Glenn Miller & The Modernaires - Elmer's Tune

Victor Feldman and Frank Rosolino: The "Lost" Recordings

© -  Steven A. Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

For about two years in the late 1950s, I had the pleasure of hanging out with pianist/vibist Victor Feldman and trombonist Frank Rosolino who were then regular members of bassist's Howard Rumsey’s Lighthouse Cafe All-Stars in Hermosa Beach, CA.

These were my formative years in Jazz and I always thought of the many nights at I spent at the club listening to set after set of the Lighthouse All-Stars as my “undergraduate education.”

The drummer with the All-Stars at that time was Stan Levey When I mentioned to him something about lessons, he turned me over to Victor saying: “He even knows the name of the rudiments.” [Stan was just being defensive as he was self-taught and not all that technically conversant with “drum speak.” He just played his backside off instead.]

As to Victor's skills as a drummer, I soon found out that before he turned to vibes and piano, Victor had been a World Class drummer [think Buddy Rich - Yes, he was that fast].

The closing time for the club was 2:00 AM, but on weekdays, most of the patrons were gone by midnight. At the witching hour, the musicians sometimes congregated in the back of the club to relax, have a smoke and conduct Jazz 101 with aspiring, young musicians before playing a last set.

Often, Jazz 101 consisted of war stories and one night while I was sitting in the back of the club with Victor and Frank Rosolino, Victor told a heart-breaking tale of the “lost tapes” he had made a few years earlier with a rhythm section of Hank Jones on piano, Bill Crow on bass and Kenny Clark and Joe Morello on drums [they split the two, recording sessions].

Before leaving Woody Herman’s Big Band and settling in with Howard Rumsey’s Lighthouse All-Stars for a three year stint beginning in 1957, Victor had made a prior arrangement to record an album for Keynote Records and set about making arrangements for the date.  Bassist Bill Crow tells the tale of this ill-fated Feldman, Keystone recording session in his book From Birdland to Broadway [New York: Oxford University Press, 1992, pp. 119-120].

“One night [in 1955] a young man sat at the Hickory House bar listening and smiling as we played [the Marian McPartland Trio featuring Bill Crow on bass and Joe Morello on drums]. When our set was finished, he introduced himself as Victor Feldman. The talented English vibraphonist had just arrived in New York, and had come to meet Marian. He said he liked the way Joe and I played together.

‘I’m doing an album for Keynote,’ Victor told us, ‘and I’d like you guys to do it with me. I’ve already sort of promised it to Kenny Clarke, so I’ll have him do the first date and Joe the second. I’ve got Hank Jones on piano.

Both dates went beautifully. Victor had written some attractive tunes, and he and Hank hit it off together right away. We couldn’t have felt more comfortable if we’d been playing together for years. Victor was glad to have the recording finished before he left town to join Woody Herman’s band.

The next time I ran into Vic, he told a sad story. The producer at Keynote had decided to delay releasing the album, hoping Victor would become famous with Woody. But the next Keystone project ran over budget, and when he needed to raise some cash, the producer sold Victor’s master tapes to Teddy Reig at Roost Records. Vic came back to New York, discovered what happened, and called Reig to find out when he planned to release the album.

‘Just as soon as Keystone sends me the tape,’ said Reig.

Vic called Keystone to ask when this would take place, and was told the tape had already been sent. A search of both record companies offices failed to locate the tape, and as far as I know it was never found. It may still be lying in a storeroom somewhere, or it may have been destroyed.

Since Keystone announced the album when we did the date, it was listed in Down Beat in their “Things to Come” column, and that information found its way into the Bruyninckx discography, but now that Vic and Kenny are both gone, that music exists as a lovely resonance in the memories of Joe, Hank and myself.”

Frank and I were horrified. “Some Christmas present,” Frank said, reflectively. He went on to say: “That better not happen with the tapes from the session we just finished.”

The recording session that Frank was referring to occurred on December 22, 1958 and while the outcome was not as irrevocable as was the case with the never-found tapes of Victor’s Keystone tapes, it DID happen that the Rosolino tapes were also, never released, at least, not until almost thirty years later [Frank died in 1978].

In 1987, Fantasy acquired the tapes from the December 22, 1958 Rosolino session and finally released them on LP as Frank Rosolino: Free For All [SP-2161]. The date was also released on CD in 1991 [Specialty Jazz Series OJCCD 1763-2].

Leonard Feather explains the story this way in his insert notes to the CD.

“Surprises of the kind represented by this album are as rare as they are welcome. The appearance of a hitherto undocumented album by Frank Rosolino makes a valuable addition to the discographical annals of an artist whose memory is cherished by admirers around the world.

His career seemed, on the surface, to have been reasonably successful. Born in Detroit in 1926, he came up through the big band ranks, playing with Gene Krupa, Bob Chester, Herbie Fields and Georgie Auld, then leading his own group in Detroit before joining Stan Kenton in 1952.

Two years later, he settled in Southern California and became, for several years, a regular in Howard Rumsey's Lighthouse All Stars in Hermosa Beach. His free-wheeling, extrovert style did not conform to the then prevalent image of West Coast jazz as tightly organized, laid back and somewhat derivative.

Moreover, Rosolino was known from the early days as an incurable comic, whose bop vocal on "Lemon Drop" with the Krupa band marked his first appearance on film. As Benny Carter once commented, "Frank was a fantastic musician, but behind that cut-up personality was a troubled man. He was like Pagliacci.”

Frank made his recording debut as a leader with a 1952 session for the short lived Dee Gee label. There were other dates for Capitol, Bethlehem and Mode, but by the mid-1960s the only available Rosolino album was a Reprise set that featured him mainly as a comedy singer. The existence of the present volume was unknown except to those who had taken part in it — and, particularly, the man who produced it, David Axelrod.

"Frank and I were excited about this album," Axelrod recalls, "because it was going to be the first hard bop album recorded and released on the West Coast. We wanted to get away from that bland, stereotyped West Coast image. We worked for weeks on planning the personnel and the songs. The results were terrific. It was a great disappointment to us both that the record, for reasons we never understood, wasn't released."

Rosolino confirmed this view in a letter he sent to Specialty some nine months after the session. "I feel it's the best album I have ever recorded; everyone who was on the date feels the same. I've played the dub for numerous musicians and they all think it's just great."

Harold Land, whose tenor sax shared the front line with Frank's trombone, was already well established as a proponent of the more vigorous California sound; he had toured with the Max Roach-Clifford Brown Quintet in 1954-5 and went on to lead various combos in addition to working, off and on ever since 1955, in the Gerald Wilson Orchestra.

Victor Feldman, who had arrived from England in 1955 and settled in Los Angeles after touring with Woody Herman, has worked for many years in studios, often playing mainly percussion and vibes, but his jazz reputation (primarily on piano) is a formidable one. Two years after these sides were made he joined Cannonball Adderley; in 1963 he recorded and gigged with Miles Davis.

Stan Levey, one of the foremost bebop drummers of the 1940's, played with everyone from Dizzy and Bird to Herman and Kenton, then joined the Rumsey group at the Lighthouse. By 1972, tired of boring studio jobs, he gave up playing in order to concentrate on his growing success as a commercial photographer.

Leroy Vinnegar, born in Indianapolis, settled in Los Angeles in 1954 and has worked with innumerable groups led by Stan Getz, Shelly Manne, Jimmy Smith, Shorty Rogers, Buddy Collette, and the Crusaders.

Typical of Frank Rosolino's ingenuity is the opening cut; he tackled Love for Sale in 6/4, moving into a fast 4/4 for the bridge. His own solo and Land's establish immediately that this is a tough, no-holds-barred blowing session.

Twilight is a beguilingly pensive example of Victor Feldman's talent as a composer.

There is no improvisation here until the solo by Land, who also plays under Frank's eloquent excursion.

Frank deals with the melody, while Harold offers appropriate fills on Henry Nemo's Don't Take Your Love From Me. Note the easy moderate beat sustained behind Frank's solo, the typically inventive Land outing, and Feldman's evolution from single note lines to chords.

Chrisdee, an original by Stan Levey, was named for his sons Chris and Dee and is a bebop line based on a cycle of fifths, with a somewhat Monkish bridge. After Frank and Harold have adroitly negotiated the changes, there is a series of fours, with Leroy walking a passage and Stan in a couple of brief solo statements.

Stardust is Rosolino throughout, a masterful example of his approach to a well-worn standard into which he breathes new life. The verse is played slowly, the tempo picks up a bit for the chorus, and the beat is later doubled, with Frank's sinuous lines growing busier before he closes it out on the dominant.

Frank composed Free Fall the album's title tune as a funky blues theme that offers 24 bars to Leroy, four choruses (48 bars) to Frank, three to Harold and two to Victor before the theme returns, ending with a suddenness that was typical of the hard bop era.

Frank worked out the routine on There is No Greater Love, an Isham Jones standard that dates back to 1936 and is as much in use as ever at jam sessions a half century after its debut. The unison horns kick it off at a bright pace,- after Harold's and Frank's solos, Victor gets into a single-note bop bag.

Finally, Frank's own Sneakyoso provides the quintet with an ingenious vehicle, its attractive changes providing good opportunities for Frank to work out. Note the fine comping Victor furnishes for Harold Land before taking over for his own solo. The two horns engage in an exchange with Stan Levey before the head returns.

All in all, this is a superior, even superlative example of the genre of music it represents. Frank was right to be so proud of it. Talking to Stan Levey while preparing these notes, I was not surprised when he remarked: "I never heard anyone else quite like Frank. He put into his music much more than he ever achieved out of it. I remember this session well, and I'm happy it's being made available."

Sadly, Frank did not survive to see its release. … [He died under tragic circumstances] in November of 1978 …..

Free for All is a very welcome reminder of an exceptionally gifted artist who left us much too soon.”

Leonard Feather, 1986 (Leonard Feather is the Los Angeles Times jazz critic.)

Who knows Maybe one day, someone will find the tapes of Victor’s 1955 session for Keystone and I can change the title of this piece from “lost” to “found.”

Monty Alexander ‎– Steamin' (Full Album)

I return to the music of pianist Monty Alexander quite often because it makes me feel, in a phrase a dear friend often uses - “happy, joyous and free.” And in the Jazz argot, “Steamin’” may be an excellent description of Jazz once Monty Alexander plays it!

See what you think.

Jazz Drummers: A Reader Volume 1 by Steven A. Cerra

 

This is the 9th in a series of anthologies that I have published since October of 2023. It’s now available exclusively through Amazon.com as a paperback and eBook. Others in the series are volumes on Gerry Mulligan, Bill Evans, Dave Brubeck, Stan Kenton, Shelly Manne and Jazz West Coast Volumes 1-3.

I thought I’d post the Introduction to Jazz Drummers A Reader Volume 1 to give you some idea as to what’s on tap should you decide to purchase this volume. The Table of Contents for this book along with those of the other books in the series can be found in the sidebar of the blog. Just scroll down to see the details for each book.

The royalties from all the books are being shared with the local high school and community college districts to help purchase musical instruments for individual students.

© Introduction Copyright ® Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

There is a widely regarded admonition which counsels that writers should “write about what you know.” In my case, “know” might be better stated as something about which I am somewhat familiar.

And while I may not be anything to write home about as a Jazz drummer [bad pun], I’ve been a student of Jazz drumming since 1958 and manage to do justice to it and not unduly embarrass it.

If as Pops says - “Jazz is who you are” - then it may be safe to say that drummers impart their personalities on the musical groups in which they perform.

For example, try imagining Art Blakey with the Dave Brubeck Quartet. Or conversely, Joe Morello with the Jazz Messengers. How about Buddy Rich with the Modern Jazz Quartet or Connie Kay in the Buddy Rich Killer Force Band. And then there’s Philly Joe Jones in for Sonny Payne with Count Basie’s Band and Sonny joining the “classic” Miles Davis Quintet featuring John Coltrane.

In fairness to Art, his subdued accompanist side can be heard on the trio recordings he made with Monk on Blue Note, his sensitive work Cannonball Adderley’s Somethin’ Else Blue Note LP and his early recorded work with clarinetist Buddy DeFranco.

The sterling accompanist “side” of Buddy Rich is displayed on the sublime Verve trio recordings with tenor saxophonist Lester “Prez” Young and pianist Nat “King Cole, while Philly’s demonstrates his range with his intermittent association with pianist Bill Evans and also as a founding member of the Dameronia Big Band.

Ed Thigpen who during his many years with Oscar Peterson was thought of primarily as a trio drummer and yet, you can check out his explosive side in a big band setting on the 1967 Impulse LP The Oliver Nelson Big Band Live from Los Angeles.

The point is that although we may be accustomed to hearing a certain drummer in a particular setting, to paraphrase Buddy Rich -  a good drummer can play anything [and looks for the opportunity to do so]. To hear this in Buddy’s own words as told to Rick Mattingly  in the January 1986 edition of Modern Drummer:

"Now we’ll talk about drummers. I’m so tired of hearing about specialized drummers. This one is a great trio drummer. This one is a big band drummer. That one is a small band drummer. In 1936 and ’37—again we harp back—when Gene Krupa was with Benny’s band, he played with the Benny Goodman Trio, he played with the Benny Goodman Quartet, he played with the Benny Goodman Sextet, and he played with the big band. He played absolutely correct with the trio, absolutely correct with the small group, and absolutely correct with the big band. He didn’t have special cymbals for the small band. He didn’t have special sticks. He played. A drummer plays what the music calls for, and there’s no such thing on this earth as a big band drummer or a small band drummer. You either play or you don’t play."

The history of Jazz drumming as seen through its major exponents is well-documented in Burt Korall’s two volumes - Drummin Men: The Heartbeat of Jazz and Georges Paczynski’s two volumes - Une Histoire de la Batterie de Jazz. [Unfortunately, Mr. Paczynski’s award-winning work has not been translated into English].

But I have yet to find an anthology of writings that treat the subject of individual Jazz drummers from the perspective of a wide variety of authors. So I decided to step up and to humbly try to fill this omission with this anthology.

The presentation of the articles, interviews and commentaries is somewhat chronological - from earliest to latest - but the work is not intended as a history of Jazz drumming. That being said, I did make an attempt to start at the beginning with Baby Dodds, Zutty Singleton, Sonny Greer, et al. and follow the evolution of Jazz drumming from the approximate starting point of the 1920’s.

These are point-in-time pieces, not career retrospectives. A Modern Drummer interview with Jeff Hamilton which originally featured in the July 1986 and was republished in the November 2018 is not a reflection of what Jeff has been doing since the time of the original interview. And yet, that 1986 snapshot is a definite indication of Jeff’s thoughts about and approach to Jazz drumming at that time.

Drummers are people as well as performers and some of the writings I’ve selected emphasize the human dimension along with the artistic side of Jazz drummers.

One axiom which you might want to keep in mind as you read these pieces is that “Jazz can’t be taught, but it can be learned.”

This truism is especially appropriate in this context as there was no such thing as the “formal” teaching of Jazz drumming during the dixieland swing and bop eras.

Learning how to play Jazz drums was more of a process of observation and emulation. Later, as recordings became more plentiful and available, listening and learning was added to this formula.

For as saxophonist Dave Liebman asserts in “Of all the rhythm section instruments, the drums are the most difficult to learn from books and even records. With drums, you have TO BE THERE … one has to see and feel the music, more so than for other instruments whose techniques could more easily be assimilated by studying available recordings.”  [In Eric Ineke: The Ultimate Sideman published in April/2012 in a paperback folio edition by Pincio Uitgeverij of The Netherlands 

The evolution of drum equipment is another factor in the development of Jazz drumming which in its earliest forms had separate snare drum and bass drum players! The development of the bass drum pedal made it possible for one drummer to play both and this was the beginning of many other refinements to the “sit down drums kit.” The following is from Con Chapman, Kansas City Jazz [2023]

“Another innovation in the jazz rhythm section, although one that is less noted today than the electric guitar because it is further distant from us in time, is the transition from the New Orleans model of two marching drummers—one playing bass drum (with a "clanger" cymbal attached), and one playing snare drum—to a single, seated drummer playing a drum "kit" or "trap set." The term "trap" is generally believed to have derived from the "contraptions" that drummers began to accumulate  —such as wood blocks,cowbells, and cymbals—and attach to their bass drums to produce a greater variety of sounds. Edward "Dee Dee" Chandler popularized the bass drum pedal in the mid-1890s while playing with the John Robichaux Orchestra in New Orleans. "Chandler, with Robichaux's encouragement, constructed a crude foot pedal so he could play a snare drum and a bass drum at the same time," wrote Samuel Charters, which "made it possible to present the music with a softer, more subtle beat than the insistent sound of the bass drum usually added to ... small ensembles."

The following remarks by drummer Jim Keltner’s on the physical dimensions involved in playing drums are another differentiating factor in Jazz drumming:

“Jim: Even physically, the way you’re built has something to do with the way you play. Recently, I was looking at some pictures of Buddy and he’s not a big man, but his arms are big. He has no wrists; the arms just come down to these big mitts. Shelly has the same kind of hand, but Shelly is a big man. I’m kind of a big guy but I have these little tiny wrists and relatively small hands. I know that has got something to do with the way I play. I’m not sure what, but I know it has something to do with it. This guy here [indicating Vinnie] really epitomizes it. You’ve got real long arms, and the way you play, you look like your arms are extra long. They’re like whips.” [L.A. Studio Drummers Roundtable, Part 1 - Jim Keltner, Hal Blaine, Shelly Manne, Craig Krampf, Vinnie Colaiuta - Robyn Flans, January 1984 Modern Drummer].

But however it comes together, the drums have a strong effect on the overall performance of the music as exemplified in pianist Mel Powell's description of Sid Catlett’s short-lived tenure with the Benny Goodman Orchestra in 1941 [from Whitney Balliett, Goodbyes and Other Messages.]:

“Sidney Catlett joined Benny Goodman early in June of 1941 and was fired in October. His place was taken by a mediocre drummer named Ralph Collier. When Goodman was asked many years later why he had done something similar to Toscanini's firing Vladimir Horowitz, he said, "It's always been one of my enigmas—drummers." The band appeared that summer at the Steel Pier, in Atlantic City, at the Hotel Sherman, in Chicago, and at Frank Dailey's Meadowbrook, in Cedar Grove, New Jersey. It broadcast almost every night, and it went into the recording studios in Chicago and New York seven or eight times. From all indications, Catlett, who suddenly found himself in the challenging and auspicious position of being the first black drummer ever hired full time by a white big band, behaved with his customary tact, taste, and brilliance.

Here is what Mel Powell, now a classical composer and professor of music, said of Catlett the other day: "I always thought that this giant of a man had no peer as a percussionist. After all, he was playing on nothing but a set of traps—a snare drum, a couple of tomtoms, a bass drum, and some cymbals. Yet he invariably sounded as if he were playing delicately tuned drums. Where he hit his snare with his stick, how hard he hit it, where and how he hit his cymbals and tom toms—all these things transformed ordinary sounds into pitches that matched and enhanced what he heard around him. His sensitivity and delicacy of ear were extraordinary. So was his time. He'd nail the band into the tempo with such power and gentleness that one night I was absolutely transported by what he was doing. Watching him lift and carry us, I took my hands off the keyboard and missed the beginning of a solo. I don't think I have ever been more awed by a musical performance. Sid's personality reflected his playing. He was lovable and loving. He was gentle. He was

compassionate and concerned. He was also vulnerable. I saw tears in his eyes the night he was told, just after he'd joined the band, that his uniform wasn't ready yet, that he'd have to play in his street clothes, and so—to him—look unfinished. He had a wonderful sense of humor. I have never been able to figure out why Benny fired Sid. All that comes to mind is that Benny was not a follower and neither was Sid. But Benny was the boss."

This work is by no means definitive in any way but is incomplete in every way.

Jazz drummers not included in this premier volume may be included in a future volume, “God willun’ and the creek don’t rise!”

And once again, a word about repetition. Although expressing different opinions or points-of-view, the basic facts of a particular drummer’s career remain the same and are often repeated in the introductions to the articles, interviews and commentaries that comprise the features in this Reader. It is, after all, an anthology and not a narrative.

The Outrageous Frances Faye - Gordon Jack [From the Archives with revisions and additions]

© Copyright ® Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

Gordon Jack is a frequent contributor to the Jazz Journal and a very generous friend in allowing JazzProfiles to re-publish some of his insightful and discerning writings on these pages.

Gordon is the author of Fifties Jazz Talk An Oral Retrospective and he also developed the Gerry Mulligan discography in Raymond Horricks’ book Gerry Mulligan’s Ark.

The following article was published in the February 17 2020 edition of Jazz Journal. 

For more information and subscriptions please visit www.jazzjournal.co.uk

© -Gordon Jack/JazzJournal, copyright protected; all rights reserved; used with the author’s permission.

Frances Faye left school in Brooklyn at 15 and fell into show business when she agreed to be a last minute substitute for a piano player who did not show up to accompany a singer. Thrown together, the two formed Faye's first act and a theatrical agent signed them. In just two months, as part of that duo, Frances was making $200 a week in a Chicago nightclub. Just as quickly, Frances became a solo act, as she recounted in 1978 to John Wilson of The New York Times:

We were playing a big nightclub in Detroit, and the singer said to me, "What would you do if I left you here alone?" I started to cry. Just then the boss came in and said to the singer, "You're fired, but the kid stays." "What am I going to do?" I asked him. "Just play the piano and sing," he told me, "You've got no figure, you're not pretty, but everybody likes you." It just happened right away, like God said, "You're Frances Faye, and this is it."

“Leonard Feather once called Frances Faye, “A consummate night-club performer” and comedian Joe E. Lewis nominated her as the “Queen of the super-clubs”. A jazz-influenced rather than an out and out jazz singer, she regularly performed at the Famous Door, Basin Street East and the Hickory House with an act that both entertained and scandalised audiences during her 50 year career in show-business. She became something of an icon making it clear on stage with sly and witty innuendos that she was gay, often incorporating her current girl-friend’s name into her lyrics. She was in the grand tradition of singers like Mae West and Ethel Merman with an attractive, earthy charm and a throw-away, take it or leave it delivery reminiscent of Louis Prima. A legendary performer, she was definitely one of a kind.

Frances Cohen (she changed her name later) was born in Brownsville, Brooklyn on 4 November 1912. She was part of a large extended family that included her cousin Danny Kaminsky who became better known as Danny Kaye. She learnt to play the piano by ear and boasted that she taught him Minnie The Moocher which he later recorded. Her professional career began in 1927 when she earned $200.00 a week in a Chicago night-club as an accompanist. A little later a Detroit club-owner wanted her to sing as well as play –“You’ve no figure, you’re not pretty but everybody loves you”. That is when she became Frances Faye.

She paid her dues on the New York speakeasy scene as well as larger venues like the Cotton Club and Le Martinique. For most of 1931 she was resident at the Club Calais attracting a loyal following where she apparently, “Pounded the piano so hard it had to be tuned every week”. Love For Sale was already part of her act which the BBC at the time had banned because of its suggestive lyric. She later said, “Prohibition was so exciting. All the gangsters including Al Capone’s mob were my friends and those that lived are still my friends. Guys like Louis Buchalter and Jack “Legs” Diamond came in all the time then they disappeared one by one.” The following year she appeared with Bing Crosby at the Paramount Theatre and for most of the thirties she was a fixture on 52nd. Street. The clubs there were packed nightly with celebrities and newspaper columnists enjoying performances that were broadcast from coast to coast. She did three shows a night at 9 pm, midnight and 3.15 am and became so popular that Walter Winchell called her “The syncopating cyclone”. In 1936 she made one of her very few films – Double Or Nothing – with Martha Raye and her friend Bing Crosby.

In 1941 ”The atomic bombshell of Rhythm” toured South America. The following year she appeared in a musical short or “Soundie” singing I Ain’t Got Nobody and Well All Right a hit song she had co-written for the Andrews Sisters. In the early forties she had two very brief marriages and years later she said, “I think a husband has to be the boss. He can’t be the boss when he’s making less in a year than his wife is making in a week”. In 1943 she played in the Broadway production of Artists & Models with Jane Froman and Jackie Gleason. She had long out-of-town bookings in Baltimore, Chicago and Buffalo and around that time Irving Berlin said, “Frances is one of those rare mortals who has rhythm in her body and soul”. In 1946 she recorded her signature song Drunk With Love for the first time. She recorded it on three occasions over the years and it became a regular part of her stage act. Later on in the forties she retired, “I gave up the whole business for a while. I had enough invested not to worry about where the next dollar was coming from”.

In the early fifties she left the Manhattan club scene and relocated to California where her career was given a new lift when she started recording for Capitol Records. In a 1952 Downbeat article Leonard Feather said, “Frances found she didn’t need records to play the smart spots in Florida, Chicago and Los Angeles that have supported her for many years. But she has found that (Capitol) record fame has opened up a new market for her”. In that same issue an anonymous reviewer felt one of her early Capitol recordings of She Looks and I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate  would probably be banned by some radio censors. That said, they both seem pretty tame today. Just prior to her Capitol contract she performed a number of songs at an audition including The Man I Love but hinting at her sexual orientation she sang “The Man, The Man, THE MAN??? What am I saying that for?”  She also changed her image at this time discarding the ball-gowns and wigs that were her signature style in the forties. Trousers and a rather severe crew-cut were now the order of the day. “When you’re pretty it doesn’t matter how you wear your hair” she joked to her audiences who were shocked at her new and rather dramatic appearance. The witty Milt Bernhart in a reference to her often outrageous behaviour summed her up best, “You wouldn’t call her a raving beauty – just raving!” She herself aptly summed up her philosophy as a performer, “I love to make people happy. As long as they accept me for what I am, it makes me happy too”. 

Around 1955 she switched to Bethlehem and one of her first albums for the label was I’m Wild Again with Russ Garcia’s Four Trombone band which featured her good friend Frank Rosolino along with Maynard Ferguson, Herbie Harper and Tommy Pederson. A highlight is her tender ballad medley which included Little Girl Blue, Where Or When, Embraceable You, I Don’t Know Why and My Funny Valentine all performed with her customary crystal clear diction. The following year Bethlehem released the ambitious Complete Porgy and Bess on a three LP set featuring the Duke Ellington Orchestra, a thirteen piece string section and a huge cast of top studio players from New York and Los Angeles backing Frances Faye, Betty Roche, Mel Torme’ and Johnny Hartman. Frances and Mel sang Bess You Is My Woman Now and Porgy I Hates To Go but according to Torme’s autobiography the project was not entirely successful although it became a cult favourite. In 1956 she and Torme’ appeared on Steve Allen’s TV Show and that year she recorded Relaxin’ With Frances Faye which featured that dilettante of the tenor Allen Eager on Don’t Blame Me, Ain’t Misbehavin’ and My Baby Just Cares For Me. Such a pity that he dropped out of the jazz scene in the late fifties.

By now she could command about $4000 a week performing at the Crescendo and the Interlude In Los Angeles as well as some of the top rooms in Las Vegas usually with Jack Constanzo (Mr. Bongo) who started working with her at this time. Stars like Bob Hope, Donald O’Connor, Mitzi Gaynor, Marilyn Monroe, Judy Garland, Marlene Dietrich and Frank Sinatra all came to see her. Columnist Rex Reed accurately described her act as, “Pure dazzling show-business, part jazz, part comedy all energy and heart. Once she signals her musicians for the downbeat it’s every man for himself”. Hal Blaine one of the top session drummers of the time worked with her and Vido Musso in San Francisco for a while. He thought she was a very hip entertainer but after rehearsing at her palatial mansion in the Hollywood Hills he found that everything, especially the tempos, had changed by opening night. In the late fifties she appeared on a couple of Ed Sullivan TV shows.

In 1958 while working at the Hotel Rivera she had a fall and broke her hip and for the next few years she was unable to walk properly. This did not stop her performing which she did while sitting at the piano and her early sixties Caught In The Act CD finds her in typically uninhibited form on a recording that includes a generous selection of witty ad-libs. She was usually on her best behaviour for studio dates but on these performances taken from her act at The Crescendo and The Thunderbird in Las Vegas she really lets her hair down and throws the kitchen sink at an enthusiastic audience that clearly could not get enough of her. Introduced by the dulcet tones of Gene Norman (Crescendo’s owner) she opens with a super-charged Man I Love taken at a break-neck tempo with copious references to Teri Shepherd. (Teri was a glamorous lady who was her manager and partner for more than 30 years). She dedicates Just In Time to “Angelo, the head waiter who’s been trying to make me since I opened here”. The next number is announced as “A feature for my ex-husband on saxophone – what’s your name again?” Jay Goldbar on tenor immediately goes into a Birks Works routine leading nicely into Faye’s version of Fever. Frances And Her Friends is about the gay couplings of a number of individuals, all done as they say in the best possible taste. (Mark Murphy on his 2001 Lucky To Be Me CD quotes from this song during a tribute he calls Blues For Frances Faye). Before launching into a foot tapping I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate, she asks “Do you think my type will ever come back?”  The entire album is full of gems and a delightful reminder of how she could sell a song, working the room with a larger-than-life personality that might well have influenced Bette Midler. 

For the rest of the sixties and until she retired she maintained a punishing touring schedule regularly performing in Miami, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Las Vegas and Chicago. She broke Peggy Lee’s record run at Basin Street East prompting one reviewer to say, “Frances Faye hit the New York scene last night with the impact of a ten ton truck smashing through a concrete wall”. She occasionally worked with Dick Gregory, Don Rickles and Lenny Bruce and in 1961 she played London’s Talk of the Town. She had bookings in Australia which became an annual destination over the years. In 1969 she was at London’s Playboy Club then the following year she was at the Talk of the Town again. She was no longer recording but she added fresh material to her act from Lennon & McCartney and Burt Bacharach as well as selections from Hair. New songs like Shadow Of Your Smile, That’s Life, Watermelon Man and Going Out Of My Head were also given the Frances Faye treatment.

In 1976 she was at the London Palladium with Johnnie Ray, Billy Daniels and the Ink Spots. The following year she had an extended run at Studio One in Los Angeles which is where Louis Malle caught her act. He thought she was “An extraordinary comedian and singer” so he cast her as a madam in Pretty Baby opposite Susan Sarandon and Brooke Shields. She retired from performing in 1981 and after several years of poor health, the lady Leonard Feather once called “The hippest entertainer in the squarest circles” died in Los Angeles on 8 November 1991.””

The Fabulous Frances Faye Archive is located at the tyler alpern.com URL Unfortunately this is not a secure link so you have to cut & paste this URL into your browser and search from there. 

Selected Discography

I’m Wild Again (Fresh Sound Records FSR 2208CD).

George Gershwin The Complete Porgy and Bess (Definitive DRCD 11271).

Four Classic Albums (Avid Jazz AMSC 117).

Caught In The Act (GNP/Crescendo (GNPD 41).

Frenzy and Swinging All The Way (Fresh Sound Records FSR-CD778)