Blossom Dearie Dead at 82

[Brian Sheridan]

Blossom Dearie, a delicate pianist, composer, arranger and singer with a helium-high voice who helped pioneer vocalese in New York and Paris in the late 1940s and early 1950s, died on Saturday in Greenwich Village after a long illness. She was 82.

Dearie was a regular at 52d St. clubs and the salon apartment of arranger Gil Evans in the late 1940s. Her earliest vocalese recordings for the Spotlite label in 1948 were arranged by Gerry Mulligan and featured bop singers Dave Lambert and Buddy Stewart. Dearie's first big jukebox hit as a vocalist came in 1952, when she sang the female part on King Pleasure's recording of Moody's Mood for Love, a track that remains definitive today for its hip, carefree feel.


Read more in this tribute to Dearie at:

http://www.jazzwax.com/2009/02/blossom-dearie.html

 

[BinkieBaumont]

Blossom made the trip out here to Australia in 1995, and played at the Hyde park hotel,

rather wonderfull considering her age even at that time. love pro musica antiqua

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3YvedevGio

 

[skyvue]

I always meant to go catch her at Danny's Skylight Room, but by the time I got serious about it, the joint was closed and I'd missed my chance. I don't think she played again (not regularly, anyway), after Danny's was shuttered.

RIP

 

[Macheath]

I don't know much about her, except that she sang a very beautiful and haunting version of Gershwin's Someone to Watch Over Me.

I hope she passed with someone dear watching over her.

 

[BinkieBaumont]

Definative Blossom Dearie

Its rather sad that its only now that blossom as passed over, that the record companies will troll out the "Complete Blossom Dearie"

 

[rmrdaddy]

Quite a shame.

I just heard "Always True to you Darling in my Fashion" last weekend....

 

[Nathan Dodge]

She was a delight! I took a chance and bought her My Gentleman Friend album a few years ago and was impressed with her sophisticated style, witty interpretations of the standards, and her artistic choices in picking little-known compositions. Recommended, I think it's still in print.

I grew up with those Schoolhouse Rock cartoons, but never knew she was one of the voices (along with another great jazz "character", Jack Sheldon). I feel that much hipper for having asssociated her with her jazz work, rather than her widely-known efforts.

 

[BinkieBaumont]

Yesterday here in Australia, on ABC Radio, they played an interview with Blosom when she was over here in 1995 for the Swan River Colony Arts festival

You can listen to it here

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/musicshow/default.htm