My Wife The Blues Singer Beverly Jenkins - Gordon Jenkins

 

Rain Is Such A Lonesome Sound

Gordon Jenkins Presents 

My Wife The Blues Singer

Beverly Jenkins

Produced by Gordon Jenkins

Cover and Liner Photos: Howard Moorehead

Cover Design: Flynn/Viceroy

Liner Design: Joe Lebow

Impulse! STEREO AS-44

Recorded March 7, 1963

You Don't Know My Mind

The Blues Ain't Nothin' But A Woman Crying' For Her Man

Please, Mister Miller

Freight Train Blues

Western Union Man

Rain Is Such A Lonesome Sound

Eddie Miller - Tenor Sax

Matty Matlock - Clarinet

Al Hendrickson - Guitar

Ray Sherman - Piano

Moe Schneider - Trombone

Nick Fatool - Drums

Walt Yoder - Bass

Recorded May 3, 1963

Daylight Savings Blues

Big Four Blues

It's A Low Down Dirty Shame

My Last Goodbye To You

Eddie Miller - Tenor Sax

Matty Matlock - Clarinet

Al Hendrickson - Guitar

Ray Sherman - Piano

Moe Sperling - Drums

Morty Corb - Bass

From the inside cover: About The Blues Singer

Beverly Jenkins (born Mahr) is originally from Bristol, Oklahoma; an area that produced blues singers Lee Wiley, Kay Starr and Marilyn Moore; as well as many make jazz stars.

She studied piano at an early age, played viola in her high school orchestra, and was the ope organist in her local church. During her early years at home she was fascinated by the spirituals and shouts emanating from Negro rival meeting in Bristol – this is the identical influence acknowledge by Teas-born Jack Teagarden, the great blues trombonist and vocalist.

While attending Oklahoma University, Miss Mahr organized a singing too and appeared regularly on radio station KBOO in Tulsa. This success led to the organization of another group known as Jan, Jude, and Jerry; and this time the three girls hightailed it straight to New York City without any advance warning. Their bravado and reckless decision paid off – they obtained a job singing at WMCA on the day of their arrival. and it wasn't long before they were on Broadway in the last Earl Carroll Sketchbook, a musical revue.

The popular singing Sooners from Oklahoma were asked to appear on the Columbia Broadcasting Corporation's noted Saturday Night Swing Session, a network radio experiment with jazz that lasted over two years. The regulars on this show – the late trumpeter Bunny Berigan, trombonist Jerry Colonna, and drummer Johnny Williams – were so taken with Beverly's blues singing that she began to do solo work.

The young singer, now firmly established in radio, went on to become a member of the Blue Flames, a vocal group on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation network; and a short time later she joined Kay Thompson's singing group and worked with them on both the Lucky Strike and Chesterfield shows. When she moved on to the Phillip Morris show she became a full-time soloist with orchestras conducted by Russ Morgan, Johnny Green and Ray Bloch.

Miss Mahr moved to California in the middle forties and became the "Miss" of Six Hits and a Miss. With this vocal group she sang on the Frank Sinatra and later the Dick Haymes network radio shows.

On the Haymes show she met and married the musical director, Gordon Jenkins, who was the composer of such well known songs as P.S. I Love You, When A Woman Loves A Man, Goodbye (the theme song used by Benny Goodman's first swing band), Blue Prelude (lyrics), You Have Taken My Heart, and many others.

One of the best-known and most popular of Jenkins' oppositions is the lengthy descriptive score, Manhattan Tower, originally recored in 1946 with Beverly Jenkins singing the vocal on the song Now York's My Home. When the work was recorded a decade later, Beverly sang the entire female role.

On another major Jenkins record album, Seven Dreams, Beverly sand the blues about New Orleans in Crescent City Blues.

Although both Gordon and Beverly Jenkins have had outstanding careers in the so-called "commercial music" field, this current album, My Wife The Blues Singer, reveals that have a deep love for the most basic of all jazz forms, the blues. They have one of the largest collections of blues records in the world in their Malibu, California, home.

There are no written arrangements on this set. Jenkins, who was on hand at the date as sort of overseer worked with the musicians in sketching out "head" arrangements. It was the true jazz man approach of depending on the creative impulses of the moment – the idea was to sustain the spontaneity of the play-it-as-you-feel-it spirit.

After the session Beverly said, "IU'd forgotten how much fun it is to sing the blues." Likewise, as indicated by the results, the star instrumentalist accompanying her also had a ball.