Teri
Thornton, born Shirley Enid Avery (September 1, 1934, Detroit, Michigan - May
2, 2000, Englewood, New Jersey) was an American jazz singer.
Ms.
Thornton had a husky, keening voice with a musely vibrato; she was a vibrant
performer with a caustic sense of humour,
and she was particularly gifted at coaxing harmonic complexity and emotion out
of the blues.
singer who was the host of a local radio
show, encouraged her to study classical music. Thornton began her singing
career in 1956 with an engagement at Cleveland's Ebony Club before going on
tour and playing and recording in Chicago. Her debut recording session in the
winter of 1960/1 found her teamed with several notable jazz musicians including
Clark Terry, Britt Woodman, Earle Warren, Seldon Powell, Wynton Kelly, Freddie
Green, Sam Jones, Jimmy Cobb, and Sam Herman.
She
took part in a television program celebrating Duke Ellington's 40th anniversary
in music. It featured Ellington and Ella Fitzgerald who requested that Thornton
join them in singing several Ellington songs accompanied by Billy Strayhorn at
the piano. Ella Fitzgerald told Down Beat magazine that Ms. Thornton was her favourite
singer.
After
releasing two more albums, including 1963's "Open Highway" on Columbia
(Tony Bennett wrote the liner notes for this album: "Teri sings with life,
feeling, intensity, intelligence, and taste". "She's the first singer
in years who doesn't have any gimmicks, any tricks. Instead, she's endowed with
perfect pitch, a three-octave range, solid training, and years of invaluable
experience. All this has made her create here a great album.").
She
had a 1963 hit with "Somewhere In The Night", the theme from a
popular television show, The Naked City. Her popularity opened doors for her
but an opportunity to tour Australia as an accompanying artist to Frank Sinatra
was mishandled and lost. Her early success was still further and more seriously
damaged when she started to lose an ongoing struggle with alcohol addiction.
Apart from damaging her career, this also blighted her personal life and she
went through three divorces, a long and arduous spell outside music, during
which she drove a cab for a while, and a term of imprisonment.
Here's Either Way I Lose from 1964
Over
the following years her health steadily deteriorated and eventually she was
diagnosed as having cancer of the bladder. She survived this after a three-year
struggle and in the late 90s was living in a retirement home for artists. She
still hoped to continue with her singing career but the odds were clearly
stacked against her. This was when her manager arranged a recording session
with Verve Records, her first for more than 30 years, and also entered her in
the prestigious Thelonious Monk Institute's Jazz Vocal Competition. Teri
Thornton was once called by the saxophonist Cannonball Adderley "the
greatest voice since Ella Fitzgerald".
The
recently amended competition rules meant that an artist of her maturity was no
longer barred but nevertheless it came as a great, and very welcome, surprise,
when the judges (Dee Dee Bridgewater, Nnenna Freelon, Diana Krall, Dianne
Reeves, Joe Williams) announced Thornton as the winner. She received a $20,000
prize, rave reviews, a nightclub engagement, another at the JVC Jazz Festival
in New York. The 1999 release of I'll Be Easy To Find, which includes a track
from the 1998 Monk Competition, confirmed not only a musical re-awakening but
also a triumph of a remarkable spirit.
A
few months later Thornton was dead, finally losing her battle with cancer.
(info various, mainly gracenote.com)
1 comment:
For Teri Thornton - Devil May Care go here:
http://www39.zippyshare.com/v/10508409/file.html
1."Lullaby of the Leaves" (Bernice Petkere, Joe Young) - 2:48
2."Devil May Care" (Bob Dorough) - 2:47
3."Detour Ahead" (Lou Carter, Herb Ellis, Johnny Frigo) - 3:10
4."The Song Is You" (Oscar Hammerstein II, Jerome Kern) - 2:33
5."My Old Flame" (Sam Coslow, Arthur Johnston) - 3:29
6."What's Your Story, Morning Glory?" (Jack Lawrence, Paul Francis Webster, Mary Lou Williams) - 3:47
7."Dancing in the Dark" (Howard Dietz, Arthur Schwartz) - 2:31
8."Left Alone" (Billie Holiday, Mal Waldron) - 3:27
9."Blue Champagne" (Jim Eaton, Frank L. Ryerson, Grady Watts) - 3:11
10."I Feel a Song Coming On" (Dorothy Fields, Jimmy McHugh, George Oppenheimer) - 2:42
11."What's New?" (Johnny Burke, Bob Haggart) - 4:11
12."Blue Skies" (Irving Berlin) - 2:33
Devil May Care (also rereleased as Lullaby of the Leaves) is the debut album by American jazz vocalist Teri Thornton featuring tracks recorded in late 1960 and early 1961 for the Riverside label
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