Saturday 25 July 2020

Annie Ross born 25 July 1930


Annabelle Allan Short (25 July 1930 – 21 July 2020), known professionally as Annie Ross, was a British-American singer and actress, best known as a member of the jazz vocal trio Lambert, Hendricks & Ross.

Annie Ross was born Annabelle Macauley Allan Short in Mitcham, a town in Surrey, England, into a theatrical family. Her parents, Jack and Mary Short (nee Allen), were a Scottish vaudeville team; she claimed that her mother gave birth to her immediately after finishing a performance at a London music hall.

When she was 3 she was sent to Los Angeles to live with an aunt, the singer and actress Ella Logan. She made her movie debut in 1938 in an “Our Gang” comedy short and graduated to feature films in 1943, playing Judy Garland’s younger sister in “Presenting Lily Mars.”

She later moved frequently — first to New York, where she studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts; then to London, where she took the name Annie Ross and worked as a singer and actress; then to Paris, where she came under the spell of jazz, performing and recording with a number of expatriate American musicians. One of them, the drummer Kenny Clarke, became her companion and the father of her only child, Kenny Clarke Jr., who died in 2018.


                             

Ms. Ross recorded “Twisted” for the Prestige label during a brief return to New York in 1952. It became a minor hit, but she did not stick around long enough to savor its success, instead returning to Europe in 1953 to tour with Lionel Hampton’s band and then settling again in London. She went back to New York to appear on Broadway in the British revue “Cranks,” and in 1957 she joined 
forces with Mr. Hendricks and Mr. Lambert to record the album “Sing a Song of Basie,” on which they sang Mr. Hendricks’s lyrics to some of the Count Basie big band’s most celebrated recordings, using multiple overdubs to make their three voices sound like a dozen. The album was a hit, and the three vocalists decided to make their partnership permanent.

For four years, Lambert, Hendricks and Ross were a worldwide sensation, and Ms. Ross became a model for a new breed of jazz singers who could sing rapid-fire, tongue-twisting words with precision and clarity. But despite the group’s success, she quit in 1962. At the time, her departure was attributed to poor health. In later years she acknowledged that it had been fueled partly by friction with Mr. Hendricks, but mostly by her increasing dependence on heroin.

After Lambert, Hendricks and Ross finished a club date in London in May 1962, Ms. Ross stayed behind. “I kind of knew that if I came back to America I might die,” she said. The group continued with other female singers.Gradually, Ms. Ross straightened out her life.  She married an English actor, Sean Lynch, with whom she briefly ran a London nightclub, Annie’s Room. But by 1975 she had declared bankruptcy, lost her home and divorced Mr. Lynch, who died soon after in a car crash. The work had dried up as well.

With singing jobs scarce, Ms. Ross shifted her focus to acting. From the mid-’70s until she returned to the United States in 1985, she appeared frequently on the London stage, in plays like “A View From the Bridge” as well as in musical productions like “The Threepenny Opera” and “The Pirates of Penzance.” She also became a familiar face on British television. A role in the 1979 movie “Yanks” led to other film parts, including turns as a histrionic villain in “Superman III” (1983), an addled writing student in “Throw Momma From the Train” (1987) and an aging and temperamental jazz singer in Robert Altman’s “Short Cuts” (1993).

“Short Cuts” and its soundtrack album offered Ms. Ross wider exposure as a singer than she had enjoyed since her days with Lambert, Hendricks and Ross. But her singing voice was now harsh and ravaged, in stark contrast to the limber instrument for which she had once been known. She became a United States ciizen in 2001. No longer a virtuoso vocalist, she developed an act that relied primarily on her acting skills. While her contributions to jazz were not forgotten — the National Endowment for the Arts named her a Jazz Master in 2010 — she reinvented herself as an intimate and witty cabaret artist.

Ross received the ASCAP Jazz Wall of Fame award (2009), the National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Masters' Award (2010), and the MAC Award for Lifetime Achievement (2011). She performed regularly at the metropolitan Room until it closed in 2017.

Ross died at her home in New York City on 21 July 2020 from emphysema and heart disease, four days before what would have been her 90th birthday.

(edited mainly from the New York Times)

2 comments:

boppinbob said...

For “Annie Ross – Twisted” go here:

https://www.upload.ee/files/12056488/Annie_Ross_-_Twisted.rar.html

1. THE WAY YOU LOOK TONIGHT
2. I'M BEGINNING TO THINK YOU CARE FOR ME
3. BETWEEN THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP BLUE SEA
4. EVERYTIME
5. TWISTED
6. FARMER'S MARKET
7. THE TIME WAS RIGHT
8. ANNIE'S LAMENT
9. ANNIE'S BLUES
10. THE FISH
11. MAMA (HE TREATS YOUR DAUGHTER MEAN)
12. I WANT YOU TO BE MY BABY
13. ONLY YOU (AND YOU ALONE)
14. CRY ME A RIVER
15. GIPSY IN MY SOUL
16. I LOVE PARIS
17. I DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT YOU
18. THE LADY'S IN LOVE WITH YOU
19. 'T AIN'T WHAT YOU DO
20. DON'T LET THE SUN CATCH YOU CRYING
21. BETWEEN THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP BLUE SEA
22. DON'T WORRY 'BOUT ME
23. I'VE TOLD EVERY LITTLE STAR
24. MANHATTAN
25. PLEASE DON'T TALK ABOUT ME WHEN I'M GONE
26. SKYLARK

Annie Ross was not just known for singing with Lambert, Hendricks & Ross but a talented artist in her own right who has recorded more than a dozen albums. This CD features some of Annie's earlier material "The Time Was Right," Annie's Blues" and the title track "Twisted" which features her reprise of Wardell Gray's solo which has become a vocalese landmark. (Jasmine notes)
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For “Annie Ross: Four Classic Albums Plus (Annie By Candlelight / Gypsy
/ A Gasser / Sings A Song With Mulligan) (2CD) FLAC ” go here:

CD1
https://pixeldrain.com/u/YwPgTDwR

CD2
https://pixeldrain.com/u/3HQVGZh9

SCANS
https://pixeldrain.com/u/v1bQBBij


CD1
1. The Way You Look Tonight from Singin ‘N Swingin’
2. I’m Beginning To Think You Care from Singin ‘N Swingin’
3.Between The Devil And The Deep Blue Sea from Singin ‘N Swingin’
4. Everytime from Singin ‘N Swingin’
5-12: ‘Annie By Candlelight’
5. Gypsy In My Soul
6. I Love Paris
7. I Didn’t Know About You
8. The Lady’s In Love With You
9. ‘Taint What You Do
10. Don’t Let The Sun Catch You Crying
11. Between The Devil And The Deep Blue Sea
12. Don’t Worry ‘bout Me
13. I’ve Told Every Little Star from Nocturne For Vocalist
14. Manhattan from Nocturne For Vocalist
15. Please Don’t Talk About Me When I’m Gone from Nocturne For Vocalist
16. Skylark from Nocturne For Vocalist
17-25: ‘Gypsy’
17. Overture
18. Everything’s Coming Up Roses
19. You’ll Never Get Away
20. Some People
21. All I Need Is A Boy
22. Small World
23. Together
24. Let Me Entertain You
25. Reprise
26. Single - Annie’s Lament

CD2
1-10: ‘A Gasser’
1. Everything I’ve Got
2. Invitation To The Blues
3. I Didn’t Know About You
4. I Don’t Want To Cry Anymore
5. Lucky Day
6. I Was Doing All Right
7. You Took Advantage Of Me
8. You’re Nearer
9. Lucky So And So
10. Nobody’s Baby
11-20: ‘Sings A Song With Mulligan’
11. I Feel Pretty
12. How About You
13. I’ve Grown Accustomed To Your Face
14. This Time The Dream’s On Me
15. Let There Be Love
16. All Of You
17. Give Me The Simple Life
18. This Is Always
19. Between The Devil And The Deep Blue Sea
20. It Don’t Mean A Thing
21. Single - Twisted
22. Single - Farmer’s Market

AVID Jazz here presents four classic Annie Ross albums plus.
“Annie by Candlelight”, “Gypsy”, “A Gasser” and “ Sings a Song with Mulligan” plus selections from “Singin’ ‘N Swingin’ and “Nocturne for Vocalist”. The four featured albums present Annie solo with such legendary musicians as Zoot Sims, Russ Freeman, Gerry Mulligan and Chet Baker from the West Coast cool jazz school and from the UK, The Tony Crombie 4-tet as heard on “Annie By Candlelight” and with the likes of Pete and Conte Candoli, Stan Getz and Jim Hall on their jazz take on the Broadway show “Gypsy”

styles said...

Appropriate and a gas, man, well done.