(Reprinted from the January 2024 issue of New York City Jazz Record)
Last year, singer/songwriter Ann Hampton Callaway entered the Women Songwriters Hall of Fame for her many contributions to jazz and traditional pop music. Callaway started out in New York’s cabaret scene in the 1980s, accompanying herself on piano; her specialty was tunes that tear your heart into shreds.
Soon, her warmly textured voice and accessible writing attracted the best kind of attention, and stars as formidable as Barbra Streisand, Blossom Dearie, Karrin Allyson and Michael Feinstein began recording her songs. Her biggest commercial break came after a performance at Don’t Tell Mama, when TV actress Fran Drescher introduced herself to the up-and-comer; later, Drescher would handpick Callaway to write and sing the theme song to her 1990s hit TV show, The Nanny. Then, in 2000, Callaway was nominated for a Tony for her scatting role in Broadway’s Swing!.
On the jazz front, Callaway counts among her many legendary colleagues the likes of Kenny Barron, Wynton Marsalis, Christian McBride, Dizzy Gillespie, Dianne Reeves, Ted Rosenthal and Dee Dee Bridgewater. But arguably her most exclusive claim as a jazz singer is her collaboration with Cole Porter, effected decades after his death. In 1992 she released “I Gaze In Your Eyes”—one of her heart-shredding tunes, set to Porter’s lyrics, with his estate’s permission.
Callaway’s 2023 record, Finding Beauty (Shanachie), commits to tape 16 of her originals, pulled from her busy musical life over the last 25 years. (The liner notes provide a fascinating glimpse into that world.) Many friends from those years show up to sing in duet with Callaway—Kurt Elling on the anthemic funk tune “Love and Let Love”, Tierney Sutton on an eerie, layered “You Can’t Rush Spring”, Melissa Manchester on the pop-rock ballad “New Eyes”—and Callaway’s sister, Liz Callaway (one of Stephen Sondheim’s favorite singers) on the album’s biggest heartbreaker, “Wherever You Are”, about a friend lost to AIDS. In all it’s a lovely, moving ride. Visit 54 Below on Jan. 12 to hear Callaway re-create some of its most poignant moments.
As the Callaway album shows, the line between vocal jazz and traditional pop is tentative. Traditional pop as a Grammy award didn’t even exist before 1992, when (it seemed) NARAS created the category to accommodate the growing number of pop singers turning out Songbook albums. Tin Pan Alley, with its strong ties to Broadway, is the common ancestor of both; what distinguishes these kissing cousins one from the other is the singer’s approach to a standard. Improvisation and indelible groove are the hallmarks of vocal jazz, and mellifluous melody and straightforward harmony (preferably lush) are those of traditional pop. Informed folks may disagree on this, of course.
What they’d be unlikely to challenge, however, is that bass trombonist Jennifer Wharton is a badass jazz artist, even as she kills it eight times a week in a Broadway pit. Her new album, Grit & Grace (Sunnyside) has Wharton leading her brass ensemble Bonegasm through a series of self-penned and commissioned originals, including one vocal track: trumpeter Nadje Noordhuis’ “Coop’s Condiments”, a comical blues romp about, er, sauces. Humor aside, when Wharton sings, you hear the phrasing of the consummate jazz instrumentalist she is—a great lesson in indelible groove. Wharton will be with Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd through its run, though current leads Josh Groban and Annaleigh Ashford (pop/traditional pop/theater singers) depart on Jan. 14.
Singer Audrey Silver hears jazz in the strains of Rodger & Hammerstein’s 1943 musical, Oklahoma!. Her new album by that name couches these long-favorite melodies in swing and spontaneity, backed by pared-down piano (Bruce Barth) and guitar (Peter Bernstein) and, at times, a string quartet. This minimal setting draws attention to the writers’ careful craftsmanship and how it conveys emotional complexity—the surprising tenderness of “Boys and Girls”, the subtle trepidation of “Out of My Dreams”, the refreshing frankness of “I Cain’t Say No.’ Silver captures all of these moods with her amber-rich vocals and sensitive understanding of a lyric.
Historical note: Four years ago last month, New York City gave five buildings along W. 28th Street landmark status. "Tin Pan Alley was the birthplace of American popular music, defined by achievements of songwriters and publishers of color…[it] paved the way for what would become 'the Great American Songbook’,” said Landmarks Preservation Commission Chair Sarah Carroll of the block at the time. “Together, these five buildings represent one of the most important and diverse contributions to popular culture."