OPEN POST: Manor Music Monday With Ruth Olay!

Greetings, lascivious sloots and layabout loons, and welcome to another edition of Manor Music Monday, today with sass, class and just a touch of Rachel Dolezal (not really, but kinda) (intrigued, aren't you?). I speak of Ruth Olay, a one-of-a-kind singer who started out "passing" as Black while touring with a group of talented Black musicians, all of whom carefully guarded her secret, since, at that time, "mixed" groups were forbidden and they all enjoyed playing together. Some risks were worth taking and her dark complexion and short, naturally curly hair, owing to her Hungarian ancestry, made it easy to fool eagle-eyed bookers and club owners. 

Only years later did she break through, finding moderate success after appearing on TV's "The Jack Parr Show." Years previous, it was none other than her friend Ivie Anderson who gave her one of her first big breaks when she invited her to sing with Duke Ellington's band. 

Tonight only, at the Manor's after-hours "Coquette Club and Mexican Beanery," DJ Li'l Scratch will be playing all-Ruth all-the-time. This includes her 1966 album, "Soul In The Night" - which is thrilling, spooky and head-turning all at the same time, or what I've decided to call "film noir jazz." Why film noir? Because you can sense danger in each of the songs here, and raw, unhinged madness in her vocals - which can soar and whoosh in any direction at any given moment. 

Just listen to the 10th track, "Willow, Weep For Me," when she sings the opening lyric, "Oh, Lord, why did you send the darkness to me?"

The drama's heightened to the nnth degree by her tremulous voice, which sounds as if she's shuddering on a street corner in the black of night. And that's just the first line. Ruth has always been a jazz performer that you have to meet halfway. But it's worth it. The pleasures of her voice sneak up on you, both emotionally and intellectually, the later given the sometimes off-kilter, but oh-so-right, whiplash turns she often takes with her interpretations. In her 1957 album, "A New Sound With Ruth Olay," her voice will alternately thrill you and haunt you.

Oh, yes, I almost forgot, she was also a piano prodigy. She had so many incantations that it's sometimes hard to keep track, like a vamp shifting in and out of shadow. Singer, pianist, assistant to legendary screenwriter and director, Preston Sturges, the daughter of a rabbi and a chorus singer. There's a movie in her life, for sure, though if you listen to her carefully, you can already see it.

In her 1959 LP, "Easy Living," her most popular album - it was released right after her Parr appearance - she infuses each song with her trademark emotional ambiguity and dagger-sharp, crystalline diction. I'll wager you've never heard "Nocturne for the Blues" or "Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child" performed quite like this. Hers is the dark side of the vocal jazz, always in shadow, never fully revealed.

What are you listening to this week? DJ Li'l Scratch wants to know.
Till next time...purr, bitches, purr! 🐾

Photo Credits: Getty Images; William G. Harris; Mercury Records