OPEN POST: Manor Music Monday With Bev Kelly!
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Come on in, hepcats! DJ Li'l Scratch is spinning some fine tunes at The Manor's "Tubesteak Lounge." What inspired this week's selection of artist Bev Kelly? Two words: Earthquake, earthquake! San Francisco had a shake-shake-shake last week, dont'cha know, and luckily it was fairly mild. But it did make me think of Jeanette MacDonald - and gosh, how brave she was in "San Francisco" (Judy does it better) - and the Golden Gate Bridge and beatnik coffee shops and the always delightful 1950s and 60s-era jazz chanteuse Bev Kelly, who recorded several LPs in good ol' Fog City (see how neatly that all fits together?).
Though largely forgotten by mass-market jazz aficionados (and she really shouldn't be), Bev was playing classical piano at age five, and by the time she graduated college, she was already touring the nation's top jazz clubs and recording albums. She continued performing well into the 1970s, but her family soon took priority - and then (get this; you'll suddenly feel lazy), she somehow found time to earn her Phd. in Clinical Psychology, and to this day, enjoys a thriving private practice
Her live "Coffee Gallery" LP, recorded in 1960, reveals a jazz vocalist with a wonderful light touch - and a wisely contained vibrato which she deploys with skillful precision. Yet it's the overall sunniness of her sound which really sets her apart. When she performs, she seems unencumbered by the usual zonked-out heaviness, unconscious or not, which inflicts some jazz vocalists. Jazz frees something up for Bev; there's purest joy in her singing and it's infectious.
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