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IN PURSUIT OF A MELODY
by Joan Cartwright
Get the whole story of
how WOMEN IN JAZZ brought jazz
music to the world.
Cartwright's book
chronicles the lives of
several women who were notable
singers and instrumentalists
in America and around the
world.
*
* * * *
Cynthia
Strachan Saunders
Performance/Presentation
Schedule
African
Heritage Day
Thursday,
February 23, 2007
Time: 7 p.m.
New
Mount Olive Baptist Church
400 Northwest 9th Avenue
Fort Lauderdale, FL 33311
954-463-5126
The
City of West Park
1st Annual Goombay
Saturday,
February 24, 2007
Time: 9-5 p.m.
Mary
Saunders Park
4750
SW 21 Street
West
Park, Fl 33023
Mrs.
Kendricks
954-989-8673
Commissioner Mack
954-8894156
Miami
Mix 2007 Concert
Sunday, February 25,
2007
Teatro
Manuel Artime
901
SW 1st Street
Miami,
FL
Roberto
Lazano
305-567-3402/551-0109
www.artsontheway.org
Celebrating
Women's Month
March
21 2007
Carver
Ranches Library
4735
SW 18 Street
West
Park, FL 33023
954-985-1945
Pan
African Book Festival, Living
Histories
April
21, 2007
African
American Research Library and
Cultural Center
2650
Sistrunk Blvd.
Ft.
Lauderdale, FL 33311
954-625-2800
Mother's
Day Celebration
Sunday,
May 13, 2007
The
Chef's Table
St.
Thomas, US Virgin Island
Aikeem
Harris
340-776-6120
Gloria Lynne and her Quintet with
Greg Skaff, John DiMartino, Leon Dorsey, and Vincent Ector
Sing
Into Spring Festival
Wed-Sun Mar 21-25, 2007
Dizzy's Club
Coca-Cola
33 West 60th St., Fl. 11
New York, NY 10023
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Dear
Subscriber,
This
is the second issue of
our newsletter. This month,
we feature singer,
songwriter, actress and
author Jus' Cynthia, and the
"Grand Dame of the Blues"
Alberta Hunter.
We hope you will enjoy this
edition and we
welcome your thoughts,
ideas, suggestions and
submissions for future
issues.
Visit
our sites:
- http://myspace.com/womeninjazz
- http://myspace.com/jazzgiants
- http://www.yicomminc.com/jazzwomen/wij/wijframe.htm
- http://www.yicomminc.com/jazzmen/jazzmennames.htm
Love and music,
Diva JC
Publisher
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JAZZ WOMEN
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JUS'
CYNTHIA
Born December 27, in Hollywood,
Florida, Cynthia Strachan
is an author, vocalist,
songwriter and actress. Her
repertoire includes Adult
Contemporary, Jazz, Standards
and R&B. Cynthia received
her formal
musical training at Bethune-Cookman
College, in Daytona Beach, FL.
Her debut CD, "Love
Glow" was produced by
notable singer Jon Lucien and is
available, online at www.cdbaby.com/cd/juscynthia
Cynthia's
new
book,
PROMISES
FROM THE PALMETTO BUSH (2006),
chronicles the beginnings of
Carver Ranches tells a story
that was in danger of fading
away.
T
V Credits:
- Muhammad
Ali's "The
Greatest" (an extra)
Miami, FL
- TBN/The
700 Club (A drowning victim
dramatization) St. Thomas,
VI
- VI
Telephone Co. (2
commercials)
- Anti-Litter
& Beautification Co.,
St. Thomas, VI (2
commercials)
- Theater
Credits: Glenda in "THE
WIZ", St. Thomas, VI
- Helene
in "SWEET
CHARITY", St. Thomas,
VI
- Timoune
in "ONCE ON THIS
ISLAND", Miami,
- Mother
Ruth in "DOUBLE
LIVES", Miami, FL
- Billie
in "A Tribute to Billie
Holiday",
- Ella
in "A Tribute to Ella
Fitzgerald",
Performances:
Aboard the S/S Norway Cruiseship
- Opened
for Cornelius Brothers &
Sister Rose, Panama City, FL
- Performed
with Dave Valentine, St.
Thomas Chuck Mangione
Concert, St. Thomas, VI
- Opened
for Faith Evans and Musique
Soul Child, St. Thomas, VI
- Opened
for Jon Lucien, Ft.
Lauderdale, FL
- Pan
African Book & Jazz Fest
Performed with Sherry
Winston, Miami, FL
- "2
Dames & 2 Divas European
Tour (Caustic Dames &
Joan Cartwright)
- Ojays
Concert reception, Miami, FL
- Ellington's
Jazz Bar & Restaurant
Sanibel Island, FL
Record
Credits:
- Wrote,
produced & perform
jingle for VI Telephone
Company
- Wrote,
produced & perform
jingle for Ant-Litter &
Beautification
Debut CD, LOVE GLOW,
produced by Jon Lucien
Memberships:
- ASCAP
Writer
- ASCAP
Artist
- CD
Baby
- AWAC
( African World Artist
Collective)
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BLUES WOMEN
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Alberta Hunter
(top: left)
Born in Memphis, TN, on April 1,
1895, Alberta Hunter
is the "Grand
Dame of the Blues".
She was a celebrated singer,
songwriter and nurse. Her career
started in the early 1920s, and
she became a successful Jazz
recording artist. She was a
colleague of Ethel
Waters and Bessie
Smith. She left home, in her
teens and settled in Chicago,
where she hounded club owners by
night, determined to land a
singing job. Her persistence
paid off and Alberta began a
climb through some of the city's
lowest dives to a headlining job
at its most elegant night spot,
the Dreamland Café.
Her career flourished as both
singer and writer ("Down
Hearted Blues", "Handy
Man" and "Rough and
Ready Man"), in the 1920s
and 1930s, and she appeared in
clubs and on stage in musicals
in both New York and London.
In 1928, Hunter played
"Queenie" in the first
London production of Show
Boat at Drury Lane. She was active as a
volunteer during World
War II. Following the war,
her career lost momentum. By the
early 1950s, the death of her
mother and career frustrations
caused Hunter to abandon the
music industry. She prudently
reduced her age,
"invented" a high
school diploma, and enrolled in
nursing school, embarking on
what was apparently a highly
fulfilling career in health
care.
She
was working at New York's
Goldwater Memorial Hospital, in
1961, when record producer
Chris Albertson asked her to break
an 11-year absence from the
recording studio. The result was
her recording of four songs on a
Prestige Bluesville
Records album entitled
"Songs We Taught Your
Mother." The following
month, Albertson recorded her
for the Riverside
label, reuniting her with Lil
Armstrong and Lovie Austin,
with whom she had performed in
the 1920s. Hunter had no plans
to return to singing. She was
prepared to devote the rest of
her life to nursing, but the
hospital retired her in 1977.
She was over 80.
Alberta Hunter resumed her singing
career, because she "never
felt better." In 1978, at
the suggestion of Charles
Bourgeois, restaurateur Barney
Josephson offered Hunter a
limited engagement at his
Greenwich Village club, The
Cookery, where a two-week gig
proved a smash when people
started flocking into The
Cookery and the comeback
garnered generous media
attention. Two weeks stretched
into an open-ended engagement
that made Alberta Hunter a star
reborn and a fixture of New York
nightlife.
Impressed
with the attention paid her by
the press, John Hammond signed
Alberta Hunter to Columbia
Records. He had not
previously shown interest in
Hunter, but he had been a close
associate of Barney Josephson
decades earlier, when the latter
ran the historic Café Society
Uptown and Downtown clubs. Her
Columbia albums, "The Glory
of Alberta Hunter,"
"Amtrak Blues," and
"Look For the Silver
Lining", did not do as well
as expected, but sales were
healthy. There were also
numerous television appearances,
including a memorable appearance
on "To Tell The Truth" (in which
panelist Kitty Carlisle had to recuse
herself, the two having known
each other in Hunter's heyday).
There
was also a walk-on in
"Remember My Name", a
film for which director Robert
Altman commissioned her to write
music. As capacity audiences
continued to fill The Cookery
nightly, concert offers came
from Brazil to Berlin, and there
was an invitation for her to
sing at the Carter White House.
At first, she turned it down,
because, she explained,
"they wanted me there on my
day off," but the White
House amended its schedule to
suit the veteran artist.
During
that time, there was also a
visit from First Lady turned
book editor, Jackie Onassis who
wanted to sign her up for an
autobiography. Unhappy with the
co-author assigned to the
project (a chatty, overly
religious former Miss America),
the book was eventually done for
another publisher, with the help
of writer Frank Taylor.
The
comeback lasted six years, and
Alberta Hunter took it all in
stride; she toured in Europe and
South America, made more
television appearances and
enjoyed her renewed recording
career as well as the fact that
record catalogs contained her
old recordings, going back to
her 1921 debut on the Black Star
label. Dressed in her trademark
fringed shawls and sporting vast
dangling earrings, she performed
with a combination of
sophistication and sly bawdiness
that charmed audiences, some
less than a quarter of her age.
She continued to perform with
zest and wit until shortly
before her death on October 17,
1984.
Alberta
Hunter's life is well documented
in
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Women in Jazz South Florida, Inc.
is a non-profit organization with the
mission of promoting Women
in Jazz
through contacts, books, articles,
interviews, workshops, lectures,
history, recordings, performance and
recognition.
Sincerely,
Joan Cartwright
Women
in Jazz South Florida, Inc. |
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