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BLUES WOMEN

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In Pursuit of a Melody by Joan Cartwright

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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February/2007 
Dear Subscriber,

Diva Joan CartwrightThis 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:
  1. http://myspace.com/womeninjazz
  2. http://myspace.com/jazzgiants
  3. http://www.yicomminc.com/jazzwomen/wij/wijframe.htm
  4. http://www.yicomminc.com/jazzmen/jazzmennames.htm
Love and music,
Diva JC
Publisher

JAZZ WOMEN

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)

BLUES WOMEN

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

 

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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