MUSIC CLIP - OSCAR PETERSON, "MOONGLOW"

Welcome to Afterglow, I’m your host, Mark Chilla.

April 28, 2024 marks what would have been the 100th birthday of one of my favorite jazz singers, Blossom Dearie. So in honor of her centennial, I’d like to feature this hour what I consider to be her best work. Between 1956 and 1961, Blossom Dearie recorded six classic albums for Norman Granz’s Verve label. These albums are my desert island discs: exquisite combinations of small combo jazz playing, held aloft by Dearie’s coy and mysterious vocals. Coming up this hour, I’ll comb through these records and play for you a few of my favorite selections.

It’s Blossom Dearie on Verve, coming up next on Afterglow

MUSIC - BLOSSOM DEARIE, "MANHATTAN"

MUSIC CLIP - OSCAR PETERSON TRIO, "MANHATTAN"

Mark Chilla here on Afterglow. On this show, I’m taking a look at the music of Blossom Dearie (and yes, Blossom Dearie is her real name)

MUSIC CLIP - BLOSSOM DEARIE, "TOUT DOUCEMENT"

In the early 1950s, Blossom Dearie had moved from New York to Paris. She stayed in Paris for several years, immersing herself in the jazz and bebop scene there as both a singer and a pianist, and playing in all of the Parisian hot spots. She stood out: blonde, petite, winsome, and amazingly skilled. She was able to bounce from cute and coy to intimate and sultry at the drop of a hat, all while accompanying herself at the piano with a perfect sense of swing.

It was in Paris that she met the American record producer Norman Granz. Granz was so impressed with her, that he offered her a contract… if she moved back to the states. She returned home to New York in 1956, and in September, she recorded her first, self-titled album for Granz’s Verve label.

She recorded the album as a trio with bassist Ray Brown and drummer Jo Jones. Brown would become her sidekick on a number of albums. Bits of Dearie’s Parisian past showed up on the album (and would continue to show up on her records in the years to come). I’ll start this set with a jazz standard by Jerome Kern, and one that Dearie “French-ified” by translating a verse into French.

Here’s Blossom Dearie, from her debut Verve album, with “I Won’t Dance,” on Afterglow.

MUSIC - BLOSSOM DEARIE, "I WON'T DANCE"
MUSIC - BLOSSOM DEARIE, "NOW AT LAST"

Two songs from Blossom Dearie’s self-titled Verve debut, recorded in 1956. We just heard “Now At Last,” a song written by Bob Haymes, a friend of Dearie’s, and the brother singer Dick Haymes. Dearie was a big advocate for Bob Haymes’s songs - she recorded about a half dozen of them. Before that, we heard “I Won’t Dance,” a song written by Jerome Kern.

Blossom Dearie described her approach to singing as a combination of two styles of performance: the Cabaret singing of New York’s East Side, with its emphasis on the lyrics, and the jazz singing on New York’s West Side, with its emphasis on the rhythm. She was a top notch interpreter, who could also swing.

On her next album for Verve in 1957 called Give Him The Ooh-La-La, she was able to show off both side of this performance approach.

First, here’s Dearie with the Cy Coleman and Carolyn Leigh tune “I Walk A Little Faster,” on Afterglow.

MUSIC - BLOSSOM DEARIE, "I WALK A LITTLE FASTER"
MUSIC - BLOSSOM DEARIE, "JUST ONE OF THOSE THINGS"

Blossom Dearie, swinging her way through the Cole Porter tune “Just One Of Those Things.” We also heard the Cy Coleman and Carolyn Leigh tune “I Walk A Little Faster” — both songs from her 1957 Verve album Give Him The Ooh-La-La. Guitarist Herb Ellis, bassist Ray Brown, and drummer Jo Jones were all featured there as well.

Blossom Dearie’s next album for Verve might be my favorite, the 1958 album Once Upon A Summertime. Now, Dearie is often given a bad rap, mostly because people are turned off by her girlish, cutesy voice. And even on one of her best albums, she’s guilty of playing into this stereotype…

MUSIC CLIP - BLOSSOM DEARIE, "DOOP-DOO-DE-DOOP (A DOODLIN' SONG)"

... that was Cy Coleman’s “The Doodlin’ Song” (in fact, Coleman was also singing on that track). But at the same time, that girlish voice was capable of some serious depth, especially when she was trying to subvert that persona. Take the opening track from the album “Tea For Two.” The song is often considered one of the most banal in the Great American Songbook. But Dearie slows it down and softens it to a whisper, making it intimate, enticing and almost seductive.

Here’s Blossom Dearie with “Tea For Two,” on Afterglow

MUSIC - BLOSSOM DEARIE, "TEA FOR TWO"
MUSIC - BLOSSOM DEARIE, "SURREY WITH THE FRINGE ON THE TOP"

Blossom Dearie with two tracks from the 1958 Verve album Once Upon A Summertime. We just heard “Surrey With The Fringe On The Top,” a Rodgers and Hammerstein song from Oklahoma that Dearie slowed down and made part of her live setlists for decades. Before that, another banal tune that Blossom turned into a slow burner. That was Vincent Youman’s “Tea For Two.”

We’ll have more Blossom Dearie’s Verve years in just a bit in honor of the singer’s 100th birthday this month.

I’m Mark Chilla, and you’re listening to Afterglow

Welcome back to Afterglow, I’m Mark Chilla. We’ve been exploring Blossom Dearie’s work for the Verve record label in the late 1950s and early 1960s this hour. I consider this to be her best work, and some of my favorite work from any singer.

MUSIC CLIP - BLOSSOM DEARIE, "YOU'VE GOT SOMETHING I WANT"

Dearie worked mostly with small jazz ensembles during these years, teaming up with folks like bassist Ray Brown, guitarist Kenny Burrell, and drummer Ed Thigpen. She also performed newer songs by up-and-coming songwriters, like this Bob Haymes song “You’ve Got Something I Want” she recorded in May of 1959.

Her fourth album for Verve was recorded earlier in 1959, and features all songs by the songwriting pair of Betty Comden and Adolph Green. Comden and Green were some of the best lyricists of the second generation of the Great American Songbook, working with composers like Jule Styne and Leonard Bernstein in the 1940s, 50s and 60s to write for both Broadway and Hollywood.

On the album, Dearie is able to capture the duo’s mixture of wit and intimacy—it’s as if these songs were made just for her.

Here’s Blossom Dearie with Comden and Green’s song “Just In Time,” on Afterglow.

MUSIC - BLOSSOM DEARIE, "JUST IN TIME"
MUSIC - BLOSSOM DEARIE, "I LIKE MYSELF"

The tune “I Like Myself” by composer Andre Previn and lyricists Betty Comden and Adolph Green. Before that, we heard “Just In Time,” by Comden, Green, and composer Jule Styne. Both of those songs came from the 1959 album Blossom Dearie Sings Comden and Green.

Blossom Dearie’s next album for Verve took her in a different direction musically. Instead of working with a small jazz ensemble, she teamed up with Russ Garcia’s orchestra to perform some deep cuts from the Broadway stage. Most of the songs on the album are what you’d call “Soubrette” songs, cute comic numbers sung by the sidekick to the leading ingenue. Dearie had a way with a musical punchline, and while she mostly leaves the jazz behind, she ramps up her comic delivery in these performances.

I’ll play two songs from that 1960 album Soubrette Sings Broadway Hit Songs. This is Blossom Dearie with “The Physician, on Afterglow.

MUSIC - BLOSSOM DEARIE, "THE PHYSICIAN"
MUSIC - BLOSSOM DEARIE, "NAPOLEON"

Two songs on the 1960 Blossom Dearie album Soubrette Sings Broadway Hits. We just heard “The Physician” from the 1931 musical Nymph Errant and before that the song "Napoloeon."

Blossom Dearie’s final album for Verve was released in 1961, although it was recorded two years earlier. Verve producer Norman Granz had left his own label by 1960, and despite her consistently high-quality work, the label didn’t have an interest in keeping her without Granz in charge. The album was called My Gentleman Friend, and was mostly in the style of her earlier records like Once Upon A Summertime, mostly jazz standards, sung in her cool, mysterious jazz style, and featured the sidemen Ray Brown, Ed Thigpen, and Kenny Burrell. 

I’ll play a standard from that album now, a song that Dearie makes fresh and honest with her beguiling voice and her always graceful piano accompaniment.

Here’s Blossom Dearie with “Someone To Watch Over Me,” on Afterglow

MUSIC - BLOSSOM DEARIE, "SOMEONE TO WATCH OVER ME"

Blossom Dearie in 1959 with Gershwin’s “Someone To Watch Over Me,” from her final album for Verve Records called My Gentleman Friend, released in 1961.

Dearie would have turned 100 years old on April 28th, 2024.

And thanks for tuning in to this Blossom Dearie edition of Afterglow.

MUSIC CLIP - BLOSSOM DEARIE, "BLOSSOM'S BLUES"