OPEN POST: Manor Music Monday With The Remarkable Claire Austin!

Greetings music sloots, and welcome to another edition of Manor Music Monday, Hotsy-Totsy Late Summer Edition! It's that time of year when we all need to be sitting on our porch or by the pool, preferably with a nice cool mint julep, and definitely with some cool jazz playing at just the right volume; not too loud, not too soft, but just noisy enough to wrap around you like a balmy breeze. If you're up later, you really should slink over to the Manor's "Pump it Down!" after-hours lounge and dinette, because DJ Li'l Scratch will be playing some fine summer jazz by a swoon-worthy, yet forgotten, jazz bird, Claire Austin.

Not much is known about her, or at least not that I could find out. A busy nightclub singer on the West Coast from the 1930s to the early 1950s, Claire cut only a few LPs, then - poof! - all but vanished from public consciousness. What makes Claire still interesting and her music worth listening to are all those giants of West Coast jazz that she worked with on her LPs - like Ed Garland on bass and Don Ewell on piano - along with her vibrant, still modern-sounding vocals. She was almost shockingly mutable, able to dig deep into blues, for instance, then move with equal ease into sparkling, sunlit jazz.

Raised in Washington State, she reportedly showed an early affinity for music and piano as a child. In 1936, following high school, she scandalized her family - especially her conservative father - by scoring her first professional gig at "The Oasis," a nightclub in Seattle. After that, she was on her way, spending the late 1930s and 1940s touring and performing at night spots across the Pacific Northwest and Midwest.

At the star of World War II, her paths crossed with Chuck Austin, a skilled drummer performing at "The Clover Club," a renown Redding, California jazzery. Shortly after, following their whirlwind romance and a wedding in Reno, Chuck was called to duty by the Army. For the next several years, Claire tracked his military journey across the country, lighting up club stages in Oakland, Cincinnati, Chicago and Louisville, always staying just a stone's throw from the latest army camp where he was stationed. After the war, despite her and Chuck welcoming three children, Claire persevered, continuing to perform and even cut a few LPs.

I honestly can't think of another singer who's so chameleon-like, and that's in evidence in two of her more popular LPs from the 50s, "When Your Lover Has Gone" and "Claire Austin Sings The Blues," the first a smooth-as-silk vocal jazz entry, the latter a headlong dive into traditional, rabble-rousing blues. Yet both feel pure and unfeigned; she's not trying on new styles, she's inhabiting them both. Are you ready for more Claire? I know you are!

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

Photo Credits: Getty Images, Good Time Jazz/Turk Murphy