Both Tony Bennett and Rosemary Clooney were proud exemplars of the saloon singing tradition. Even when they worked with masters of jazz improvisation, they stuck to the melody as written and sold the lyrics with deep sensitivity. Cleo Laine often veered several octaves away from the melody in her heyday, but she was equally exciting with just a piano and a set of good lyrics.
- I write my gratitude for Tony Bennett's album with Bill Evans (12/2017) after I review Bennett's book of gratitude for his mentors.
- I recap Rosemary Clooney's interview on Fresh Air (12/2019), and have some comments about her one-record collaboration with Billy Strayhorn and the Ellington Orchestra.
- I respond to Cleo Laine's memoir (05/2009) with footnotes for all the pages where she impacted my life.
- Valentine's Day 2022 had me writing about several artists at one time: John Pizzarelli and Jessie Molaskey, Tony Bennett, Bobby Short, Barbara Cook, Peggy Lee, Johnny Hartman with John Coltrane, and up-and-coming pianist Joe Alterman
Some jazz singers sell their lyrics from the piano keyboard. Carmen McRae didn't record a lot on piano, but her fearless vocal improvisations are captured in many recordings. Accompanying himself on piano, Bobby Short was my entree to saloon singing and the Great American Song Book. I very much wanted to live his life.
- In Carmen McRae: Beyond Perfection (07/2008), I focus on 30 seconds of one recording where what goes wrong shows us what's wonderful about her.
- I laud my favorite Bobby Short album, which may also be my favorite album: Bobby Short Sings Coleman and Leigh in My Personal Property (01/2018)
- In Atlanta, I've seen two young men who play wicked piano and sing witty lyrics with humor and charm: Jamie MCullum (03/2010) and Tony DeSare (12/2012)
The teacher who made me appreciate this kind of singing was my high school choral director Frank Boggs, recording artist for the gospel label Word Records. He put me onto Bobby Short, Cleo Laine, Gershwin, Rodgers, Porter, Sondheim, and Jesus. During a concert, he lifted his hands from the grand piano to sing a hymn a cappella, a seminal moment for my life. Read Remembering Frank Boggs (04/2021) with links to many more specific articles.
For my generation, watching Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz was an annual event as big as Christmas or Halloween. My teacher Frank Boggs helped me to appreciate how she seems to make up the lyrics spontaneously. Broadway diva and later saloon singer Barbara Cook writes in her memoir about learning from Judy in person.
- Judy Garland at the End of the Rainbow (06/2014) reviews a convincing performance of a stage play about Judy's last singing engagement.
- I write about Barbara Cook's Memoir (07/2016), adding some of what I learned from her recordings.
- Everything I know and care about musical theatre is linked to my Stephen Sondheim page.
Stretching the "folk singer" category past its breaking point, Joni Mitchell tells stories on herself and others in lyrics poetic and witty, music with jazzy colors, and vocals that bend melody and rhythm to fit the drama of the moment. Her friend Cass Elliott's solo career was mired in pop pap until she came out as a saloon singer in the year she died.
Glen Campbell's recording of Jimmy Webb's "Wichita Lineman" is musically gorgeous and dramatically convincing, as are so many other songs I overlooked before I heard his last two albums, recorded in the early stages of Alzheimer's. With just a piano and strings, Roberta Flack gave the slowest, sexiest performances I ever heard on the radio ("The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" and "Jesse").
- Read about Joni Mitchell's Blue in Lots of Laughs (07/2020) and about Rediscovering Joni Mitchell (07/2017). I respond to a book about Joni and two other singer-songwriters whose last names would be superfluous: Carole, Joni, and Carly in Context (07/2017)
- Roberta Flack (07/2019)
- Cass Elliott's Voice (08/2019)
- Missing Glen Campbell (08/2017)
Melissa Manchester could fit in almost any category on this page. Known mainly for pop hits of the 70s and 80s ("Midnight Blue," "Don't Cry Out Loud," "You Should Hear How She Talks About You"), she's a proficient pianist, scat-singing vocalist with powerful voice, composer-lyricist for pop songs and also for stage and screen, and an admirer of Judy, Ella, Joni, Barbra, and others. See my appreciation of Melissa Manchester in Home to Herself (04/2015)
I've also written about some of the composers and lyricists whose work I learned largely through these singers:
- Tony, Rosemary, and Cleo all performed with the Ellington orchestra. I've written some good pieces about Ellington and his collaborator Billy Strayhorn, too: Duke Ellington Can't Sleep (response to Terry Teachout's bio, 06/2014), Billy Strayhorn in the Mantle of Duke (response to Hajdu's bio, 07/2008), and Duke Ellington Tells What Makes Creative People Happy (06/2006).
- Rodgers and Hammerstein examines two moments from scripts by Sondheim's mentor.
- Cole Porter
- Frank Loesser
- Sammy Cahn
- Betty Comden and Adolph Green
- Thelonius Monk
- When jazz pianist Marian McPartland took our requests at a concert, she warned, "I won't play 'Melancholy Baby' or anything by Andrew Lloyd Webber." Why not, and why that's a bit unfair, is covered in my review of Andrew Lloyd Webber's memoir.
- Valentine's Day 2022 had me writing about songs by Hoagy Carmichael, Rodgers and Hart, and Kern with Hammerstein.
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