Blossom Dearie, 1926 - 2009

For GT12, every year is marked by some discovery of a new (to us) artist. Somebody who who's presence in our record collection goes from zero to comprehensive in the course of a few months. People like Nina Simone, Anita O'Day and Karrin Allyson.

2004 was the year of Blossom Dearie.

From the New York Times, this morning:

Blossom Dearie, the jazz pixie with a little-girl voice and pageboy haircut who was a fixture in New York and London nightclubs for decades, died on Saturday at her apartment in Greenwich Village. She was 82. Blossom Dearie, the jazz pixie with a little-girl voice and pageboy haircut who was a fixture in New York and London nightclubs for decades, died on Saturday at her apartment in Greenwich Village. She was 82.

A singer, pianist and songwriter with an independent spirit who zealously guarded her privacy, Ms. Dearie pursued a singular career that blurred the line between jazz and cabaret. An interpretive minimalist with caviar taste in songs and musicians, she was a genre unto herself. Rarely raising her sly, kittenish voice, Ms. Dearie confided song lyrics in a playful style below whose surface layers of insinuation lurked. Her cheery style influenced many younger jazz and cabaret singers, most notably Stacey Kent and the singer and pianist Daryl Sherman.

But just under her fey camouflage lay a needling wit. If you listened closely, you could hear the scathing contempt she brought to one of her signature songs, “I’m Hip,” the Dave Frishberg-Bob Dorough demolition of a namedropping bohemian poseur. Ms. Dearie was for years closely associated with Mr. Frishberg and Mr. Dorough. It was Mr. Frishberg who wrote another of her perennials, “Peel Me a Grape.” Dearie was for years closely associated with Mr. Frishberg and Mr. Dorough. It was Mr. Frishberg who wrote another of her perennials, “Peel Me a Grape.”

Born Marguerite Blossom Dearie in East Durham, N.Y., on April 29, 1926, she was a classically trained pianist who switched to jazz after joining a high school band. Moving to New York City in the mid-1940s, she sang with the Blue Flames, a vocal group attached to the Woody Herman band, and with Alvino Rey’s band before embarking on a solo career.
Traveling to Paris in 1952, she joined the Blue Stars, a vocal octet that recorded a hit version of “Lullaby of Birdland.” While there she shared quarters with the jazz singer Annie Ross and met the Belgian flutist and saxophonist Bobby Jaspar, to whom she was briefly married.
She also met Norman Granz, the owner of Verve Records, who signed her to a six-album contract. All six Verve albums — “Blossom Dearie” (1956), “Give Him the Ooh-La-La” (1957), “Once Upon a Summertime” (1958), “Sings Comden and Green” (1959), “My Gentleman Friend” (1959) and “Soubrette Sings Broadway Hit Songs”(1960) — are today regarded as cult classics.