Helen Oakley Dance

Helen Margaret Oakley Dance, née Helen Oakley (* February 15, 1913 in Toronto, † May 27, 2001 in Escondido ), was a Canadian jazz journalist, jazz historian and producer.

Life

Dance came from a wealthy family in Toronto and was after attending a concert in London in 1933 Ellington a Jazzenthusiastin. After she wanted to pursue this passion as a jazz singer originally, she moved in 1934 in Chicago for music journalism and wrote for the Herald Tribune and at the same time regularly for Down Beat ( until 1941 ). In Chicago she founded the Chicago Rhythm Club, organized jazz concerts, for example, by Earl Hines and Billie Holiday, and recording sessions for Okeh. On one of their Sunday evening concerts at the Congress Hotel, they brought with the Benny Goodman Orchestra together the colored pianist Teddy Wilson, which was still unusual, as there were still racial barriers for bands. In 1937 she moved to New York City, where she then hosted a very popular jazz parties for the record company Variety / Master of Irving Mills. They also produced Small Group Recordings by Duke Ellington, which often appeared under the name of Ellington's band members like Barney Bigard (eg, his original version of " Caravan" ), Cootie Williams, Rex Stewart and Johnny Hodges. She also worked as a freelance producer, inter alia, with Mildred Bailey, the bands of Bob Crosby and Chick Webb ( with singer Ella Fitzgerald ), with whom she organized many " Battles of Swing". Also the organization of the Carnegie Hall concert by Benny Goodman in 1938, she was involved and in the early 1940s to recordings by Duke Ellington and John Hammond's "From Spirituals to Swing " concerts. As an important figure of the former New York swing scene, she not only wrote for Down Beat, but also for "Jazz Hot ", " Tempo" and "Swing".

During World War II she served - after her brother had fallen with many other Canadians at the " D-day trial landing" in August 1942 in Dieppe - in the U.S. Army and was involved in covert operations of the OSS in North Africa and Italy. After that, she lived for a time in England, where they 1947 the British jazz journalist Stanley Dance married. Even in England both had again started to write for magazines like Melody Maker and Jazz Hot, and their collaboration continued in the following decades, such as the publication of plates of Duke Ellington's estate. With Ellington both were close friends. In 1959 she moved to the USA where they were active in the civil rights movement through a Catholic organization founded by her in the 1960s.

In 1987, her biography of the blues musician T -Bone Walker " Stormy Monday " (Louisiana State University Press, Da Capo ), where she worked since 1971. Correspondence and other archival material stored jazz history she and her husband at Yale University.

With Stanley Dance, they had four children. In 2004, she was inducted into the Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame.