Austin Lindy Hop
|
Austin Lindy Hop
|
|
|
Betty Roche: Take the "A" Train (Bethelehem 1956)
Recorded in 1956, this album features one of the greatest but under-appreciated female Jazz vocalists. This album has been labeled Betty Roche's definitive session, and with good reason. It features great renditions of several core, Swing standards that are great for dancing: including the title track, "In a Mellow Tone," "Route 66" (nice moderately-tempoed version), and September In the Rain. There are eight, solid Lindy Hop songs on this album, and then comes the 5 solid, slow Blues Ballad numbers. Including slow dances, there is not an undanceable song on this album.
Roche's personality shines through her vocal phrasing and tone that hits the happy medium between following the staid melodies of these standards and just scatting randomly without purpose. Although this might sound strange, you can really tell that a person is singing on this album, as opposed to just another generic singer filling the void of the melody. She does not just sing a pre-fab melody, she tells the story of each song with an honesty and straight-forwardness that compels the listener to pay attention as if someone is speaking to them: much like Carmen McRae, Anita O'Day (before heroin became her friend) even Ella Fitzgerald.
Betty Roche rose to nominal fame by replacing Ivie Anderson as the female singer for Duke Ellington's Big Band in 1942. She met Ellington in Chicago while on tour with her first band, the Savoy Sultans, and after cutting her teeth in gigs with Lester Young, Hot Lips Page, and others. Roche brought a rich, bluesy element to Ellington's music that the previous vocalists lacked. Unfortunately, Ellington hired Betty right at the start of the 1942 recording ban that arose because the music industry did not want radio stations to play their music for "free" (sound familiar? As if radio ever harmed the music industry...; indeed, the music industry would be nowhere without radio. But that's another topic...). As a result, her golden opportunity did not produce much fame or popular recognition.
After two years with Ellington, Betty spent a year with Earl Hines' band, then returned to Atlantic City into obscurity playing drums as well as singing. In 1952, a couple of reunion concerts with Duke Ellington developed into another two-year stint with Ellington before she struck out on her own, again, ultimately to record this album. After this album she would record two more records (available in the Original Jazz Classics series) over the next few years and then unfortunately disappear back into obscurity.
|
|
