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Joan Morris (born February 10, 1943) is an American mezzo-soprano [1] and cabaret singer.
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Joan Morris (born February 10, 1943) is an American mezzo-soprano [1] and cabaret singer.
Born in Portland, Oregon, her musical partner and husband is composer/pianist William Bolcom. [1] The couple specializes in older popular songs, primarily from the first half of the 20th century, but extending beyond that to include both contemporary cabaret, popular songs of the Gay Nineties, and a number of songs dating back to the 1860s. [2]
Their recordings for Nonesuch, RCA, Columbia and Arabesque include songs by the great songwriters of the 1920s and 30s such as Kern, Gershwin, Porter, and Rodgers and Hart. They also have performed and recorded songs by the rock-and-roll team of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller.
Together, they have taught at the University of Michigan for many years. Morris' performance style is nuanced and vibrant, and she is noted for honoring original versions of songs with historical accuracy. In early 2015 she announced that she and Bolcom would begin to curtail both the length and number of their concerts, offering the next year as an ad hoc "Farewell Tour" after which they would limit performances to "cameo appearances".[ citation needed ].
2018 saw the publication of "Let Me Sing and I'm Happy," a brief memoir of her singing career and handbook of her approaches to song interpretation and performance.
George Gershwin was an American composer and pianist whose compositions spanned popular, jazz and classical genres. Among his best-known works are the orchestral compositions Rhapsody in Blue (1924) and An American in Paris (1928), the songs "Swanee" (1919) and "Fascinating Rhythm" (1924), the jazz standards "Embraceable You" (1928) and "I Got Rhythm" (1930), and the opera Porgy and Bess (1935), which included the hit "Summertime".
James Hubert "Eubie" Blake was an American pianist and composer of ragtime, jazz, and popular music. In 1921, he and his long-time collaborator Noble Sissle wrote Shuffle Along, one of the first Broadway musicals written and directed by African Americans. Blake's compositions included such hits as "Bandana Days", "Charleston Rag", "Love Will Find a Way", "Memories of You" and "I'm Just Wild About Harry". The 1978 Broadway musical Eubie! showcased his works; in 1981, President Ronald Reagan awarded Blake the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
This is a list of notable events in music that took place in the year 1937.
This is a list of notable events in music that took place in the year 1933.
Leiber and Stoller were an American Grammy award-winning songwriting and record production duo, consisting of lyricist Jerry Leiber and composer Mike Stoller. As well as many R&B and pop hits, they wrote numerous standards for Broadway.
William Elden Bolcom is an American composer and pianist. He has received the Pulitzer Prize, the National Medal of Arts, a Grammy Award, the Detroit Music Award and was named 2007 Composer of the Year by Musical America. He taught composition at the University of Michigan from 1973 until 2008. He is married to mezzo-soprano Joan Morris.
Robert Waltrip Short was an American cabaret singer and pianist, who interpreted songs by popular composers from the first half of the 20th century such as Rodgers and Hart, Cole Porter, Jerome Kern, Harold Arlen, Richard A. Whiting, Vernon Duke, Noël Coward and George and Ira Gershwin.
"Hound Dog" is a twelve-bar blues song written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. Recorded originally by Big Mama Thornton on August 13, 1952, in Los Angeles and released by Peacock Records in late February 1953, "Hound Dog" was Thornton's only hit record, selling over 500,000 copies, spending 14 weeks in the R&B charts, including seven weeks at number one. Thornton's recording of "Hound Dog" is listed as one of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's "500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll", ranked at 318 in the 2021 iteration of Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in February 2013.
Reuben "Ruby" Braff was an American jazz trumpeter and cornetist. Jack Teagarden was once asked about him on the Garry Moore television show and described Ruby as "the Ivy League Louis Armstrong".
Songs for Young Lovers is the seventh studio album by Frank Sinatra and his first on Capitol Records. It was issued as an 8-song, 10" album and as a 45rpm EP set, but it was the first Sinatra "album" not to have a 78rpm multi-disc-album release. In 2002, it was one of 50 recordings chosen that year by the Library of Congress to be added to the National Recording Registry.
"Ten Cents a Dance" is a popular song with music by Richard Rodgers and lyrics by Lorenz Hart. The song was published in 1930.
"Manhattan" is a popular song and part of the Great American Songbook. It has been performed by the Supremes, Lee Wiley, Oscar Peterson, Blossom Dearie, Tony Martin, Dinah Washington, Ella Fitzgerald, and Mel Torme, among many others. It is often known as "We'll Have Manhattan" based on the opening line. The music was written by Richard Rodgers and the lyrics by Lorenz Hart for the 1925 revue Garrick Gaieties. It was introduced by Sterling Holloway and June Cochran.
Corky Hale is an American jazz harpist, pianist, flutist, and vocalist. She has been a theater producer, political activist, restaurateur, and the owner of the Corky Hale women's clothing store in Los Angeles, California.
"Is That All There Is?", a song written by American songwriting team Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller during the 1960s, became a hit for American singer Peggy Lee and an award winner from her album of the same title in November 1969. The song was originally performed by Georgia Brown in May 1967 for a television special. It was first recorded by disc jockey Dan Daniel in March 1968, but this was an unauthorized recording that, while played on Daniel's own radio show, went unissued at the songwriters' request. The first authorized recording was by Leslie Uggams in August 1968. Then came the hit Peggy Lee version in August 1969, followed by Guy Lombardo in 1969 and Tony Bennett on 22 December 1969.
"Love Me" is a sentimental song composed by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller and recorded and popularized by Elvis Presley in 1956.
Billy Eckstine Sings with Benny Carter is a 1986 album by the American singer Billy Eckstine, accompanied by the alto saxophonist Benny Carter. The singer Helen Merrill appears in duet with Eckstine on the first and last songs of the album. This was Eckstine's only LP released on Verve Records, and marked his final album recordings.
When Harry Met Sally... is the soundtrack to the movie When Harry Met Sally... starring Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan. The songs are performed by pianist Harry Connick Jr., who won the Grammy Award for Best Jazz Male Vocal Performance.
Max Edward Morath was an American ragtime pianist, composer, actor, and author. He was best known for his piano playing and is referred to as "Mr. Ragtime". He was a touring performer as well as being variously a composer, recording artist, actor, playwright, and radio and television presenter. Rudi Blesh billed Morath as a "one-man ragtime army".
Susan Eichhorn Young is a Canadian-American soprano, actress, voice-over artist, voice teacher, and writer.
Paris Concert is a live album by saxophonist and bandleader Gerry Mulligan featuring performances recorded at the Salle Pleyel in Paris in June 1954 and released on the Pacific Jazz label. In 1966, Pacific Jazz released an album with the same title but with a slightly different track listing and edited versions of previously released tracks. The original recordings were made by Disques Vogue who issued the recordings in France.
Last year, the two produced their second Nonesuch album (with Clifford Jackson, Miss Morris's teacher), "Who Shall Rule this American Nation," a collection of Civil War‐era songs by Henry Clay Work.
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