[Dixielandjazz] FW: Mildred Bailey remembered

[Bill Haesler]

Dear friennds,
This one via the Australian Dance Bands list.
Long but a rewarding read.
Kind regards,
Bill. 

Fans Still Remember Jazz Singer

Performer lived last years in Beekman

by Craig Wolf
Poughkeepsie Journal, May 10, 2005

Although she's long gone from the American jazz scene, Mildred
Bailey is not forgotten. What has been nearly forgotten, however, is
her link to Dutchess County.

Bailey was remembered last weekend in her native town of Tekoa,
Wash., where a major gig, "Mildred Bailey Comes Home," was staged at
the revived Tekoa Empire Theater and at the Metropolitan Theater in
Spokane, Wash.

The singer lived her last three years in the Town of Beekman and for
seven previous years in Kent Cliffs, Putnam County. She died poor
but famous at St. Francis Hospital in Poughkeepsie in 1951.

Bailey was there in the early days of the transition of jazz into
the big-band era, becoming the first female singer with the
legendary Paul Whiteman Orchestra, helping Bing Crosby get an early
break and teaming, both in marriage and performance, with
vibraphonist Red Norvo. They were called "Mr. and Mrs. Swing."

She had a high, small voice in a plump body. Dan Keberle, who
directs the Spokane Jazz Orchestra, said hers was "not a typical
jazz band kind of sound."

"It's a little bit more pop-oriented, but not in a commercial sense.
It sounds like it's music out of the '20s and even the teens."

She peaked in the 1930s after a radio debut of Hoagy
Carmichael's "Rockin' Chair" rocketed her to stardom. Since then,
Bailey's star has faded into the oldies zone along with other
musical greats. But she is remembered by jazz buffs.

Sang ballads

"She was way up there," said Tom Baldino of Beacon, who sings and
plays guitar with the local band Nostalgia. "When Billie Holiday
came along, she was sort of supplanted. She did a lot of ballads,
and she was very good."

Baldino remembers that when he was a teenager in the 1950s, there
was a flurry of her tunes on the radio, likely a memorial revival
after her death.

Diana Sucich of Wappinger has come to know the story of Bailey,
having found out that the Steinway grand piano she inherited from
her father was once Bailey's. He bought it at an auction at Bailey's
house.

And Bailey's home, an early 1800s Federal-style stone and clapboard
house, still stands on South Greenhaven Road near Stormville on what
was known as Glad Gate Farm when Bailey bought it in 1948.

She was to enjoy her idyllic country home only briefly. A long,
untreated case of diabetes sapped the singer's voice and then her
life.

Her story begins in the little town of Tekoa, near the Idaho border.
She was born Feb. 16, 1900, said Jim Price, a historian and retired
journalist in Washington, who delved into Bailey's life story for a
lecture to go with the concerts.

"She ran away from home to Seattle at 17," said Price. She worked
her way to California and was singing in a club in Los Angeles at
23, he said. Crosby was attending Gonzaga University in Spokane, and
was asked to join a singing group that included Bailey's brother, Al
Rinker.

Price found that in 1925, Crosby's first group split up, but Crosby
and Rinker stayed on and visited her in Hollywood to get pointers
and find work.

"She ends up lining them up, driving them to and arranging for the
audition that gave them their first real job," Price said. That was
with Fanchon and Marco, a top regional vaudeville circuit they
played for 13 weeks.

Crosby and Rinker were heard by scouts for bandleader Paul Whiteman,
who hired them. With a third man, they became his Rhythm Boys.

Then it was Crosby's turn to help Bailey, by setting up a sneak
audition. With the band playing Hollywood, they persuaded her to
give a party and invite Whiteman's entire orchestra.

Whiteman was in the kitchen talking with trumpeter Bix Beiderbecke
as Crosby and Rinker took Bailey aside and coaxed her to sing.
Rinker played piano and Bailey sang "What Can I Say After I Say I'm
Sorry."

Whiteman burst out of the kitchen to see who was singing and on the
spot invited Bailey to perform on his radio show the following
Tuesday.

It was a rocket to success, Price said. She became the nation's
first full-time female singer with a big band.

"Mildred was a pioneer and a major fixture and she made it possible
for other singers," he said.

Bailey was the link

He also sees Bailey's role as a link between black American music
and a white public that could not accept it directly.

Bailey is often thought of as black, but this is not substantiated,
he said. She was part Coeur D'Alene Indian, and, Price
added, "Mildred was heavily influenced as a young teenager" by black
musicians. Later in her career, she regularly recorded and performed
with blacks. Price said there are accounts claiming she lost a
network radio show because half her guests were black.

"If Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith were the pioneers of nationally known
jazz singing and Ethel Waters, who was more white-influenced because
she grew up in the North, was the bridge, then Mildred Bailey was
waiting on the other side of that bridge," Price said.

Disease started slowing her down early. She rallied during World War
II to cut some fundraising records.

But back to Dutchess.

When Bailey's health and finances were failing in 1949, Bing Crosby
bailed her out by paying her bills at St. Francis Hospital, along
with Frank Sinatra and Jimmy Van Heusen, after composer Alec Wilder
had found her "very, very ill and penniless" there, and called in
some friends.

Price said Crosby later paid off the mortgage on her home, further
repaying Bailey's early favors and capping a lifelong friendship.

On Dec. 12, 1951, Bailey succumbed to complications of diabetes.

Her funeral was in New York, and was big news at the time. She was
cremated.

Though long divorced from Norvo, whom Price calls, "the best friend
Mildred Bailey ever had," Norvo re-entered the scene at this point.

Norvo and Rinker took the urn of Bailey's ashes back to Dutchess
County some days after the funeral. They went to Bailey's house and
scattered the ashes on the property.