Jimmy McPhail

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James "Jimmy" McPhail (born January 19, 1928 in Rocky Mount (North Carolina) ; † March 16, 1998 ) was an American jazz and rhythm & blues musician ( vocals ).

Live and act

Jimmy McPhail grew up in Washington DC and performed there with his own quartet in the late 1940s. In 1950 he won the WWDC Jackson Lowe Contest , combined with a performance at the Howard Theater with the Duke Ellington Orchestra . He then played, accompanied by Billy Strayhorn , Duke Ellington and Wendell Marshall, several vocal numbers, which remained unpublished. McPhail saw himself primarily as a ballad singer; however, an African American was expected to have mostly R&B numbers during this period. In 1951/52 he recorded titles such as " There Is No Greater Love ", "That's How Much I Love You" and "I Could Love You More" under his own name for Victor Records ; In 1952 he appeared at the Apollo Theater in New York . He was successful in the jukebox charts during this time with the numbers "Sugar Lump" and "GI Wish". In 1958 he took on several tracks with the Mercer Ellington Orchestra ("It's a Sin"). In 1959 he opened the jazz club The Gold Room in northeast Washington DC .

McPhail then studied at Shaw University in North Carolina, then George Washington University and Miner Teachers College, where he earned a degree in music education. In the following years he taught at Eliot Junior High School until 1980. He worked with Ellington again in 1963 when he was on his album Duke Ellington's My People , featured on Come Sunday and My Mother, My Father and Love (Heritage). In 1965 he recorded with Mercer Ellington ("In a Valley of Dreams") and performed in New York for Duke Ellington's Concert Of Sacred Music . In the field of jazz he was involved in five recording sessions between 1950 and 1969.

Discographic notes

  • Duke Ellington and His Orchestra: Concert of Sacred Music (Victor, 1965)
  • Duke Ellington: Duke Ellington's My People ( Flying Dutchman , ed. 1970)

Web links

Notes and individual references

  1. ^ Obituary in the Washington Post
  2. ↑ Ken Vail: Duke's Diary: The life of Duke Ellington, 1950-1974 . Scarecrow Press, 1999, p. 7
  3. ↑ In an interview he said: See, after I got out ... I was a ballad singer, but they felt, you know, because you were black you were rhythm & blues. ... A vocalist would either sing what and how he or she pleased, but be classified rhythm & blues anyway, or simply conform stylistically to what the industry thought rhythm . See Stuart L. Goosman: Group Harmony: The Black Urban Roots of Rhythm and Blues . Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013
  4. ^ Billboard April 19, 1952
  5. ↑ Jet August 19, 1954
  6. ↑ Discographic information at 45cat
  7. ↑ Jessica Bradley: The Beat of the Blues
  8. ↑ Tom Lord The Jazz Discography (online, accessed April 22, 2018)
personal data
SURNAME McPhail, Jimmy
ALTERNATIVE NAMES McPhail, James
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American R&B and jazz musician
DATE OF BIRTH January 19, 1928
PLACE OF BIRTH Rocky Mount, North Carolina
DATE OF DEATH March 16, 1998