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The Spokane Jazz Orchestra will present its final concert of the 2004- 2005 concert season on Saturday, May 7 at 8 PM in the Metropolitan Theater in downtown Spokane. The concert will feature New York city jazz vocalist Daryl Sherman singing the many hit songs of 1930's and 1940's jazz sensation Mildred Bailey, who was born and raised in the small rural town of Tekoa, Washington and lived for a few years in Spokane. The Spokane Jazz Orchestra and Daryl Sherman will not only be performing the music of Mildred Bailey, but they will be playing Mildred's original arrangements from the Red Norvo Collection which is housed in the Yale University Music Library.
According to Spokane Jazz Orchestra Music Director Dan Keberle, "although the SJO has done a number of historically authentic and significant performances such as our many concerts under the direction of Maestro Gunther Schuller, this concert will certainly be a very unique and almost rare event due to the fact that the because of her early death, the great Mildred Bailey has almost become forgotten. For us to also perform her music in her home town of Tekoa and in a sense to 'bring her home', makes this concert a very special occurrence for all of Eastern Washington!"
Mildred Rinker Bailey was a well known jazz singer during the swing era of the 1930's and 1940's. In fact, in 1945 and 1946 Esquire Magazine reader polls Mildred Bailey was voted as the top female jazz vocalist, AHEAD of jazz luminaries such as Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald!
Mildred (also the sister of Al Rinker who was one of Bing Crosby's partners in his early vocal trio The Rhythm Boys) was widely known as a performer, recording star, and associate of many jazz musicians in the swing era. Her early career was in the Northwest and California where she was soon signed by the Paul Whiteman Band. This led to her regular billing as the first female singer to perform with a Jazz Big Band. When Bing Crosby departed Spokane in 1925 for Los Angeles with Mildred's little brother Al, they were greeted in Los Angeles by Mildred who was residing there at the time. She helped them secure an audition with the vaudeville act Fanchon and Marco.
While in the Whiteman organization she met Red Norvo, the great xylophone player who developed his early career in the Chicago area. After they were married he developed his own band with which Mildred sang and recorded with regularly. Mildred also performed with many other bands and combos during her career as well as broadcasting her own radio show. A Wall Street Journal account by John McDonough (July 17, 2001) which was written after the release of "The Complete Columbia Recordings of Mildred Bailey" (Mosaic Records 203 327 7111) points out that Mildred made over 200 recordings and for a decade was widely heard on the radio. A New York Times article by Francis Davis (July 15, 2001) says that Bailey was so well known that her jazz fans had two nicknames for her: The Rockin' Chair Lady in honor of her 1932 hit of this Hoagy Carmichael classic, and Mr. and Mrs. Swing because of her marriage to Norvo.
After the war her marriage broke up, the recordings stopped and she died in 1951 due to complications from diabetes, too soon for a transforming jazz personality who might have salvaged her fame had she continued to sing and develop her career in the manner of Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughn and Frank Sinatra.
Mildred was the daughter of Charles and Josephine Lee Rinker and was born in February 16, 1900. Her mother was one-quarter Coeur d'Alene Indian. Mildred's early school years were in Tekoa at Mt. St. Joseph's Academy, a catholic school which was operated by the Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia. Music instruction was a key part of the studies at St. Joseph's and a big influence on Josephine Rinker and her children. The family moved from Tekoa to Spokane in 1912 and in 1917 Mildred moved to Seattle after the death of her mother and began her career as a song demonstrator at Woolworth's Department Store.
Daryl Sherman was described in the McDonough Wall Street Journal account as a "smart New York singer" who is the "main disciple" of Mildred Bailey. Sherman with a combo in 1996 recorded "Celebrating Mildred Bailey and Red Norvo" on the Audiophile label with John Cocuzzi performing the vibraphone renditions of Norvo. Gary Giddins of the Village Voice credited Sherman for her Bailey performance at the Algonquin Hotel in New York. "No one has done more than Sherman to keep the disarmingly light, ardently swinging sound of Mildred Bailey alive".
Sherman's work with the Bailey performances was also recognized by Dan Morgenstern, director of the Institute of Jazz studies at Rutgers University in a July 29, 2001, letter to the New York Times. Morgenstern's letter of response to Frances Davis' article noted Sherman should be credited for her performances which keep Mildred Bailey from being nearly forgotten.
According to The New Yorker, singer and pianist Daryl Sherman "has yet to meet a standard whose charms she couldn't extract...and manages to find contemporary resonance in everything." A sparkling presence and mainstay of Manhattan nightlife, she regularly performs on Cole Porter's Steinway at the Waldorf Astoria and has been lauded for appearances at the Algonquin's Famous Oak Room. A recent European tour included a dazzling third return engagement at London's Pizza On The Park, and concerts in Wales, Leeds and Scotland. She also made a stunning debut in Berlin hailed by Jazz Radio 101.9 "a magical night." Equally at home in the worlds of jazz and cabaret, Daryl Sherman's many recordings have received high critical praise and airplay internationally. Her CD, Jubilee (Arbors) with Dave McKenna received four stars in Downbeat and was cited one of the year's best (2000). And with her new tribute to Richard Rodgers, A Hundred Million Miracles (Arbors) "Sherman proves that she can more than hold her own in the company of musicians as weighty as Ruby Braff and tenor saxman Houston Person." - London Times.
At the age of five, Daryl began to pick out tunes at the piano and sing along when her dad, a popular bandleader in her native Woonsocket, R.I. brought out his trombone to jam with friends. Soon Sammy Sherman was featuring his daughter on gigs and by her teens she was already a seasoned pro. In later years the roles reversed with Daryl's annual home-coming concerts at local jazz mecca Chan's. Sammy Sherman's unique trombone, fiddle and repartee were integral and eagerly awaited portions of the show. (A CD featuring father, daughter and all-star backing from those sessions will be available soon on Arbors.) When Daryl first headed for New York after college, she sat in with home-town idol, Dave McKenna, then a regular at Michael's Pub. That led to other jams with such notables as Red Norvo and Milt Hinton. Another legendary bassist, George Duvivier and singer Sylvia Syms also had great influence on her development. When Artie Shaw formed a new band after his retirement, Daryl Sherman was his singer of choice. Other big bands with which she's appeared include Germany's WDR Jazz Orchestra, recreations of the Paul Whiteman Band (cast in the Mildred Bailey role), the American Jazz Orchestra, and most recently with Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra.
The 'Mildred Bailey Comes Home' concert will be repeated the following afternoon, Sunday, May 8, in the newly restored Empire Theater in Tekoa, Washington.
The Empire Theater in Tekoa is a former small town movie theater which went out of business in the 1950's. Although out of commercial use for decades, the art deco theater building remained standing and played a part in annual Slippery Gulch celebrations in Tekoa. Over the last four years as part of an economic development program in Tekoa, the theater has been restored. The theater now provides economic development, heritage tourism and cultural opportunities for the residents of Whitman County and surrounding areas through offering performing arts, visual arts, film, musical and vocal performances, art education, lectures and other creative uses desired by the community and that meet the artistic goals of the Tekoa Empire Theater Board.
Tickets for the May 7th, 8 PM performance at the Met Theater in Spokane are available at all Tickets West outlets and at ticketswest.com. Tickets for the May 8th, 3 PM matinee performance at the Empire Theater in Tekoa are available by calling 509-284-5000.
A free pre-concert lecture by journalist and historian Jim Price will begin at 7:15 PM at the Met Theater on May 7th.
For further information contact:
Dan Keberle, Music Director, Spokane Jazz Orchestra, 509-777-4582,
dkeberle@whitworth.edu
Daryl Sherman, 212-838-6335, daryl1@darylsherman.com
Mary Smith, Tekoa Empire Theater, 509-284-2078,
larismith2@earthlink.net
Jim Price, Spokane journalist and historian, 509-624-1957,
zinlovers@msn.com
Jerry Jones, Editor Whitman County Gazette, 509-397-4333,
jjones@stjohncable.com