Annette Hanshaw
Annette Hanshaw (born October 18, 1901 in New York City , † March 13, 1985 there ) was an American jazz singer .
Live and act
Annette Hanshaw, who was a contemporary of Mildred Bailey , Ethel Waters , Connee Boswell, and Bessie Smith, was one of the most popular singers of the late 1920s and early 1930s. Hanshaw discovered her love for singing at an early age and initially orientated herself on role models such as Frank Fay, Sophie Tucker and Marion Harris . Her father, a wealthy hotelier, granted her the desire to have her own music business and gave her appearances in his hotels and at his parties. On one of them she heard A&R man Wally Rose and made it possible for her to audition for the record company Pathe Records from 1926 to 1928 . It quickly became one of the label's attractions; her early recordings with ukulele and scat singing made her a kind of female counterpart to Cliff Edwards (who also worked for Pathe) . When the company was taken over by Columbia in 1928 , Annette Hanshaw appeared on some of her cheap 78 records. Although most of these records were released under their own names, Columbia brought some records under various pseudonyms such as Gay Ellis (for sentimental numbers) and Dot Dare or Patsy Young (for their Helen Kane imitations).
Hanshaw, who was materially independent, could turn down offers to work in the show and film business, and limited himself to recordings. In just eight years of recording, Hanshaw made significant records outside of the blues ; she preferred "black", very serious ballads in medium slow tempo and "white", rhythmically swinging up-tempo titles and numbers in between, such as "Ready for the River" and "Cause I feel Low Down" , which they "(saturated) with the morbid passion of the blues and with elements of their specific vocabulary: a fast pace to express the desperate yet aggressive attitude, and above all the straightforward directness of their expression", wrote the author Will Friedwald .
She managed to produce one radio hit series after another within a few years. With a contract with the ARC and its sub-labels, she began to record the best records of her entire career in 1932. Hanshaw also had a single film appearance in the 1933 Paramount short film Captain Henry's Radio Show, a cinematic version of her popular radio program, the Maxwell House Show Boat, in which she appeared from 1932 to 1934. Hanshaw sang "We Just Couldn't Say Goodbye" in it.
Many well-known jazz musicians played on their records, including Red Nichols , Miff Mole , Phil Napoleon , Joe Venuti , Eddie Lang , Adrian Rollini , Vic Berton , Benny Goodman , Jimmy Dorsey , Tommy Dorsey and Jack Teagarden ; she also sang in a duet with Frank Ferera . Hanshaw's trademark was her sentence "That's all" at the end of her records, spoken in a childlike voice.
In 1934 she ended her recording work with one last session on February 3 for Vocalion and married her agent Wally Rose; a year later she gave up her successful radio show "The Camel Caravan", then worked in the studio for a while and wrote press reports for sponsors. In 1938 she finally retired. In later years, she prepared for a comeback by recording two demo tapes, but they were never released. She spent her final years in Manhattan and died of cancer in 1985 after a long illness.
Appreciation
Producer John Hammond , one of her admirers, said of the singer, who despised all the externals of being a star and was very unambitious about her art, "I don't think she knows how good she is". In his work on the Swinging Voices of America , the author Will Friedwald praised the singer as an astonishingly original and modern artist, “who intuitively mastered those rhythmic nuances of jazz that she could use in popular songs, and brought them to that for the electric Recording technique required sensitivity to express. Without affecting her ability to make the message of a text understandable, her feeling for jazz serves as the key to interpretation, helping her to get beneath the surface of the text as well as the music. "She became primarily in Heard a lot in England; the singer Elsie Carlisle , who sang with Bert Ambrose , was heavily influenced by her.
Her 1929 song Daddy won't you please come home was featured in the BioShock 2 video game and in a commercial for that game.
Her songs play a key role in the film Sita sings the blues .
Well-known songs
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Discographic notes
- Sweetheart of the Twenties (Sounds of Yesteryear, 1926)
- The Girl Next Door 1927–1932 (Take Two, compilation)
- Annette Hanshaw, Volume 5: 1928–1929 (sensation)
- Annette Hanshaw, Volume 6: 1929 (Sensation)
- The Personality Giwl 1932-'34 (Sunbeam, compilation)
- Lovable and Sweet - 25 vintage hits (ASV, compilation) with Red Nichols, Miff Mole, Jimmy Lytell , Tommy Dorsey (tp), Benny Goodman (cl), Jimmy Dorsey (cl, as), orchestras by Will Osborne and Victor Young and Frank Fereras Hawaiian Trio (Sounds of Yesteryear, compilation)
literature
- Will Friedwald: Swinging Voices of America - A Compendium of Great Voices . Hannibal, St. Andrä-Wölker 1992, ISBN 3-85445-075-3 .
swell
- ↑ For many years it was believed that her actual year of birth was 1910 and that Annette Hanshaw took her first recordings shortly before her 16th birthday. In fact, she was already 24 at the time. See Annette's Birthdate. and Annette Hanshaw Biography.
- ↑ According to Friedwald, this happened because Ruth Etting's gangster lover was able to get the company management through that only Etting's records were allowed to appear on the respected main label, cf. Friedwald, p. 54.
- ↑ These were labels like Harmony , Diva , Clarion and Velvet Tone . Only a few appeared below normal prices on Columbia and OKeh .
- ↑ These were Melotone , Perfect , Conqueror , Oriole and Romeo .
- ^ Film clip.
- ^ Annette Hanshaw at the Red Hot Jazz Archive
- ^ Obituary New York Times 1985
- ↑ Quoted from W. Friedwald, p. 55.
- ↑ Quoted from W. Friedwald, p. 53. At the end of his remarks on Annette Hanshaw, Friedwald speculates about the possibilities of what would have become of a (possible later) collaboration between the singer and Gil Evans .
- ↑ See W. Friedwald, p. 55.
- ↑ Highlights are the titles Black Bottom, Big City Blues, Little White Lies, Walkin 'My Baby Back Home, Let's Fall in Love, Ain't She Sweet
Web links
- Annette Hanshaw ( Internet Archive )
- Multiple audio streams of Hanshaw's songs
- Annette Hanshaw
- VH1 information about their age
- Biography and extensive discography of Scott Yanow at Allmusic
- Annette Hanshaw at the Red Hot Jazz Archive
- Movie clip
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Hanshaw, Annette |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American jazz singer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | October 18, 1901 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | New York City , New York , United States |
| DATE OF DEATH | March 13, 1985 |
| Place of death | New York City , New York , United States |