra on one of her last albums, speak about her artistry. (See Friends and Fans.)

Carmen’s recording history is described in detail, with critical analysis interspersed with album listings.

(For example, Norman Simmons, Carmen’s accompanist and musical director during the 1960s, makes particularly astute observations about her unique style.) A page is devoted to each of the 51 original albums, with a photo of the cover and musician and track listings. (See List of Original Albums)

The Press section contains historical articles from Down Beat, The New York Times and Time, beginning in 1954, when Carmen was named Best New Female Jazz Singer by Down Beat and ending with a 1991 interview in the same magazine in which the veteran singer looks at the current jazz scene with a jaundiced eye. That was the year her career ended, with what would be her last recording (Sarah) and final performance (at the Blue Note.)

There are dozens of musical sound bites, savory reminders for fans and an introduction to the unacquainted of Carmen's many moods. Sweet and sassy, soulful and swinging, reverent and raunchy, you’ll hear them all. And every one, wonderful.

We hope that, after delving into this site, you will come away with a new or reinforced appreciation of this remarkable artist. And if you ARE inspired, check out our list of recommended CDs.
(See Starter Set.)

Happy exploring!

"Carmen McRae is indisputably one of the greatest vocalists the idiom has ever produced." -Will Friedwald, author of Jazz Singing

"She's always given me the feeling that she respects lyrics at least as much as she does music, and that, I think, is the secret of her strength: the balance she maintains between the two." - Gene Lees, jazz writer, lyricist

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Carmen-McRae

Carmen McRae
American jazz vocalist
by The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica

Carmen McRae
American jazz vocalist

Also known as
Carmen Clarke

born
April 8, 1920
New York City, New York

died
November 10, 1994
Beverly Hills, California

Carmen McRae, (born April 8, 1920, New York, N.Y., U.S.—died Nov. 10, 1994, Beverly Hills, Calif.) American jazz vocalist and pianist who from an early emulation of vocalist Billie Holiday grew to become a distinctive stylist, known for her smoky voice and her melodic variations on jazz standards. Her scat improvisations were innovative, complex, and elegant.

Carmen McRae.

Tom Copi—Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

McRae studied classical piano as a child, worked with bandleaders Benny Carter and Count Basie in the mid-1940s, and made her recording debut as Carmen Clarke (she was at the time married to jazz drummer Kenny Clarke) with Mercer Ellington’s orchestra in 1946–47. She spent several years as an intermission pianist and singer at Minton’s Playhouse in New York City until successfully recording in 1953 and 1954. From the mid-1950s, she toured extensively (being particularly popular in Japan), recorded frequently, and appeared in many musical contexts.

McRae recorded with several jazz notables, including Louis Armstrong, Dave Brubeck, Joe Pass, and George Shearing. Her outstanding recordings include Here to Stay, a collection of sides from the late 1950s; Lover Man (1962); and The Great American Songbook (1972). In later years, McRae issued a series of highly regarded albums that paid tribute to other jazz artists, such as Nat King Cole, Billie Holiday, Thelonious Monk, and Sarah Vaughan. McRae is remembered for her elegance and her ability to invest herself emotionally and intellectually in a song’s lyrics. Jazz critic Ralph Gleason described a McRae song as an “exercise in dramatic art.”

http://www.carmenmcrae.com/essaysralphgleason.htm

CARMEN MCRAE
by Ralph J. Gleason

From: Celebrating the Duke, and Louis, Bessie, Bird, Carmen, Miles, Dizzy and Other Heroes (Da Capo Press, New York. 1995)

She stood there on the stage, a vision, Georgia Rose in the flesh, the burning eyes reaching right out across the rows of seats, the spotlight shining on her cheekbones, her head thrust back a little as she sang "When Sunny Gets Blue."

There were over eight thousand people in that packed, open-air arena at the Monterey Jazz Festival. They froze, or I’d better say they melted, for the emotion she put into that song was the direct enemy of ice. They swayed, when she moved her hand, as though each person in that audience was connected by some invisible silken thread to her hand and to her heart as well as through the sound of that magic voice.
       And when she finished there was a moment of total, absolute silence in which no one even moved. And then they applauded.
       Maybe it was "When Sunny Gets Blue" again; if not, it was another of her special sad songs. I no longer remember the song, only the effect. It was a big club and it was all but empty. Nobody there to hear the magic. Just the      band and the bartender and over in the corner the waitress, almost weeping. "How can she know so much?" she said to me when it was over and Carmen had opened up her heart to that most sacred audience of one.
     The contrasts are delightful. On the afternoon of that Monterey nighttime triumph, Carmen sat around the backstage area, hair in curlers, wearing raunchy, faded blue jeans, carrying on like one of the funkiest musicians in jazz. But out on that stage she was The Grand Lady, the Queen, possessed of the power with her voice to move people as no one else in her time.
Another night in a San Francisco club, some member of the audience interrupted her, shattering the mood like a crumbling icicle. Carmen stopped      short, leaned into the microphone, and said with that edge her voice assumes when she gets salty, "Either you’re coming up here or I’m goin’ down there!" She glared for a moment at the cringing customer, and then resumed her song. But I mean she not only started singing it, but she stitched back the mood, put it all together again in an instant as if the interruption had never happened.
   That’s magic. You can call it showmanship, you can call it stage presence, you can call it anything you want to call it, but I know it’s magic, so don’t tell me anything else. You see, I’d actually quarrel with the title of this collection of songs. To me, it’s not The Art of Carmen McRae, but the Magic of Carmen McRae.
   Very, very few singers in any genre are able to go out there on that lonely stage, take off all the shells of pretense and convention, and stand there emotionally naked.
    Listen to her do this to Jim Webb’s "Didn’t We?" with no   accompaniment save Alexander Gafa’s sympathetic guitar. It is an incredible performance—simple, unadorned, not stark but revealed and vulnerable. And warm. Listen to it again, in a different mode, but with the same openness and vulnerability when she sings "Satin Doll" with only Chuck Domanico’s bass behind her for the first half of the song.
   She can get a quality of intimacy into a public performance that’s almost embarrassing, it’s so real.
         Let me tell you about another thing she can do. I remember a cold April night in the Greek Theater at the University of California in Berkeley. A huge amphitheater, close to sixteen thousand people packed there, huddled on concrete benches and jammed on the grass behind the top row. It was another jazz festival, the U. C. Jazz Festival, and while it had a solid house of jazz fans, it also had thousands of college students there for the novelty of the occasion rather than for the specific artists.
       Carmen sang a couple of songs. Did well with them and then began Bob Lind's lovely "Elusive Butterfly." This was the students’ language. They went wild, interrupting her with applause just for singing the song, and then like their elders at countless Carmen McRae appearances, getting hit with that electric shock she can produce, and going silently into themselves and her until the end when they literally screamed for more.
       Songs, you see, have words and they have music and then there is the performance which ought to be, but seldom is, greater than the sum of the parts. With Carmen, you get it all. For the melody of the song itself, you get a jazz musician interpolating, bringing variations of phrasing, melodic line and rhythm and sometimes adding completely spontaneous improvisations. It’s the human voice, but Carmen makes it sound sometimes like cello, sometimes like a saxophone, sometimes like a violin and sometimes, for brief little passages – and this is exquisitely hard to do – like a trumpet.
       Then you get the words.
    Carmen McRae sings the lyrics of a song like Sir Laurence Olivier delivering a Shakespearean speech.
     She gives lessons in elocution. There are songs – and the first one on this collection, "I Only Have Eyes for You," is one – which take on multiple additional meanings by the manner in which Carmen McRae delivers the lines. You can hear a song for years – I’ve been through this and believe me, I know – and then hear Carmen sing it and all of a sudden the lyrics became a story, they literally      come to life.
       That’s part of Carmen, the actress. And her performance of every song she sings, sad or happy, love song or dirge, saucy comment or heavy emotional binge, is a playlet, a short one-woman exercise in dramatic art.

    She lives these songs when she is singing them and then she brings them live and direct to you.

       In all my life I have found only four persons who could do that out of all the great singers I’ve heard. One was Billie Holiday, and she’s dead, and only Carmen has a moral right to sing her songs. I heard Judy Garland do "God Bless the Child" once and was almost moved to violence. Edith Piaf could do it, and oddly the language was no barrier. You knew what she was saying even if you could not understand literally a word of French. The ‘broken sparrow’ is dead now, too. And there was another, also no longer with us. Her name was La Nina de Los Peines, "The Lady of the Combs," and she was a flamenco singer, perhaps the greatest singer of that high voltage music who ever lived. She could do it, too, and, again, the language barrier was no barrier at all. She spoke, as Carmen speaks, in pure international emotion.
Were this a society as open and as free as it pretends it is, Carmen McRae would be a national treasure as Edith Piaf was and as La Nina de los Peines      was. But Carmen comes from the world of jazz, as pure a musician as Charlie Parker or Thelonious Monk, and this country has still to mature to a point where it can take jazz seriously.

Carmen and trio performing on Ralph Gleason''s television show

Some years ago I did a television show with Carmen McRae, half an hour long. Just Carmen and her trio. She sat on a stool in the middle of the set and talked and sang and mesmerized the technicians just as, when the show was aired, she mesmerized the audiences. It was a remarkable demonstration of improvisation. We didn’t know what she planned to sing. Television is ordinarily not done that way. They have rehearsals and sound checks and they mark off camera angles and go through a whole ritual. Carmen just came in, got the musicians in place, and sang. Just like that. It was so good I was scared to death something would spoil it. As a television program basically concerned with music, it has great humor, because Carmen is a woman with a salty tongue and the brassy gifts of a second story man. She is afraid of nothing on this earth, man, beast or inanimate object. After those audiences in nightclubs and concerts all those years, a television studio was just another stage. We did the show right through from top to bottom with no stops, no retakes. Just straight. It should be shown to every performer on television as a model of how to do it. I really had very little at all to do with it. I just walked on and asked a couple of questions. Carmen was in charge, and Carmen wove the magic web for all of us.

        You see, she truly has the magic touch for songs. She picks the right ones. The she gets inside them, puts them on like costumes. They become Carmen and she becomes the song.

    But since each song is a different role, a different personality, a different story, it becomes necessary, for a successful program of these performances, to understand a deep and, again, a magical thing about songs. They must be done in the proper order so that, just like the lyric and the melody and the performance add up to more than the sum of their parts, the show, whether it be a half hour or longer, ends up being more than the sum of its parts no matter how powerful each of those parts may be.
        And Carmen can do this. She can take a dozen numbers and knit them together into a whole thing. You can back away and realize that there are individual songs and they are naturally different. But when Carmen sings them, she catches you in her web and brings you along with her into a spell so powerful that while it lasts – and it lasts at her discretion – you just take them all for part of the whole and never think of them as individual songs at all. Even though, when all is over, you realize they were each the product of different writers’ inspirations at different times. But in Carmen’s hands they become one, because she has lent her magic to them.
        I could go down the list of songs in this collection and say things about each of them, how Oliver Nelson gets a marvelous bebop feeling of the 50s into the introduction of "Day By Day," how Anthony Newley’s "There’s No such Thing As Love" comes alive for the first time with Carmen singing it, how Al Kopper’s Blood, Sweat & Tears ballad "I Love You More Than You’ll Ever Know" is utterly transformed, how Tommy Wolf’s "I’m Always Drunk in San Francisco" becomes a special kind of tribute, how Buffy Sainte-Marie’s "Until It’s time for You To Go" takes on such an added dimension when Carmen sings it that it is hardly the familiar song at all.
        But I don’t want to do that. If you are already familiar with Carmen McRae you know it anyway, and if you are not, all I want to do is to move you to listen. Actually, just to move you to listen to any part of the collection because The Art of Carmen McRae will get to you once you open your ears and your heart even a little bit.
        There ‘s one more thing. Carmen occupies a place in the hearts of jazz musicians that is a very special place, and its special quality means no criticism of the other great singers of her time but only that Carmen is very, very special. If Ella Fitzgerald will forgive me, I’d like to quote MiIes Davis on the subject because it sums up the way they feel, the way we all feel. Miles was looking up at a billboard in San Francisco one night which announced Ella was playing at the Fairmont’s Venetian Room and it called her "The Queen of Jazz." Miles grunted and then growled, "If Ella Fitzgerald is the Queen of jazz, what the fuck is Carmen?"

What indeed?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Ralph J. Gleason was a staunch champion of Carmen McRae and an important figure in the jazz world. He was the founder and editor (1939-41) of Jazz Information, one of the first jazz periodicals in the USA. From 1948-61 he was associated with Down Beat and from 1950 to his      death in 1975 with the San Francisco Chronicle as a jazz and popular music critic. He wrote a syndicated weekly column on jazz (1957-70) and contributed to many periodicals. He was a founder of Rolling Stone (1967), co-founded (with Jimmy Lyons) the Monterey Jazz Festival (1958), He hosted a jazz radio program in San Francisco in the 1960s and a television series, Jazx,z Casual for National Educational Television. In 1970 he became a vice president of Fantasy Records.

(Excerpted from The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, edited by Barry Kernfeld, St. Martin’s Press, New York. 1996,)

http://articles.latimes.com/1994-11-12/entertainment/ca-61914_1_carmen-mcrae

Appreciation : Carmen McRae: What Stories She Did Tell
November 12, 1994|
by DON HECKMAN
SPECIAL TO THE LOS ANGELES TIMES

Carmen McRae's nightclub gigs often climaxed with a magical moment in which she sent her back-up band off-stage and sat down to accompany herself at the piano.

There was something exquisite that happened when McRae, who died Thursday at the age of 72, accompanied herself, a creative clarity that perfectly illuminated her enormous strengths as a musical storyteller. If, of the three jazz singers most prominent since World War II, Sarah Vaughan had the most sumptuous voice, and Ella Fitzgerald the most rhythmically engaged sense of time, McRae was surely the best at marrying the imagery of words and music within a jazz context.

Starting late--she did not make a recording under her own name until she was 32 (in 1954)--McRae quickly established herself as a singer who could legitimately claim comparison with Vaughan and Fitzgerald. In the same year, Down Beat magazine named her "best new female singer."

She went on to record a superb series of sessions for Decca in the '50s (some of which have been reissued on GRP), and continued to refine her style for the next three decades, unfazed by the changing currents of the popular music scene. In 1988, she created a remarkable collection of Thelonious Monk readings ("Carmen Sings Monk," RCA Novus), and in 1990 a highly personal tribute to Vaughan ("Sarah--Dedicated to You," RCA Novus).

McRae clearly was comfortable in a wide array of settings, from lush orchestral backings to pure jazz rhythm sections. Like Vaughan, she was fully capable of altering melody lines, and, like Fitzgerald, she could scat sing with the soaring skill of an instrumentalist. But her greatest strength was that she never did so at the cost of the total song or the sacrifice of the underlying story.

McRae's voice thickened a bit in recent years, but the lucidity of her interpretations never wavered. She was one of the finest artists in jazz history's small ensemble of world-class singers.

http://www.npr.org/artists/16892612/carmen-mcrae

Music

Carmen McRae On Piano Jazz
National Public Radio (NPR)
April 10, 2015

AUDIO: <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/398749357/398754013" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player"></iframe>

Vocalist Carmen McRae (1920-1994) was an expert on rhythm, deft phrasing and personal, bittersweet ballads. Her enigmatic, dark contralto voice helped place her among the pantheon of great female jazz singers.

In 1994, McRae received the Jazz Master Award from the National Endowment for the Arts. On this 1985 episode of Piano Jazz, McRae accompanies herself for "As Long As I Live" and joins host Marian McPartland to perform "Carmen's Blues."

Originally broadcast in the spring of 1985.

Set List:

"I'm Pulling Through" (Kitchings, Herzog)

"Sweet Lorraine" (Burwell, Parish)

"I Never Felt This Way Before" (Ellington)

"Theme For Carmen" (McPartland)

"As Time Goes By" (Hupfeld)

"Carmen's Blues" (McPartland, McRae)

"As Long As I Live" (Arlen)

"Guess I'll Hang My Tears Out To Dry" (Cahn, Styne)

"I Hadn't Anyone Till You" (Noble)

"Embraceable You" (Gershwin)

"Old Devil Moon" (Harburg, Lane)

http://www.allmusic.com/artist/carmen-mcrae-mn0000185948/biography

Carmen McRae
(1920-1994)
Artist Biography by Scott Yanow

Carmen McRae always had a nice voice (if not on the impossible level of an Ella Fitzgerald or Sarah Vaughan) but it was her behind-the-beat phrasing and ironic interpretations of lyrics that made her most memorable. She studied piano early on and had her first important job singing with Benny Carter's big band (1944), but it would be another decade before her career had really gained much momentum. McRae married and divorced Kenny Clarke in the '40s, worked with Count Basie (briefly) and Mercer Ellington (1946-1947), and became the intermission singer and pianist at several New York clubs. In 1954 she began to record as a leader' and by then she had absorbed the influences of Billie Holiday and bebop into her own style. McRae would record pretty steadily up to 1989 and, although her voice was higher in the '50s and her phrasing would be even more laid-back in later years, her general style and approach did not change much through the decades. Championed in the '50s by Ralph Gleason, McRae was fairly popular throughout her career. Among her most interesting recording projects were participating in Dave Brubeck's the Real Ambassadors with Louis Armstrong, cutting an album of live duets with Betty Carter, being accompanied by Dave Brubeck and George Shearing, and closing her career with brilliant tributes to Thelonious Monk and Sarah Vaughan. Carmen McRae, who refused to quit smoking, was forced to retire in 1991 due to emphysema. She recorded for many labels including Bethlehem, Decca (1954-1958), Kapp, Columbia, Mainstream, Focus, Atlantic (1967-1970), Black Lion, Groove Merchant, Catalyst, Blue Note, Buddah, Concord, and Novus.

http://www.carmenmcrae.com/essayscarolsloane.htm

When I First Met Carmen McRae
by Carol Sloane

It was in the early 1960's. I had by that time lived in New York's Greenwich Village for a couple of years, and went to hear Carmen McRae when she made an appearance at one of the holy shrines of jazz located in my neighborhood, a club with a relaxed, friendly atmosphere and great Italian food. This was the Half Note, and, although it was one of the best places to nosh and listen to music, it did not provide a dressing room for any of the artists who played the room, mainly because the club's favorite headliners were men. Clark Terry, Bob Brookmeyer, Dave Bailey, Bill Crow, Dave Frishberg, Zoot Sims, Al Cohn, Bob Cranshaw and all the others hardly needed a room to check their appearance before going onstage. A quick comb in the Gents was adequate, and then only if they'd encountered a stiff breeze along Hudson Street. Carmen McRae arrived dressed for the gig, and like many before and since, she checked her makeup and hair in a miniscule Ladies Room.
        I was mad for Carmen's sound and her interpretive skills. This fierce loyalty was born in the early 1950's because a disc jockey in my home town of Providence was a devoted fan. I think he also loved her from afar, and so he played her recordings almost every day. The radio: that magical device instructing a young woman fantasizing about the exotic world of jazz. I longed to be a part of it. Weekly broadcasts from Birdland nurtured the dream of places filled with the cheerful sounds of laughter - intimacies exchanged in the language of the hip - and the seductive clink of glasses filled with beverages guaranteed to intoxicate.
    I chose to sit in a darkened corner of the club, the better to scrutinize Carmen's every move, make note of her song selection, tempos, key changes, microphone technique ... her whole demeanor on stage. On this occasion, with her head held imperiously, she cast the famous McRaeRay over patrons and musicians alike. This penetrating stare had much the same effect as a sign in a field warning of the fence electrified to prevent intruders. On this night, she had been particularly haughty on stage. In spite of the fact that I might be burned to a cinder by her fiery glance, I determined I had tell her how much her singing meant to me, no matter the risk.
        Awkwardly, I sidled up to the bar where she stood alone near the service area. With trembling voice and weak knees, I stammered a "Pardon me, Miss McRae", and as quickly as I could, expressed my admiration and loyalty. I took a flame-thrower hit of The Ray, she mumbled "Thanks" through lips pressed tight, and turned her back to me. I managed a reasonably quick recovery, and beat a hasty retreat.
        Years later, by which time we had become very close friends, I asked her if she remembered the incident. She denied memory of it, adding quietly she      wished she'd been nicer so that we could have begun our friendship sooner. This precious drop of gold has stayed in my heart, along with so many other memories of a generous, funny, passionate woman.
        I live with a constant sense of regret that we are no longer able to see or talk or laugh together. On my new radio show, I often play Carmen's recordings, hoping some other young singer may one day comprehend her musical wisdom, and come to appreciate that salty edge which distinguished Carmen from all others. That sound changed the course of my life forever so many years ago.

Carol Sloane began her distinguished career as a teen-ager. She’s recorded numerous albums and CDs; subbed for Annie Ross in the famed Lambert, Hendricks and Ross trio; and performed at prestigious venues, such as the Village Vanguard. In 1995 she recorded The Songs Carmen Sang for Concord Jazz.

http://www.carmenmcrae.com/essaysinterview.htm

Carmen McRae: "We were happy in the days of Fifty-Second Street”

"Notes and Tones – Musician to Musician Interviews" - Interviews by Art Taylor. Da Capo Press / New York (expanded edition 1993)

Art Taylor interviewed Carmen in Cologne, Germany, October 30, 1970

When did you realize you wanted to be a singer?

I imagine my interest in music must have started when I was a baby. My father was a very musical man. Not a performer, but someone who loved good music. I don’t remember this, but I’m told that as a child, I used to know all the popular tunes of the day, like most children do today because of listening to music that’s being played constantly on radio and television. I found out later on that there were two or three relatives of mine who were musically inclined. I mean musically inclined to the point of having good sounding voices. They could have been singers if they had wanted to be, but I guess they never did. So maybe that’s where whatever musical talent I have came from.

I’m the only one in my family that’s in this business. I have been fortunate: they all wished me well and they might have wished me their talent. Their talent and maybe a bit of my own have helped me get where I am today. I had to become one of two things in life: someone who was musically inclined and good enough to be able to perform or else a good audience of music. I just happen to be a performer.

When I was still in my teens, I met a woman who became my idol. She was my idol then and continued to be my idol; though she is dead now, she is still my idol. That’s Billie Holiday. I met Lady when I was very young, and she was one of the most impressive women I have ever met in my life. She really scared me as far as singing was concerned. She seemed so utterly perfect to me that I felt anything after her would be anticlimactic. Consequently, I was afraid of becoming what I had hoped to become at an earlier stage in my life. That was a very important phase to me. After that I had some minor experiences with Benny Carter’s band, Mercer Ellington’s and Count Basie’s band, just short stints which really couldn’t influence me much because I was too young. What helped me was Billie Holiday, which happened at a very early stage in my life.

The next thing was going to Chicago [sings]: "Sorry that I can’t take you…" I’m getting carried away! Anyway, I went to Chicago and liked the city. In order to stay I had to make a living. A friend of mine who was an ex-chorus girl knew I could play and sing, which I would do just for friends, not professionally. She said, "Why don’t you take a job playing and singing?" I said to her, "Lulu, that sounds great, but I don’t know if I’m capable." She said, "I know someone who wants a girl singer and piano player. If you go and you don’t make it at least you tried." I said, "It’s hard for a woman like myself, who is an Aries, to take a defeat. I would rather hear nothing than hear no." She convinced me, I went, and the man there was beautiful to me. I will never forget him. He gave me a job for two weeks, with a two-week option to play the piano and sing. He advanced me money to join the union. I stayed two weeks, and he picked up the option.

I realized that my piano playing was very limited, because I had never intended to become a real pianist except just to play for myself or to rehearse a tune. It became essential to play better. I stayed at that job for seventeen weeks. During that time I hired a piano, and as my repertoire was very shallow, I rehearsed every day until my repertoire grew bigger. I stayed in Chicago and worked there for three and a half years, which was the greatest experience I could ever have had. I don’t care that it happened in Chicago. I don’t care where it happened, as long as it happened. I found out that I could make a living playing and singing. My idols were great pianists like Teddy Wilson and Art Tatum, so I could not be fooled by my own piano playing at all. My piano playing was just a means to get where I wanted to get as a singer.

How important do you think it is for a singer to know something about the piano?

Going by my experience, it is one of the most important things. I don’t believe I would have whatever reputation I have today if I had not had any knowledge of the piano. That experience of studying music is what put me where I am today. Without it I would perhaps not even be singing, or of I had become a singer, it might not be as impressive as whatever it is I do now. I have said this for years and I still think it is extremely important. It is important if you want to be a lasting artist. Any artist who really knows what he or she is doing musically will last. I think it’s the non-professional professionals who fade out. They earn a lot of money in a minute, yet don’t make it somehow. After they're gone, people don’t even remember who they were. That’s why it’s very important to know your craft.

When you are onstage, are you singing for yourself, for the musicians, or for the audience?

I’m glad you asked me that. That’s one of the most important things in the world. I can answer this question better than a lot of other questions. I have to sing for myself. Let’s look at this thing in the proper light. I am involved because I am the one doing what I am doing. Right? I only do what I do because I want to please the people who have taken the time to come and hear me. I have to do it for somebody; because that’s the only way I can find out whether I was right or wrong to feel good about whatever I’ve been doing. Consequently I sing for the musicians, too, because I need them playing competently behind me, doing what I want them to do for the people sitting there. So it really is a combination of doing it for everyone. If the musicians are good- and they have to be for me to feel good- I’m going to do my best for the audience; so it’s really a combination of musicians, myself and audience.

I want the musicians to like it too, ‘cause if they don’t like it they’re not going to be able to play for me, even if they are competent. If they don’t like what I’m doing and if they’re only playing for the sake of the bread, it’s no good. They’ve got to dig me. I dig them because I’m hiring them. Right?

Of course my main way of earning a living is pleasing my audience, so that I can pay the cats and get paid, too, so I can go home happy. Actually it’s a combination of pleasing everybody. If you can start out on stage pleasing each other, ninety-nine percent of the time you please the audience too. Audiences know who you are, they know what you do and they have come to hear you in person. You have those three things going for you before you open your mouth. You only have to do your thing, ‘cause that’s what they came for. If you do it well and you’re not inebriated or under the influence of anything, you’ll be sincere, which is all you need. It’s such a beautiful business we’re in, A.T. I guess all the arts are beautiful, but I think we have a better chance of feeling good about ourselves, and we have more incentive to go on, because we get confidence from the people who come to listen to us. The music business is one of the finest businesses in the world. You make contact with people immediately, and they tell you what they like and what they don’t like and that gives you a sense of what you’re doing. You might want to go in one direction and they say no, they like the other way, so you go in the other direction. That’s what you’re really there for, to entertain. If I had to sing for myself, I would never hear a note, because I’m not here for that.

Do you consider yourself a jazz singer?

That’s a question I have been asked many times. I am jazz oriented; if it weren’t for jazz I wouldn’t be anywhere. I only want to be categorized as a good or a bad singer. I originally started as a so-called jazz singer. I was dubbed that somewhere along the line, and I never really thought about it. I really didn’t start out to be a jazz singer; I just started out to sing. But it was awfully hard, as it is for any musician, to play and not to improvise in some sort of way on the melody. If doing that made me a jazz singer, then yes, that’s what I am. I have also done many tunes that couldn’t possibly be called jazz tunes and made many single records that were not jazz.

Either people like what I do or they don’t. They can say: "She has a good voice, but I wish she wouldn’t do…" I don’t care, but they must not categorize me. I know what people expect when you sing a song, and if you scat, that’s jazz; that’s understandable. I hear people who are not categorized as jazz singers, such as Ray Charles, Nancy Wilson, Tony Bennett, Frank Sinatra and many others who are all making exorbitant amounts of money. I haven’t heard them sing one song the way it was written yet. If they can deviate from the melody, which is categorized as jazz, where does it begin and where does it end? What makes one person a jazz singer and another one not a jazz singer? Is it a question of how much improvising they do? I don’t understand it.

Today we have contemporary music, a lot of which is fantastic. A lot of it is also garbage. I’m very happy about contemporary developments in music, because to keep doing all the rest of my life eight bars and a channel and eight bars, and 4/4-time and 3/4 time would have driven me crazy. I’m happy we have 7/8 time and 5/4 time; I’m happy we’re saying something different than moon June and love dove. I love what I’m doing now. I do Beatles tunes. Incidentally, I think they are excellent songwriters. I don’t think they are so great singing or doing their thing, but their songs are fantastic. If they want to call them jazz, I don’t mind just as long as they call me to do it.

What do you plan for yourself for the future?

I would like to do some acting. I would like to try something else that is a part of what I do, only without music. I wouldn’t particularly want it to be a musical- not that I would turn a musical down- but I would prefer something dramatic or in the comedy field. I don’t know if I can do it, but I sure would like to try.

Singing is a natural road to acting, yet none of our great singers, including yourself, has gotten into acting. You should try.

A lot of people have told me the same thing. First I would like to convince myself that maybe I do have a knack for it, but I’ll never know unless somebody comes along and offers me an opportunity.

Do you listen to music when you are at home?

Yes, I do. I listen mostly to instrumental music. Being a lover of the piano, Oscar Peterson happens to be my favorite all-around pianist. There are many other pianists I love, but I won’t go into it because there are too many of them. Oscar is my favorite because he encompasses everything. There are pianists I like because of one thing and pianists I like because of another. But overall I like Oscar best.

Since we are talking about pianists, what is it you look for in a piano accompanist?

That’s a hard question. Accompanying someone cannot be explained by a singer to a pianist. He either knows what to do or he doesn’t. An accompanist and a guy who can play the piano are two different things. You have to find someone who is completely sympathetic to the soloist as a singer and not to the soloist as an instrumentalist. It’s a completely different thing. Even if a guy can play his buns off, it does not necessarily mean he can accompany a singer. There are some guys who can accompany a singer and who can’t play worth a damn as far as soloing is concerned. That’s the difference, and it’s a vast difference. A guy must really love to do it. He cannot do it because he has nothing else to do.

Getting back to the music you like, what else do you listen to?

Of course, I listen to John Birks Gillespie, and to the Kenny Clark – Francy Boland band; I listen to Miles, to Freddie Hubbard, to Cannonball Adderly, and to Blood, Sweat and Tears. These are my favorite groups I’m mentioning to you, and I know I’m going to leave some out. I love music only when I can communicate with it. If I can’t communicate with it, it leaves me cold.

You asked me about avant-garde music. Well, that’s what the avant-garde does to me; I’m sorry. If there are six people in a group and all six are playing something different there is no way for me to know who to concentrate on or what’s going on. If I go to a club to hear somebody, I’m going there primarily because I believe that they are going to play the kind of music that brought me in there in the first place. I believe if it’s more than one person. There has to be some kind of discipline. If you’re playing by yourself, right on, anything you want. But when you’ve got three, four or five people you start off with a mode of some kind or a set pattern of chords for all of you to play for the first chorus; then after the first chorus, what happens? Where do they go? Why do they all have to go in opposite directions? When I find out how I can get some musical satisfaction out of it, then I might like it.

Do you use the same technique if you’re recording, doing a radio show, at a club or at a concert?

You have to change according to where you are. If you’re doing a radio show and there’s nobody there but you and musicians and technicians, that’s one thing. If you’re doing a broadcast or a TV show in front of an audience, that’s another thing. Doing a concert with nothing there other than the people you’re entertaining is still another thing. If you’re cutting a record in a studio alone with just the musicians, that’s another thing again.

First of all, TV I can do without. I never feel too comfortable on TV, mainly because I can’t see all those twenty or thirty million people that I’m supposed to be singing to. Consequently it’s like singing to the audience in the studio. Right? Which doesn’t make up one iota of the people you’re being seen by and who are the real judges of the show; that leaves me cold. I don’t mind because eventually I can sit down at the panel and talk, and I hope I can make up whatever I lacked while I was singing with some intelligence.

I really prefer to sing a concert for people who have paid admission to hear me. I think I do my best in that atmosphere. I never do my best recording, because I never know the song until I record it and start doing it, and six months later it’s right. Somebody says to you two weeks from now or four weeks from now, we’re going to do a record; here are twelve songs. You learn them and you learn them, and you really learn them. But you don’t know them until later.

You’ve never tried to do the numbers long before, say, in clubs?

I’ve never had the opportunity, unless it happened to be a song I did with my trio and that I decided to put in an album with a big band. Then I know the song and I can do my thing. But not the songs that we sit down and pick out two weeks before the session. Some of them are utterly unfamiliar. I’ve never heard them before. Some of them I might know, but I have never sung before. It isn’t really done right unless I really dig the song and take out the rhythm-section parts after the session. Then we’ll start doing it in clubs, and by the time the record comes out, I’m doing it completely different.

Carmen, I think we have a beautiful interview.

We’ve been talking for days, A.T.

Is there anything you want to add?

I think this is a fantastic idea of yours. I love to voice opinions and to be among such people as I’m going to be involved with in this documentary that you’re putting down in book form. I’m very flattered that you chose to interview me. I just hope it will be worthy of all the other people that you’ve interviewed and that I’ll have contributed something to somebody.

Arthur Taylor is a drummer who played with many jazz greats. He recorded interviews with prominent jazz musicians between 1968 and 1972 and first published them under the title Notes and Tones in Europe in 1977. As a black musician, he delved into issues beyond those of music.

http://jazzonline.com/blogs/remembering-carmen-mcrae-her-nearly-forgotten-masterpiece.html

April 9, 2014

Jazz Online

Remembering Carmen McRae & Her (Nearly Forgotten) Masterpiece

It is hard to say exactly why a musical artist moves you deep in your soul but for me in the case of vocalist Carmen McRae it is these three things: She interprets lyric in an organic way that is on a level all her own with a take no prisoners attitude. She intuitively interacts with her band as well as a live audience. She has sass, strength and fearlessness as a singer and is an impeccable musician and composer.

Carmen’s career spanned from the late 1930s to the early 1990s. She is considered one of the most influential vocalists of the 20th century. She sang with big bands yet her greatest artistic showcase, in my opinion, was captured in a small group setting. She made over 60 albums but there was one that always stood apart from the rest for me–the 1976 Grammy-nominated album “At The Great American Music Hall” (ATGAMH) released on Blue Note Records.

ATGAMH was played in my house all of the time while I was growing up but it wasn’t until as an adult, that I actually discovered what my parents had loved so much about the album. It was Carmen at her very best: singing jazz standards, ballads, the American songbook, popular songs of the day and some bossa nova to boot. She is backed by a superb and swingin’ trio and jazz pioneer Dizzy Gillespie guests on several tunes.

Sadly, not many have had the privilege to enjoy this superb album because after the initial vinyl pressing it was never released on CD here in the states and has since been a work that has slipped through the cracks like many jazz albums of the 70’s era.

Recently, I reached out to a colleague at Blue Note Records about this oversight and happily discovered that the label is in the process of preparing ATGMH for digital release at iTunes soon.

As we await the availability of this nearly forgotten masterpiece, what better way to get in the mood and celebrate it and Carmen than by visiting with her backing trio on the recording: Marshall Otwell (piano), Ed Bennett (bass) and Joey Baron (drums & percussion).
These three guys are not only anxiously awaiting the digital release themselves but were more than happy to take a trip down memory lane and share in their experience and insights about Carmen and this most special and brilliant recording.

What made Carmen such a brilliant artist?

Marshall Otwell (MO): Carmen was unique and greatly talented musically. She had a personal magnetism that people loved and wanted to be around her and she could get their attention very easily with her facial expression and with her voice. She had a great love for the music and the tradition and a great attention to detail. Those were all part of her personal stamp.

Ed Bennett (EB): What made Carmen so great was how she could interpret a song. The way she sang a lyric was from a real emotional level, especially on ballads. Her phrasing, time, and feel was amazing at any tempo. She was a musician. When she sat down at the piano and accompanied herself, she could play.

Joey Baron (JB): Her understanding of timing, lyricism, melody, phrasing and drama. Not only her understanding, but her ability to synthesize all these elements & influences and make them her own. Whether playing piano or singing, within a few notes, you know it’s Carmen. She had soul. Her confidence and self respect were incredible. She was a great mix of earthiness and sophistication. She loved and cared about what she did.

What part of her vocal artistry were you most impressed with?

MO: What most impressed me about her was her strength, will and ability to just take a song and make it a complete emotional experience for the audience and maintain intensity. With a lot of singers, when an instrumentalist would play a solo, at the end of the solo would kind of have a little down curve in the intensity or the volume and set it up for the singer to come back in. With Carmen, she encouraged that I would just keep going at the intensity that I was at and she would come in right on top just as though she were a powerful tenor sax or something. She just had such power and such will. She would just take it and there was no having to hand it over gracefully to her.
EB: Probably when she would sing a ballad. She could deliver the lyrics in such an emotional, personal, and powerful way. She liked to take ballads at really slow, slow tempos.

JB: Carmen’s ability to be herself. Never one to waste notes, the way she sang words painted pictures. She could really swing.

Dizzy Gillespie guests on many songs, what was it like playing with him?

MO: When Dizzy came and started playing with us, his style was kind of like scattering notes around as he makes his phrases. It’s beautiful what he does but it kind of startled me on the gig because I thought it isn’t that he doesn’t know where we are in the tune and I know he knows what these harmonies are but whoops there he goes over there and so I was simultaneously, sometimes, trying to support the extended harmony type of notes that he was playing and support her melody. It was really quite a challenge playing with him. I realized listening to this album 35 years later that I was trying to help him and I shouldn’t have been doing that. I should have left him a little more space and let him do what he did.

EB: It was great! To be on the same stage as Dizzy. We were sharing the bill with his band for the 3 nights we played there. I don’t know if it was planned for him to play some tunes, or if he just decided to come up and play.

JB: Playing with Dizzy was absolutely thrilling. To be a part of the incredible rapport and chemistry between Carmen and Dizzy was an amazing experience.

When you listen to this recording, what is the first thing that comes to your mind?

MO: One of the main things is being in the Great American Music Hall and how the audience was and just the vibe of the whole thing. I can still see the colors around the stage and remember how the people just loved Carmen. I always loved playing in that place and I loved their piano.

EB: Wow! that was 38 years ago. But I think the recording holds up to the test of time.

JB: I miss her. I am forever grateful that she heard something in my playing at that time that warranted me being a part of her music.

The four sides of the album are very special in that every tune works on many levels. Did you feel that magic while recording?

MO: The album is a subset of what we actually played and I don’t think it is in the exact order we had it in our sets. They programmed it the way they did to make it work with the sides on the vinyl and it worked beautifully. Working with Carmen I always felt like her choice of tunes was magical. I always felt that it was just so very special and I think the tunes on the album really do work. As I was listening to it, I loved it all.

EB: Carmen was loved and revered so much especially when she performed in San Francisco. They were the best audiences and were crazy for her. You can hear that on the record. There was a lot of energy going on.

(This was funny) On the tune, “T’ain’t Nobody’s Bizness If I Do,” Carmen takes a chorus of a humming-scat thing. As she finishes, she says “You put dat in your pipe and smoke it”. The crowd went wild, it is the city by the Bay.

JB: I was not thinking about the recording. Carmen loved San Francisco, in particular The Great American Music Hall. San Francisco felt the same for Carmen. To witness and be a part of this exchange, was for me electrifying.

Can you tell us about one track on the album that has a special meaning to you?

MO: The one that I always remember the most is “Miss Otis Regrets” because that is a duet I did with Carmen and Dizzy joined us and I remember being so excited and intrigued by what he was playing that I lost my place in the tune. And here I am giving the harmony and the rhythm – I am the band in that case and I couldn’t look to Ed or Joey to figure out where the hell I was but I remember thinking “Oh shit, I am lost!” In listening back to it, I can’t hear the place where I felt I was lost. It just all flowed. That is one of those career moments that I won’t forget.

EB: “On A Clear Day” – It’s the one track that is swingin’ with Dizzy Gillespie. I played a little fill that Dizzy responded musically on his solo.

JB: “Clear Day” … it was the first thing I ever played with Carmen. Here on the record, she opens it up for Dizzy to play. To play with Dizzy on a medium walking tempo still puts a smile on my face. Marshall, Ed and I were all excited.

Also, “Old Folks” – it’s such a soulful song. Carmen always sang it with such feeling. She gets to the essence of the song. Hearing her sing this makes me think of how she modeled respect across the age, race, gender, cultural and religious walls. That continues to inspire me.
– Joseph Vella

THE MUSIC OF CARMEN McRAE: AN EXTENSIVE VIDEO OVERVIEW, A CROSS SECTION OF RECORDINGS, MUSICAL ANALYSIS AND COMMENTARY, PLUS VARIOUS INTERVIEWS WITH MS. McRAE:

Carmen McRae - "'Round Midnight"--Televised performance in 1959:

Carmen McRae - The 1964 Orchestra Recordings-- (Full CD HQ):

Track Listings:

1. In Love In Vain
2. Where Did It Go? (Manha De Carnaval)
3. Music That Makes Me Dance
4. Because You're Mine
5. Too Good
6. Once Upon A Summertime
7. Night Has A Thousand Eyes
8. Cloudy Morning
9. Blame It On My Youth
10. Winter In May
11. My Reverie
12. And I Love Him
13. Alfie (Bonus Track)
14. Life Is Just A Bowl Of Cherries
15. Who Can I Turn To?
16. He Loves Me
17. Sweet Georgia Brown
18. Don't Ever Leave Me
19. Gentleman Friend
20. Haven't We Met?
21. It Shouldn't Happen To A Dream
22. Limehouse Blues
23. I'm Foolin’ Myself
24. Love Is A Night Time Thing
25. Fools & Lovers

CARMEN MCRAE - "My foolish heart" --(Recorded Live at Bubba's in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida)--1981:

Carmen McRae on the 'Jazz Casual' TV program--complete performance from March 15, 1962:

Carmen McRae - Vocals

Norman Simmons - Piano

Victor Sproles - Bass

Walter Perkins - Drums

Carmen McRae / Betty Carter / "Stolen Moments":

1996 album of Duets: Live at the Great American Music Hall
Recording Date Jan 30, 1987-Feb 1, 1987

Carmen McRae & Betty Carter--"Sometimes I'm Happy":

Carmen McRae - vocals
Betty Carter - vocals
Eric Gunnison - piano
Jim Hughart - bass
Winard Harper - drums

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carmen_McRae

Carmen McRae

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Carmen McRae
Portrait by Zita Cypress, circa 1949
Background information
Birth name	Carmen Mercedes McRae
Also known as	"The Singer's Singer"
Born	April 8, 1922
Origin	Harlem, New York City, New York, USA
Died	November 10, 1994 (aged 72) Beverly Hills, California, United States
Genres	Vocal jazz, bebop, traditional pop
Occupation(s)	Singer, pianist
Instruments	Vocals, piano
Years active	1939–1991
Labels	Decca, Kapp, Columbia, Mainstream, Atlantic, Blue Note, Concord, Novus
Associated acts	Jack Pleis, Sammy Davis, Jr., Billie Holiday, Norman Simmons, Cal Tjader, George Shearing, Dave Brubeck

Carmen Mercedes McRae (April 8, 1922 – November 10, 1994) was an American jazz singer, composer, pianist, and actress. Considered one of the most influential jazz vocalists of the 20th century, it was her behind-the-beat phrasing and her ironic interpretations of song lyrics that made her memorable.^[1] McRae drew inspiration from Billie Holiday, but established her own distinctive voice. She went on to record more than 60 albums, enjoying a rich musical career, performing and recording in the United States, Europe, and Japan.

Early life and education

McRae was born in Harlem. Her father, Osmond, was originally from Costa Rica, and her mother, Evadne McRae, an immigrant from Jamaica. She began studying piano when she was eight, and the music of jazz greats such as Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington filled her home. When she was just 17 years old she met singer Billie Holiday. As a teenager McRae came to the attention of Teddy Wilson and his wife, the composer Irene Kitchings Wilson. One of McRae's early songs, "Dream of Life", was, through their influence, recorded in 1939 by Wilson’s long-time collaborator Billie Holiday.^[2]^[3] McRae considered Holiday to be her primary influence.

Early career

In her late teens and early twenties, McRae played piano at a New York City club called Minton's Playhouse, Harlem's most famous jazz club, sang as a chorus girl, and worked as a secretary. It was at Minton's where she met trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, bassist Oscar Pettiford, and drummer Kenny Clarke, had her first important job as a pianist with Benny Carter's big band (1944), worked with Count Basie (1944) and under the name "Carmen Clarke" (having married Kenny Clarke)^[3] made her first recording as pianist with the Mercer Ellington Band (1946–47). But it was while working in Brooklyn that she came to the attention of Decca’s Milt Gabler. Her five-year association with Decca yielded 12 LPs.

Chicago interlude

In 1948 she moved to Chicago with comedian George Kirby. She played piano steadily for almost four years before returning to New York. Those years in Chicago, McRae told Jazz Forum, "gave me whatever it is that I have now. That's the most prominent schooling I ever had."^[4]

This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (May 2015)

Return to New York

Back in New York in the early 1950s, McRae got the record contract that launched her career. She was voted best new female vocalist of 1954 by Down Beat magazine. MacRae married twice: to drummer Kenny Clarke in 1946, and to bassist Ike Isaacs in the late 1950s; both marriages ended in divorce.^[5]
Among her most interesting recording projects were Mad About The Man (1957) with composer Noël Coward, Boy Meets Girl (1957) with Sammy Davis, Jr., participating in Dave Brubeck's The Real Ambassadors (1961) with Louis Armstrong, a tribute album You're Lookin' at Me (A Collection of Nat King Cole Songs) (1983), cutting an album of live duets with Betty Carter, The Carmen McRae-Betty Carter Duets (1987), being accompanied by Dave Brubeck and George Shearing, and closing her career with brilliant tributes to Thelonious Monk, Carmen Sings Monk (1990), and Sarah Vaughan, Sarah: Dedicated to You (1991).
As a result of her early friendship with Billie Holiday, she never performed without singing at least one song associated with "Lady Day", and she recorded an album in 1983 in her honor entitled For Lady Day, which was released in 1995, with songs including "Good Morning Heartache", "Them There Eyes", "Lover Man", "God Bless the Child" and "Don't Explain". McRae also recorded with some of the world's best jazz musicians in albums such as Take Five Live (1961) with Dave Brubeck, Two for the Road (1980) with George Shearing, and Heat Wave (1982) with Cal Tjader. The latter two albums were part of a notable eight-year relationship with Concord Jazz.^[6]

Performances

McRae sang in jazz clubs throughout the United States — and across the world — for more than fifty years. She was a popular performer at the legendary Monterey Jazz Festival (1961–63, 1966, 1971, 1973, 1982), performing with Duke Ellington's orchestra at the North Sea Jazz Festival in 1980, singing "Don't Get Around Much Anymore", and at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1989.^[7] She left New York for Southern California in the late 1960s, but appeared in New York regularly, usually at the Blue Note, where she performed two engagements a year through most of the 1980s. In May–June 1988, she collaborated with Harry Connick Jr. on the song, "Please Don't Talk About Me When I'm Gone (S. Clare & S. Stept) in New York City at the RCA Studios, for Connick's debut album, "20." ^[5] 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.

Death

On November 10, 1994, McRae died at her home in Beverly Hills, California, at the age of 72. She had fallen into a semi-coma four days earlier, a month after being hospitalized for a stroke.

Awards

Year	Category	Title	Label	Result
Carmen McRae Grammy Award Recognitions^[8]
1971	Best Jazz Performance - Soloist	Carmen McRae	Atlantic	Nominee
1977	Best Jazz Vocal Performance	At the Great American Music Hall	Blue Note	Nominee
1984	Best Jazz Vocal Performance	You're Lookin' at Me (A Collection of Nat King Cole Songs)	Concord Jazz	Nominee
1987	Best Jazz Vocal Performance - Female	Any Old Time	Denon	Nominee
1988	Best Jazz Vocal Performance - Duo or Group	The Carmen McRae-Betty Carter Duets	Great American Music Hall	Nominee
1988	Best Jazz Vocal Performance - Female	Fine and Mellow	Concord Jazz	Nominee
1990	Best Jazz Vocal Performance - Female	Carmen Sings Monk	Novus	Nominee

Year	Organization	Category	Result
Carmen McRae Awards
1993	NAACP	NAACP Image Awards	Winner
1994	National Endowment for the Arts	NEA Jazz Masters	Winner

Discography

Albums

Carmen McRae (Bethlehem, 1954)
A Foggy Day (Stardust, with Ivie Anderson, 1955)
By Special Request (Decca, 1955)
Torchy (Decca, 1955)
Blue Moon (Decca, 1956)
Boy Meets Girl (Decca, with Sammy Davis Jr., 1957)
After Glow (Decca, 1957)
Mad About the Man (Decca, 1957)
Carmen for Cool Ones (Decca, 1957)
Porgy and Bess (Decca, with Sammy Davis, Jr., 1958)
Birds of a Feather (Decca, 1958)
Book of Ballads (Kapp, 1958)
Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday at Newport (Verve, 1958, [2001])
When You're Away (Kapp, 1959)
Something to Swing About (Kapp, 1959)
In London (Kapp, 1962)
Tonight Only! (Columbia, with Dave Brubeck, 1960)
Take Five Live (Columbia, with Dave Brubeck, 1961)
The Real Ambassadors (Columbia, with Louis Armstrong, 1962)
Carmen McRae Sings Lover Man and Other Billie Holiday Classics (Columbia, 1961)
Something Wonderful (Columbia, 1963)
Bittersweet (Focus, 1964)
In Person (Mainstream, 1963)
Live and Doin' It (Mainstream, 1965)
"Live" and Wailing (Mainstream, 1965)
Carmen McRae (Mainstream, 1966)
Second to None (Mainstream, 1964)
Haven't We Met (Mainstream, 1965)
Woman Talk (Mainstream, 1966)
For Once in My Life (Atlantic, 1967)
The Sound of Silence (Atlantic, 1968)
Portrait of Carmen (Atlantic, 1968)
Just a Little Lovin' (Atlantic, 1970)
November Girl (Black Lion, 1970 [1975]) with the Kenny Clarke/Francy Boland Big Band
The Great American Songbook (Atlantic, 1972)
Carmen (Temponic, 1972)
As Time Goes By, Live at the Dug in Japan (Catalyst, 1973)
Ms Jazz (Groove Merchant, 1973)
It Takes a Whole Lot of Human Feeling (Groove Merchant, 1973)
Live at Century Plaza (Atlantic, 1975)
I Am Music (Blue Note, 1975)
At the Great American Music Hall (Blue Note, 1976)
Can't Hide Love (Blue Note, 1976)
I'm Coming Home Again (Buddha, 1980)
Two for the Road (Concord, with George Shearing, 1980)
Recorded Live at Bubba's (Who's Who in Jazz, 1981)
Heat Wave (Concord, with Cal Tjader, 1982)
You're Lookin' at Me (A Collection of Nat King Cole Songs) (Concord, 1983)
What Do the Words Say (Blue Music Group, with Ray Brown, 1986, [2009])
Any Old Time (Denon, 1987)
Fine and Mellow: Live at Birdland West (Concord, 1988)
The Carmen McRae-Betty Carter Duets (Great American Music Hall, with Betty Carter, 1988)
Carmen Sings Monk (Novus, 1990)
Sarah: Dedicated to You (Novus, 1991)

Guest appearances

With Harry Connick, Jr.

"Please Don't Talk About Me When I'm Gone" on 20 (Columbia, 1988)
"Vocal Encounters", anthology album of Dave Brubeck, with the Dave Brubeck Quartet, on previously unreleased tracks.

Filmography

Films

1956: The Square Jungle, herself^[9]
1960: The Subterraneans, played herself^[10]
1967: Hotel, played Christine^[11]
1986: Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling, played the grandmother^[12]

Television

1976: Soul
1976: Sammy and Company
1979: Carmen McRae in Concert
1979: Roots: The Next Generations, played Lila^[13]
1980: From Jumpstreet
1981: At the Palace
1981: Billie Holiday. A Tribute
1982: L. A. Jazz

References

Carmen McRae at AllMusic

Larkin, Colin, The Guinness Encyclopedia of Popular Music, Guinness, p. 2650 (1995). ISBN 1-56159-176-9

Brian Berger, "Carmen McRae", HiLobrow, April 8, 2015.

Jazz Forum, No. 2, 1990.

Stephen Holden (November 12, 1994). "Carmen McRae Is Dead at 74; Jazz Career Spanned 5 Decades". New York Times.

"Carmen McRae Biography". Musician Guide.

Montreux Jazz Festival

Grammy Award Database

"The Square Jungle (1956) - Cast & Crew". Yahoo! Movies

"The Subterraneans (1960) - Cast & Crew". Yahoo! Movies

Full cast and crew for "Hotel (1967)". IMDb.

Full cast and crew for "Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling (1986)". IMDb.

Roots: The Next Generations (1979)

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Carmen McRae.

The Complete Carmen McRae Discography
Carmen McRae Discography by Akio Kamiyama
Carmen McRae at AllMusic
Carmen McRae discography at Discogs
Carmen McRae at the Internet Movie Database

Sound Projections

Welcome to Sound Projections

Saturday, October 15, 2016

Carmen McRae (1920-1994): Legendary, iconic, and innovative musician, singer, songwriter, arranger, ensemble leader, producer, and teacher

Carmen McRae

NEA Jazz Masters

jm-carmen-mcrae.jpg

Carmen McRae

(1920-1994)

Tabs

NPR's 'Jazz Profiles'

Carmen McRae: 'Painter of Song'

JazzWax

Marc Myers writes daily on jazz legends and legendary jazz recordings

February 11, 2015

Carmen McRae for Cool Ones

April 9, 2014

Jazz Online

Remembering Carmen McRae & Her (Nearly Forgotten) Masterpiece

Carmen McRae - "'Round Midnight"--Televised performance in 1959:

Carmen McRae - The 1964 Orchestra Recordings-- (Full CD HQ):

CARMEN MCRAE - "My foolish heart" --(Recorded Live at Bubba's in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida)--1981:

Carmen McRae on the 'Jazz Casual' TV program--complete performance from March 15, 1962:

Carmen McRae / Betty Carter / "Stolen Moments":

1996 album of Duets: Live at the Great American Music HallRecording Date Jan 30, 1987-Feb 1, 1987

Carmen McRae & Betty Carter--"Sometimes I'm Happy":

Carmen McRae - vocalsBetty Carter - vocalsEric Gunnison - pianoJim Hughart - bassWinard Harper - drums

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carmen_McRae

Carmen McRae

Contents

Early life and education

Early career

Chicago interlude

Return to New York

Performances

Death

Awards

Discography

Albums

Guest appearances

Filmography

Films

Television

References

Further reading

External links

Editor's Bio

Blog Archive

Labels

1996 album of Duets: Live at the Great American Music Hall
Recording Date Jan 30, 1987-Feb 1, 1987

Carmen McRae - vocals
Betty Carter - vocals
Eric Gunnison - piano
Jim Hughart - bass
Winard Harper - drums