Karrin Allyson - Ballads (Remembering John Coltrane)

[fasstrack]

I used to find Dianne Reeves generic as well (and she was, frankly) early on, until I began to look at the arena in which she was choosing to work. Lots of "shields" needed, I think, so the veneer of genericism is not necessarily unnecessary or unwise. She ain't crazy, she ain't a diva, she ain't got no cultural manifesto, and she ain't white. Nothing at all wrong with not being/having any of those things, but marketwise, hey...where DOES that fit in, exactly, if you want to make a living? Not making a thing out of it, just sayin', people who make records and headline gigs do so because they've been able to target their niche, and niches are never about "just" music, that's all.

What really turned me around on her was, of all things, that BN remix project where she sang "Down Here On The Ground" over a Grant Green sample, sang the SHIT out of it, dug into it and pulled it ALL the way back out, and then the lightbulb went off, ah, THAT'S the game she's playing. And then it all made sense.

 

Marketwise it evidently fits in very well, since she's a very hot commodity.

BTW, I'm not in love with singers covering jazz instrumentals. Usually the lyrics are lousy, tacked-on-after-the-fact affairs. It's not like a composer and lyricist working together. Things like West Coast Blues ('gig out on the west coast, man out on the east coast' or some such) which I'm sorry to say was covered by the selfsame Ms. Allyson, make me wince.

Edited October 1, 2015 by fasstrack

[JSngry]

Oh, but "Down Here On The Ground" was written as a vocal tune, lyrics by Gail Garnett of all people!

Here's the remix. People who don't like that kind of thing won't like this either, but I really like how she sings it in this context. You put so many singers in a remix context, and they sound scared and/or confused. She sounds to me like she's in it to win it. Yeah, I know, producer's product, but she gave 'em some stuff to work with. Not everybody does.

 

Overall, I'm not really a "fan", but I definitely get her more than I used to.

[fasstrack]

Oh, but "Down Here On The Ground" was written as a vocal tune, lyrics by Gale Garnett of all people!

Here's the remix. People who don't like that kind of thing won't like this either, but I really like how she sings it in this context. You put so many singers in a remix context, and they sound scared and/or confused. She sounds to me like she's in it to win it. Yeah, I know, producer's product, but she gave 'em some stuff to work with. Not everybody does.

 

Overall, I'm not really a "fan", but I definitely get her more than I used to.

In the back of my mind I was thinking of a Tom Harrell album called Wise Children, featuring four singers interpreting some pretty hack-like lyrics to Tom's tunes. Dianne Reeves did a credible and professional job on the song she was assigned (can't remember the name), bringing her considerable talent and chops to bear on a lame lyric.

There are so many examples of lyrics tacked on to jazz instrumentals laying king-size eggs, don't even get me started.

Noted, Down Here on the Ground had lyrics first (although I remember it as a guitar instrumental as the theme song of the movie Cool Hand Luke). 

[danasgoodstuff]

Cigarette holder, which wigs me/Over her shoulder, she digs me

[JSngry]

I knew "Down Here On The Ground" only as an isntrumetnal for a long time before finding out that it had lyrics, never mind lyrics by Gale Garnett...who knew?

I was like that with "Sack Full Of Dreams" too, only knew it from Gene Ammons' epic version for the longest, then heard Donny Hathaway's version, and finally found out about Grady Tate's, which made sense, because that's a Gary McFarland song & Grady Tate recorded it as produced by Gary McFarland. But ti took me years, decades, to find out about that. Why is discovery such a non-linear process, anyway?

Funny thing, I guess, Jug's version is still my favorite, but now, knowing the other vocal versions, I can dig it so much more than when it existed in a vacuum. And on any given minute, I'll turn to Donny's. That cat was...special. Seems trite to say, but, really, what else can you say about Donny Hathaway?

"Bridges of steel and love"....wow. Goofy as hell, but wow, what an image of  a fully reconciled opposite.

[Larry Kart]

Listening for the first time to Allyson's "Wild for You." There's something personal and very musical at work there and on "Ballads" too, though the cute kitty photos of her snub-nosed self make me think a bit of the marketing and perhaps the reality of vintage Sue Raney. But then if you are kind of a cute kitty, at least to the eye...
OTOH, I hear more than that in her singing.

[JSngry]

I prefer my Sue Raney to be Sue Raney. But that's just me.

[Larry Kart]

My Sue Raney is Sue Raney, too. I just meant what I   said -- that the young Raney was depicted/marketed as something of a cute kitten (remember the album cover with her in a bathtub? -- see above) and that at times Allyson seems to have been handled in a similar manner (e.g, sprawled on a bed with her chest on display ---see below). OTOH, based on the fair bit I know of and have heard of Raney and the little I know and have heard of Allyson, I would guess that Raney, given the era she came up in and the eras she's passed through, found herself (as a woman and as a singer) to have been a good bit more at the mercy of the whims of the business and its image-making needs and desires than Allyson has been. In particular, Raney came up at time when it was mistakenly thought that a singer of her gifts, style, and looks could still make it BIG, maybe a la a latter-day Doris Day. Can't imagine that anyone thought of Allyson as being that kind of meal ticket. Diana Krall territory was the hope and plan for her, no? -- though I much prefer Allyson to Krall.

P.S. I see that Krall and Allyson are about the same age, 52 and 53 respectively. Boy, does that make me feel old (though I'm two years younger than Sue Raney).

 

[mjzee]

Allyson doesn't look very happy or comfortable being posed in that way.  Still, I'd rather see that cover than this one, which gives off a Cabaret-type vibe:

Anyway, I think in the milieu she works in (supper clubs and the like), it's expected that a woman be well-dressed and somewhat alluring.  It comes with the job.

[JSngry]

She's a supper-club singer, then, this Ms. Allyson is?

 

 

 

 

[Larry Kart]

There are no more supper clubs.

[Larry Kart]

I like this -- so shoot me:
 

 

[mjzee]

1 hour ago, Larry Kart said:

There are no more supper clubs.

https://www.yelp.com/search?find_desc=Supper+Clubs&find_loc=New+York%2C+NY

[Larry Kart]

8 hours ago, mjzee said:

https://www.yelp.com/search?find_desc=Supper+Clubs&find_loc=New+York%2C+NY

Not like they used to be -- places where would-be decent food is served and would-be major acts perform. When I became a so-called Night Life Critic for the  Chicago Tribune in 1977, such places were still fairly common -- ah, the Coco Loco Supper Club of the Condesa Del Mar -- though they were on the wane even then. I would guess that they still survive to some degree in Vegas, but that's Vegas, where the food/would-be name entertainment combo is mostly a function of packaging convenience -- i.e. the place itself is not in itself so much a destination, as in "Let's go the the Rainbow Room to heard Benny Goodman  or the Chez Paree  to catch Danny Thomas."  In any case, I would doubt that Ms. Allyson could or should be described as a supper club-singer in any literal or figurative sense. 

[JSngry]

 

 

 

[Larry Kart]

56 minutes ago, JSngry said:

 

 

 

Those are the kinds of places I remember. Many strange things I witnessed in those joints.

[JSngry]

 

 

[mjzee]

Another singer I really like is Stacey Kent.  bandsintown.com suggested this list of similar artists, who may indeed also play in supper clubs:

Jim Tomlinson·Jane Monheit·Sara Gazarek·Karrin Allyson·Emilie-Claire Barlow·Robin McKelle·Patricia Barber·Eliane Elias·Roberta Gambarini·Diane Schuur·Dianne Reeves·Ann Hampton Callaway·Dee Dee Bridgewater·Viktoria Tolstoy·Diana Krall·Madeleine Peyroux·Lizz Wright·Rebekka Bakken·Terez Montcalm·Dena DeRose·John Pizzarelli·Lyambiko·Till Brönner·Malia·Lisa Ekdahl

[Larry Kart]

In the name of full disclosure, last night and today I've been checking out tracks on Spotify from a number of Allyson albums and find that she goes in and out of focus for me -- emotionally and musically --  in patterns that I can't yet predict/figure out. Sometimes, as on the two albums that I lucked into right off, "Ballads" and "Wild for You," I hear a real commitment and direct human presence. Elsewhere, she strikes me as rather external, coy, and "presentational," and that I don't need -- not this side of that big supper club in the sky.

[Larry Kart]

A blast from the past, a Chicago Tribune article from 1978 (re-reading it after all those years, I think the first sentence in the second paragraph is fairly clever):

In faint praise

of supper clubs

 

By Larry Kart

Night life critic

 

Supper clubs are an endangered species — the whooping cranes of the night life world — and no one except the most rampant sentimentalist seems to regret their passing. But because there are so few genuine specimens left, the supper club ought to be defined before it goes the way of a half-eaten order of veal parmagiana.

 

Supper clubs are not just nightclubs where food is served, but nightclubs where food must be eaten. During the last show of the evening, customers generally can take in the entertainment for the price of a drink or two and a cover charge, but otherwise a meal has to be ordered — if only an overpriced chicken sandwich.

 

In the true supper club, the entertainment area and the dining room share one space. That rules out the restaurants that have an adjoining show lounge and the hotels that have separate restaurants and nightclubs under the same roof. In those cases, you can choose

between dining and entertainment or combine your pleasures — all without hassles or surcharges.

 

Another characteristic of the supper club is that the entertainment must be sufficiently high in quality — or have enough “name" value — to lure customers on the strength of the entertainment alone. Among the candidates that need not apply are German joints with singing waiters and Greek tavernas where belly dancers fling themselves into the saganaki.

 

By those standards, there are only three Chicago-area supper clubs that deserve the name, all located in the Southwest suburbs — Field's in Oak Lawn, the Sabre Room in Hickory Hills, and the Condesa del Mar in Alsip.

 

But it wasn't always that way. From the end of World War II to the mid-1950s supper clubs flourished in Chicago. There were the fancy hotel showcases like the Empire Room of the Palmer House, the Boulevard Room of the Conrad Hilton, and the Camellia House of the Drake, and independent clubs like the Chez Paree and the late George and Oscar Marienthal’s London House and Mister Kelley’s.

 

In the hotel supper clubs, you were served standard hotel fare, with the prices jacked up to help defray the entertainment costs. Only a or a novice conventioneer would go to one of those spots expecting to enjoy a well-cooked, reasonably priced meal.

The same was true in spades for the Chez Paree. Only the London House and Mister Kelley's were exceptions. And what exceptions they were.

 

Because George Marienthal was a restaurateur first and foremost, both of his clubs offered some of the best food in town. Nightlife habitues who go back that far fondly recall the London House crunch cake, the bountiful shrimp cocktail, and the Super Steak, specially cut for the Marienthals and big enough to satisfy two hearty appetites.

 

People who wanted only a fine meal frequently would dine at the London House or Mister Kelley's and leave hurriedly before the show started to avoid the cover charge. And for those who wanted to eat to the accompaniment of George Shearing or Mort Sahl, the London House or Mister Kelley's was an unbeatable parlay.

 

But the London House and Mister Kelly's were done in by rising entertainment costs and by a touch of mismanagement after the Marienthal brothers sold out. The hotel supper clubs stopped booking name acts for the same reasons, leaving the field to the Southwest suburban trio. While none of these rooms is another London House, there are distinct levels of quality.

 

Relatively modest in size and comfortably laid out so that every seat has a decent view of the stage, Field's offers acceptable food at acceptable prices. Nothing in the menu will elate the gourmet, but there are 15 entrees, ranging from the ubiquitous lobster/filet mignon combo at $13.50 to sandwiches at $3.75, and the portions are large. If you stay for entertain ment, the cover charge is $2 per show when a lounge act like Dave Major and. the Minors is in residence, rising a bit when entertainers like Vic Damone and Phyllis Diller perform.

 

The Sabre Room is a vast, high-ceilinged hall that normally features a Las Vegas-type revue, breaking the pattern once or twice a year to bring in the likes of Tony Bennett or, on one occasion, the double bill of Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin. For such extravaganzas, a flat charge of $25 up to $100 covers both dinner and the show, entitling you to a mass-produced, no-choice-of-entree meal.

 

But even that is better than the situation that prevails when the Condesa del Mar books Wayne Newton or Englebert Humperdinck in its 5,000-seat Columbian Room, which is nothing more than four large banquet halls strung together, Customers sit elbow-to-elbow at long tables, the food evokes memories of an Army mess hall (again there is no choice of entree), and from the back of the room the performer can be seen only with the aid of binoculars.

 

Things aren't that bad at the Condesa s Coco Loco Supper Club, where  the likes of Johnny Rivers appears, but the menu is limited, and the food is over-priced and mediocre, And the way the room is set up — with the stage at one end of a long, narrow space — ensures that too many seats are too far from the action.
 

So, with the possible exception of Field's, a trip to one of the surviving supper clubs is worthwhile only if the featured act is on your must-see list. And if you do go, don't forget the Alka Seltzer.

(P.S. Several downtown Chicago hotels tried to revive the classic supper club setup in the 1980s, but those attempts were short-lived.)

Below: A Coco Loco matchbook and a photo of the Sabre Room.

[Dmitry]

 

On 3/31/2017 at 6:35 PM, Larry Kart said:

 

This cover does nothing for me. Might as well be a cover photo for osteoporosis pills. Karriva....ask your doctor.

Edited April 3, 2017 by Dmitry

[JSngry]

[Larry Kart]

1 hour ago, Dmitry said:

 

This cover does nothing for me. Might as well be a cover photo for osteoporosis pills. Karriva....ask your doctor.

Does nothing for me, either -- but the folks at Concord clearly thought it would do something.

58 minutes ago, JSngry said:

And just who, in general, would be appearing there?

[JSngry]

Karryn Allyson?

Working for cheese, maybe. The calcium is good for the osteoporosis, right?

Besides, if it's December, it's Duke, right? Isn't that the place?

815 West Wolf River Ave. New London, WI 920-982-7960

http://www.atthewaters.com/

Rumor At The Waters

Check Your Easter Basket!

Rumor is Lee Birchfield Might Be Here In May

 

[Dmitry]

I went to The Supper Club about 20 years ago. That was the actual name of the establishment on Upper East Side of Manhattan. It was probably a real supper club some time back. There was a stage, a bunch of tables, and a dance floor. Don't remember the entertainment, but bourlesque was definitely not part of it when i was there...for voe. 

It was, however, a classy joint. How do I know? I saw Robin Leach there , with a very young, very tactile lady. 

Edited April 3, 2017 by Dmitry