"Jazz" albums by "Pop" Singers

[JSngry]

Freda Payne began as a jazz singer! 

[GA Russell]

3 hours ago, danasgoodstuff said:

I hadn't heard the tires bit, is that substantiated or just rumor?

My recollection is that the story that I read said that someone had tampered with his rear axle.

Wikipedia does not get into the specifics.

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

[JSngry]

And then we have this, from 1979(?):

1981, excuse me. 

[sgcim]

39 minutes ago, JSngry said:

Freda Payne began as a jazz singer! 

Yeah, but no one knew that when she went for her "Band of Gold".

A bunch of the rockers were hip to jazz from the 60s Jesse Colin Young had an apt. across the street from the Vanguard.

When he did "Ride the Wind," he had Victor Feldman playing vibes with him.

Nick Drake played alto sax before he played the guitar. Judee Sill played upright bass with her jazz pianist husband, Bob Harris at clubs in North Hollywood. When they got married in Vegas, they had to play lounges there to afford the trip. Her piano solo on "Enchanted Flying Machines" was worthy of the couples' idol, Ray Charles, who Harris went on the road with for a few years.

[JSngry]

15 minutes ago, sgcim said:

Yeah, but no one knew that when she went for her "Band of Gold".

I got lucky and the first copy of Down Beat that I ever saw had a Freda Payne Blindfold Test. Leonard Feather told all about her background in jazz. 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/403795233396

But also check this out - her debut album was on impulse! and had Phil Woods on it! 

https://www.discogs.com/master/148606-Freda-Payne-After-The-Lights-Go-Down-Low-And-Much-More

More delicious - she covers "Lonely Woman", the Ornette song, and yes, Phil plays. 

I don't know if there are any documents of her stint with Basie, but she did that gig for a bit.

According to people who have worked her show as recently as 10 years ago or so, Freda Payne can seriously deal. 

[sgcim]

4 hours ago, JSngry said:

I got lucky and the first copy of Down Beat that I ever saw had a Freda Payne Blindfold Test. Leonard Feather told all about her background in jazz. 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/403795233396

But also check this out - her debut album was on impulse! and had Phil Woods on it! 

https://www.discogs.com/master/148606-Freda-Payne-After-The-Lights-Go-Down-Low-And-Much-More

More delicious - she covers "Lonely Woman", the Ornette song, and yes, Phil plays. 

I don't know if there are any documents of her stint with Basie, but she did that gig for a bit.

According to people who have worked her show as recently as 10 years ago or so, Freda Payne can seriously deal. 

Wow! I didn't know she was so hardcore. I'm glad she got rewarded with her Band of Gold. She deserved it!

Thanks or the info.

[mhatta]

Tom Wopat's Harold Arlen Songbook comes to mind for this kind of thing.

 

[danasgoodstuff]

I assume you're all familiar with the single if not the whole album. 

 

[Rabshakeh]

Emphatically not a jazz album, but I wondered what the forum members' views, if any, are on Paul McCartney's 'Kisses on the Bottom', his Great American Songbook record. 

I am really not a big Beatles guy, and certainly not a Paul fan, but I found it an interesting record.

He goes full Noel Coward on these well-known American tunes that we typically associate with the cultural rise of the more self-assured American style in popular art, along with jazz itself. The emotional and lyrical content of the tunes is turned on their heads so that they sound like sing-along British parlour songs.

The closest parallels are Mel Torme and Blossom Dearie, although that is overselling Kisses. Unlike them, the delivery and treatment is pop in it's very bones, with not even a residual trace of jazz (despite some serious jazz firepower in the credits).

I find the reciprocity of the treatment interesting. That Edwardian music hall side to the Beatles' music is deployed against these show tunes, but in a way that suggests that they may in fact themselves be the true origin of that side of the Beatles.