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Chris Connor
Chris Connor has won every conceivable critical and popular accolade in her half century reign as one of the most gifted and distinctive vocalists in jazz history. Born in 1927 in Kansas City, Missouri, Connor studied clarinet, but her career direction was clear at an early age. “I always knew I wanted to be a singer,” she said, “I never wanted to be anything else.” After completing her schooling, she took a secretarial job while commuting on weekends to the University of Missouri to perform with a Stan Kenton-influenced college jazz band. An admirer of Kenton singers Anita O’Day and June Christy, Connor recalls, “I had my sights set on singing with Kenton.”
Frustrated by the lack of vocal musical opportunities in her hometown, Connor pulled up stakes and headed east in 1949. She was hired by Claude Thornhill and spent the next five years touring with his orchestra. Then, while appearing with Jerry Wald’s band, she received the phone call she had been dreaming of. June Christy, Stan Kenton’s current vocalist, had heard Connor on a radio broadcast and recommended her to the orchestra leader, who chose her from dozens of other vocalists eager for the job. “My voice seemed to fit the band,” Connor said, “with that low register like Anita’s and June’s.
Connor’s ten-month stint with Kenton during 1952-53 won her national recognition. Her haunting recording of Joe Greene’s ballad “All About Ronnie” announced the arrival of a fresh new artist. But the years of one-night stands, fast food and interminable bus rides soured Connor’s enthusiasm for life on the road. “By that time, I’d endured about six years of one-nighters and I’d just about had it.” To this day she values the musical training she received with Kenton, especially the skills relating to time, phrasing and “how to come in on exactly the right note while 18 or 20 musicians are playing their parts.”
Determined to forge a career as a solo artist, Connor returned to New York and signed with Bethlehem Records in 1953. Her three albums for that independent label, featuring Ellis Larkins, Herbie Mann, Kai Winding and J.J.Johnson, established her as a major jazz voice. In 1956, she began a six-year association with Atlantic Records that produced a string of chart-topping recordings arranged by Ralph Burns, Al Cohn, Jimmy Jones and Ralph Sharon, showcasing a host of jazz legends - John Lewis, Oscar Pettiford, Lucky Thompson, Phil Woods, Kenny Burrell, Milt Hinton, Clark Terry, Oliver Nelson and, in a particularly memorable pairing, Maynard Ferguson’s big band.
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Chris Connor with Stan Kenton And His Orchestra: Connor Sings — Kenton Swings
by Jack Bowers
However listeners may receive this “new" album from Sounds of Yesteryear, there's no gainsaying its title, Connor Sings—Kenton Swings, as that secures its contents in a neat little box with no loose ends in sight. There's also no denying that these seventeen songs by vocalist Chris Connor and the dynamic Stan Kenton Orchestra were recorded more than sixty-five years ago. In terms of performance, the impact is negligible; in terms of sound, not as harmful as one might imagine.
Continue ReadingChris Connor: Chris Connor Sings Gentle Bossa Nova
by David Rickert
If you were a jazz singer in the mid-sixties, chances are you recorded a bossa nova album. It might have been great, it might have been terrible, but it most likely fell somewhere in-between. You may not have wanted to record one, but bossa nova was too popular a fad to resist, and not many people were buying jazz records anyway. And, at least, bossa nova records allowed you the opportunity to use your jazz chops on something deliberately commercial.
Continue ReadingChris Connor: All About Chris
by David Rickert
Chris Connor is one of many blond-haired kittens whose vocals were popular during the fifties. Like many of her fellow canaries, she got her start in the big bands (Thornhill's and Kenton's, in this case) before becoming successful enough to strike out on her own. Leaving the big band sound behind for the intimacy of the small groups, Connor showed an above average knack at interpreting popular tunes, as well as a penchant for keeping her jazz roots intact.
Continue ReadingChris Connor: Haunted Heart
by Mathew Bahl
There is always a moment of trepidation when a jazz legend produces a new record after an absence of several years; a fear that what is will diminish the memory of what was. Thankfully, that is not the case with Haunted Heart, Chris Connor’s wonderful new CD on the HighNote label.
Vocally, the 73-year old singer sounds far younger than her chronological age. Ms. Connor’s voice has dropped noticeably in pitch over the last 30 years. However, she has compensated ...
Continue ReadingChris Connor: Warm Cool: The Atlantic Years
by C. Andrew Hovan
There's no doubt that labels have a purpose in terms of organizing things, but they also tend to get in the way when looking at such less objective items as art and music. For example, if you were to ask the average jazz buff to name singers that fit the category of “cool vocalists" names to be included might be June Christy, Peggy Lee, Anita O'Day, and Chris Connor. As much as this activity serves as a reference, it also ...
Continue ReadingChris Connor: Warm Cool: The Atlantic Years
by Victor L. Schermer
If one were to name the greatest female jazz vocalist of all time, that honor would undoubtedly go to Billie Holiday. It was Lady Day who virtually single handedly created the art of genuine jazz singing, as distinct from “pop" vocalization, which became the purview of so many singers who may have had the ability to “swing," but certainly could not be considered jazz singers. And Billie's interpretations of so many standards and her own compositions continue, via recording, to ...
Continue ReadingChris Connor: Warm Cool: The Atlantic Years
by John Sharpe
Vocalist Chris Connor first achieved national prominence during a ten-month stint with band leader Stan Kenton in 1952. Between 1956 and 1963, Connor recorded 12 fabulous albums for Atlantic Records and this 40-track, 2-CD set, provides a comprehensive overview of her output with the label. The repertoire features some of the best tunes from the classic American songbook and each showcases Connor's cool, limpid tone and vibratoless delivery. She is accompanied by some of the greatest names in jazz. Al ...
Continue ReadingCelebrate Valentine’s Day With A Free Concert Featuring The Music Of Two Iconic American Singers: Chris Connor And Mahalia Jackson
Source:
Braithwaite & Katz Communications
New England Conservatory’s Contemporary Musical Arts Department pays tribute to two of the most iconic and creative American singers of the 20th century in Night and Day: The Music of Chris Connor and Mahalia Jackson on Wednesday, February 14, 7:30 p.m. at Jordan Hall, 290 Huntington Avenue, Boston. The program is curated by faculty members Hankus Netsky and Ran Blake. Admission is free, but tickets are required. For information visit https://necmusic.edu. The title of this Valentine’s Day concert, Night and ...
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Chris Connor: Atlantic Singles
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
Scrambling to avoid being caught short when the pop album format expanded in 1955 from 10 to 12 inches, Atlantic rapidly began adding singers to its artists rostet. In '56, the label signed Chris Connor after she left Bethlehem Records. She would go on to record 15 superb albums for Atlantic, including the remarkable Sings the George Gershwin Almanac of Song. When I interviewed Chris in 2008, she told me she had full control of the song selection at Atlantic, ...
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Early Chris Connor: 1953
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
It's no secret that three of my favorite female vocalists are Julie London, Sarah Vaughan and Chris Connor. Yesterday, I was listening to Chris with Stan Kenton in the spring of 1953 and Sy Oliver in December of that year. Prior to Kenton, Chris in 1952 recorded as a solo singer with Jerry Wald and then Claude Thornhill. She had already been with Thornhill in 1949 as part of the Snowflakes vocal group. Much of her 1952 work was good ...
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Chris Connor: Gershwin Almanac
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
The late Chris Connor remains one of my favorite singers. Unfairly likened to June Christy, Chris had a lower, huskier sound and greater vocal control. Both sang with Stan Kenton, Christy was West Coast and Chris was East Coast and both had a bruised, slick-chick sound—the ache of being jilted. Chris was a songsmith. She told me she often spent downtime at music stores leafing through sheet music in search of songs other singers had missed. Back then, you were ...
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Chris Connor - Sings Gentle Bossa Nova (1965, Reissue)
Source:
Something Else!
You're forgiven for forgetting that Chris Connor, one of the premier cool-jazz vocalists, took a quick detour into popular music in the mid-1960s. After just two albums dotted with hipster pop tunes that sometimes proved beneath a talent such as hers, Connor quickly returned to her original style when none of it sold. No surprise there, I suppose. The record-buying kids didn't want to hear her do Beatles stuff, and neither did her legacy fans. Yet 1965's Sings Gentle Bossa ...
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Chris Connor Jazz Vocalist Legend Passes at 81 Years
Source:
JAZZzology by Richard Watters
Legendary jazz vocalist Chris Connor, who first came to prominence with the orchestras of Claude Thornhill and Stan Kenton and went on to record dozens of successful albums and singles, died on Saturday evening, August 29 at the Community Medical Center in Toms River, NJ following a long bout with cancer, according to her publicist Alan Eichler. She was 81. Among her many hits were “All About Ronnie," “Trust in Me" and “I Miss You So." Nearly her entire recorded ...
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Chris Connor, Jazz Singer Whose Voice Embodied a Wistful Cool, Dies at 81
Source:
Michael Ricci
Chris Connor, the great jazz singer whose lush, foggy voice and compressed emotional intensity distilled a 1950s jazz reverie of faraway longing in a sad cafe, died on Saturday in Toms River, N.J. She was 81 and lived in Toms River. The cause was cancer, her publicist, Alan Eichler, said. A singer who used little vibrato and was admired for her inventive rhythmic alterations of ballads, Ms. Connor belonged to the cool school of jazz singers that included Anita O’Day, ...
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Chris Connor (1927-2009)
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
Chris Connor, a breathy jazz singer whose powerful caressing voice could ignite a big band as easily as steam up a trio or quartet, died on Saturday of cancer in Toms River, N.J. She was 81.
Unfairly compared over the years to June Christy and Anita O'Day--both of whom preceded her in Stan Kenton's big band--Chris actually was in a league of her own. Though all three singers shared a smoky saxophone-like timbre, a careful ear could detect in Chris ...
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Chris Connor Dies at 81; Big-Band and Solo Jazz Singer
Source:
Michael Ricci
She was known for 'All About Ronnie,' which she did as part of the Stan Kenton Orchestra. She became a soloist in the 1950s and had hits with 'Trust in Me' and 'About the Blues.'
After recording hits with the Stan Kenton Orchestra, Chris Connor became a soloist who often worked with small groups. Some of her best-known songs include “Trust in Me" and “About the Blues."
Chris Connor, a smoky-voiced jazz vocalist who gained renown for her recording of ...
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Last of the Vo-Cool School: Chris Connor, 1927-2009
Source:
All About Jazz
There's a report today on the Yahoo Songbirds listserv that singer Chris Connor, , passed away Saturday at the age of 81.
Connor was one of the last living singers from the big-band era, and the last of the original, so-called “vo-cool school” of vocalists that included Anita O’Day, Mel Torme, and June Christy–singers noted for their generally vibrato-less tones, understated phrasing, and now-it’s-languid, now-it’s-loud use of dynamics.
However you classify her, though, Connor was a joy to listen to, ...
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