Customer Reviews

Jazz Is His Old Lady & My Old Man

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This recent, hastily assembled reissue is the only recording I've discovered by Marva Josie, a glamorous and gifted vocalist who should have been a "can't miss" star. On the occasions I was fortunate enough to catch her live, she simply brought down the house on the strength of her powerful and virtuosic interpretations of admittedly inferior material. On a recording such as this, however, the flimsiness of Marva's repertory--a combination of popular ephemeral tunes ("Feelings"--yuck!) and tired "jazz-age" chestnuts--along with indifferent arrangements, inferior audio, and sloppy production values, insure that her voice will have little appeal to any listener outside of someone like me who remembers her electrifying live performances.

Artists like Ellington and Hines could not follow their creative muses without frequently playing "down" to the public. Broad and boisterous entertainment was the ticket to commercial success and a means of subsidizing their passion. Hard as it is to admit, they essentially "used" vocalists as a device for putting a "voice" (not to mention a pretty face or arresting figure) on their music. At least the emphasis on "show business" could capture the notice of a public otherwise clueless to Duke's or Earl's actual importance and musical genius.

Unfortunately, Marva Josie could not have realized that her 12 year-plus tenure with Fatha was less of a platform than a dead end. In her case, one can only wonder "what if--."