| Carmen Mcrae |
Article Index for Carmen |
Website Links For Carmen |
Information AboutCarmen Mcrae |
|
Life and Career Carmen McRae was born in Harlem in 1920 , and studied piano as a child. As a teenager she came to the attention of Teddy Wilson and his wife, the composer Irene Kitchings Wilson . Through their influence, one of McRae’s early songs, "Dream of Life", was recorded by Wilson’s longtime collaborator Billie Holiday . By the late 1940s she was well known among the modern jazz musicians who gathered at Minton's Playhouse , Harlem’s most famous jazz club, where she was the intermission pianist. But it was while working in Brooklyn that she came to the attention of Decca ’s Milt Gabler . Her five year association with Decca yielded 12 LPs, many considered jazz vocal classics. Her live ''). The musicians she sang with include Benny Carter , Mercer Ellington , Count Basie , Sammy Davis Jr. , Dave Brubeck , and Louis Armstrong . As a result of her early friendship with Billie Holiday , she never performed without singing at least one song associated with Lady Day. She was married once (and briefly), to drummer Kenny Clarke . External Links The Complete Carmen McRae Discography |
|
|