Jackie Paris

Carlo Jackie Paris ( born September 20, 1926 in Nutley, New Jersey, † June 17, 2004 in New York City ) was an American jazz singer and guitarist. He was one of the first bebop singer.

Life and work

Paris comes from an Italian family. Even as a child he performed with song and dance numbers on vaudeville stages. In the early 1940s he began his New York career in the band of Nick jerret. His early models were Eddie Vinson and Ella Fitzgerald. From 1944 to 1946 he did his military service.

Was discovered in Paris by Harry Mills of the Mills Brothers Baby Grand Club in Harlem. After his military service he has performed in the jazz clubs of the 52nd Street in the late 1940s. He took two tours with Charlie Parker, in which also participated Billie Holiday. In 1947 he took - along the lines of the Nat Cole Trio - his first singles for MGM Records on; the first with a version of the Carmichael / Mercer hit song " Skylark ". On his 1949 single for the label National, he was the first to singers the vocal version (Text: Bernie Hanighen ) of the Williams / Monk bebop classic " 'Round Midnight " before. 1949/50, he sang in the orchestra of Lionel Hampton and went with Les Brown's orchestra on tour.

In the early 1950s, it seemed as if Paris would be close to a breakthrough; In 1953 he was named the Down Beat magazine for " best new male vocalist ". For the benefit of more successful show work, he gave up the guitar and began to quilt in his performances. Mid-1950s were published his first long-playing records, but the hoped-for success not put on. Instead, he came over with then- jazz "underground" in contact; In 1952 he recorded two singles with Charles Mingus on at the Debut label recently founded. Then he sang the songs " Make Believe " and " Paris Blue ," which refer in their radicalism on Mingus ' later work ( "Scenes In The City " on A Modern Jazz Symposium of Music and Poetry, 1957). On Changes Two in 1974, the collaboration of Jackie Paris and Charles Mingus should continue again; Paris is to hear it in the composition " Duke Ellington 's Sound Of Love".

In 1953, he sang a ballad in the produced by Bob Thiele Show " Jazz Time USA"; Paris is also heard on record with the Jazz Lab Quintet by Gigi Gryce (1957 ), on the sang a series of text -less, halbimprovisierter scats. In the 1950s, Paris had engagements in American nightclubs. In 1959, he also appeared with the comedian Lenny Bruce. At the request of Peggy Lee's Capitol Records let him sing, but did not engage him; only in 1962 gave him the chance Bob Thiele, the first vocal album for the young label Impulse! Records einzuspielen, The Song Is Paris with a new interpretation of Ellington's "C Jam Blues " as " Duke 's Place ".

Paris was first marriage with the Canadian singer Anne Marie Moss ( 1961-81 ); Together with her ​​, he toured in the 1960s. His second wife died in the early 1990s.

Jackie Paris died as a result of bone cancer.

Appreciation

According to the author Will Friedwald was " Paris " Sound of the most attractive in jazz, his raspy baritone has something of Crosby, though not to use the kind syncope. (...) Paris has spent his career trying to find without success after an audience, and the failure of his search says more about the music industry than it does about his talent. "He is the frustration of Jackie Paris, forever as" underrated " to be called artists, again: "I have made some seven or eight albums, and they are all collectibles ... What the hell did I know?"

Documentary

Published in 2006, Verve Pictures film 'Tis Autumn: The Search for Jackie Paris, directed by Raymond De Felitta.

Discography (selection)

  • Skylark (Brunswick )
  • The Song Is Paris (Impulse, 1962)
  • Lucky To Be Me ( EmArcy, 1988)
  • Nobody Else but Me ( Audiophile )
  • Love Songs ( Phonogram )
  • Charles Mingus: Jazz Workshop - Autobiography In Jazz ( Debut ) republished in The Complete Debut Recordings 1951-1958 ( OJC ) or Debut Rarities, Volume 4 ( OJC, 1952-53 )
  • Charles Mingus: Changes Two ( Atlantic, 1974)
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