Dan Grissom

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78s by Jimmie Lunceford
with vocalist Dan Grissom:
"Gone" / "Impromptu" from August 26, 1941

Dan Grissom (* around 1910 ; † March 1963 in Los Angeles ) was an American rhythm and blues and jazz singer , clarinetist and saxophonist .

Live and act

Grissom is best remembered as the band singer of the Jimmie Lunceford Orchestra. When microphones became common for swing bands around 1933, it was also possible for singers such as Grissom, Pha Terrell or the Claude Hopkins band singer Orlando Roberson to overrule the vocal body of the band. The hallmark of Grissom's singing, who also played the saxophone, was a quieter style that has been described as "nasal tone with strong vibrato ." His uncle Jimmy Grissom sang band Lunceford-in, joining the Dan Grissom in 1936 and until belonged to the 1940s.

With songs like "(This Is) My Last Affair" (1937) or the blues "I'm Gonna Move to the Outskirts of Town" (1941) Grissom had a number of hits on the Billboard charts with the Lunceford Orchestra. His favorite song was the Sy Oliver arrangement of "By the River Sainte Marie" . In the mid-1940s, Grissom recorded the song "Poor Butterfly" under his own name , in which he was accompanied by the trio of pianist Lorenzo Flennoy . In 1946/48 he recorded four songs for the Jewel label ( "You Don't Know What Love Is" / " Dinah " ). In 1948 he wrote the 78 "Like A Ship At Sea" / "Can't Sleep" for Savoy .

In 1955 he had a chart success as Dan Grissom & the Ebb Tones with "Recess in Heaven" , another single was released on the Imperial label ( "King of Fools" ). In the 1950s Grissom was part of the Duke Ellington Orchestra and recorded a version of Duke Ellington's song "Love (My Everything)" with the band , which was also known as "My Heart, My Mind, My Everything" . Grissom died in a Los Angeles hospital in March 1963 .

Appreciation

Singer Johnny Mathis was heavily influenced by early crooner Dan Grissom. The vocalist enjoyed little reputation among jazz fans; even in his Lunceford period he was nicknamed "Dan Gruesome". The jazz historian Will Friedwald wrote that Lunceford and Oliver “turned away from the frenetic swing” of the Lunceford singers in the late 1930s; instead, they brought out “a lavishly quiet euphony (...). Before Perry Como started working for Victor a few years later , you couldn't hear anything softer. Lunceford and his main arranger Sy Oliver were only wrong when they let Dan Grissom sing ballads as a soloist. "

Discographic notes

  • Jimmy Lunceford 1937-1939 , 1939 ( Classics )

literature

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ Original: "pinched-tones and heavy vibrato"; Quote from Eugene Chadbourne, Grissom article in Allmusic.
  2. ↑ Friedwald, p. 130.
personal data
SURNAME Grissom, Dan
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American jazz singer and saxophonist
DATE OF BIRTH around 1910
DATE OF DEATH March 1963
Place of death los Angeles