OPEN POST: Manor Music Monday With The Unbeatable Betty Roche!

Welcome, music slores, to another edition of Manor Music Monday! Wheeeeee! It's time to sing, to swing, and to gather up some fun music to play for peeps at Thanksgiving and during all your wintertime celebrations - because jazz vocalists make every holiday better and I won't be told otherwise. You can't live on "Jingle Bells" and Mariah for the entire holiday season, right? So if you're searching for some festive tunes to play during the season that everyone will enjoy, just click the Manor Music Monday tag and thumb through the posts.

Meanwhile, tonight at the Manor's "Milf n' Cookies" lounge and dinette (try the classic lasagna!) (it's meaty!), DJ Li'l Scratch will be playing the vocal stylings of a songstress who started her career way back in 1939 during an amateur talent contest at Harlem's Apollo Theater. Did I mention that she won that contest? Because she did. Everyone loved Betty Roche right from the start. With her commanding stage presence, deep-seated blues sensibility, and her breathless be-bop and scatting abilities, she not only wowed audiences in her time, but influenced generations of singers who followed in her steps (most notably Ella Fitzgerald, whose career was also launched by an Apollo Theatre talent contest).

Just after her Apollo win, Betty's career took off, which included her years-long stint as a lead vocalist for The Savoy Sultans, the house band for the legendary Savoy Ballroom. The Sultans also featured Betty in very her first commercial recording, "At's In There," and, yes, it was a hit. But perhaps her most fruitful pairing, creatively and commercially, was with The Duke himself, as in Ellington, who hired her to replace Ivie Anderson as his band's lead singer. It's with Duke that she recorded what many regard to be the definitive version of "Take The 'A' Train," which she'd perviously performed with The Duke in "Reveille with Beverly," a very snazzy Ann Miller musical. But I've always preferred her more bluesy version:

For reasons that are unclear, Betty didn't record many LPs, despite her popularity. Her stirring blues and be-bop performances - along with her ice-pick-clear diction, no matter how fast the rhythm - made her a much-in-demand vocalist for all the best bands and artists of the day, and not just The Duke, but Lester Young and Thelonious Monk, too. Betty's career was erratic, and she may well have been a closeted lesbian - reports that she was briefly married to Nat King Cole are incorrect - and upon her death, a very odd Amsterdam News obituary claimed she was survived by several grandchildren, but never mentioned her spouse. Her personal life remains a mystery.

Tragically, many of her performances with The Duke were never preserved on LPs, including their first live performance at Carnegie Hall - the first ever by a Black band - all due to a musician's recording strike which forbade their recording. Luckily, we can still enjoy her warm, sophisticated takes on "Come Rain Or Come Shine," and "I Just Got the Message, Baby," to name just two great tracks, all of which remain as fresh as the day they were recorded. For even more Betty. GO HERE!

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

Photo Credits: Getty Images, Prestige/Van Gelder Studios