“We Never Kissed”: A Date with Melba and Strings

C. Keyes
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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Pianist, composer/arranger, and former bandleader Raymond Scott discovered up-and-coming jazz/pop vocalist Gloria Lynne in the late 1950s. (1) Gloria Lynne recorded her debut album Miss Gloria Lynne on the Everest Record label in 1958, and it quickly garnered the attention of noted music critics. Jazz critics Nat Hentoff and Leonard Feather gave Miss Gloria Lynne "thumbs up," which led to bookings at well-known jazz clubs in Manhattan, including the Village Gate and Birdland (see Lynne and Chilton 2000, 86). In 1959, following the success of her debut album, Lynne's label not only gave her the green light to record a sophomore album, Lonely and Sentimental, but also handed over complete artistic control. In response, she did something that was somewhat unprecedented for the time: request that a woman serve as the musical arranger for the project. Gloria Lynne's choice of arrangers was none other than another up-and-coming artist, Melba Liston. Musical collaboration between women artists was certainly a rarity, particularly for African-American women during the 1950s; most artistic decision making lay in the hands of white male producers and record executives. As Gloria Lynne reminisced, this type of partnership "was unheard of in that day" (Lynne interview, 2013). A history-making moment like this one deserves special attention. This essay explores the musical collaboration between vocalist Gloria Lynne and trombonist-composer-arranger Melba Liston for the album Lonely and Sentimental. In assessing the contributions that Melba Liston made in crafting the musical arrangements for Lonely and Sentimental, I draw extensively from oral history including personal experience narratives or "conversational narratives," memoirs, and personal interviews. Prior to her recording date with Gloria Lynne, Melba Liston was performing with Dizzy Gillespie's orchestra around New York City. Her visibility as the lone female in the band, her proficiency on the trombone, an instrument perceived as masculine, and her role as arranger for the band, one often dominated by men, soon caught the attention of many observers, among them Gloria Lynne. Gloria Lynne recalls her first time meeting Melba Liston amidst the New York jazz scene of the 1950s: "I met Melba and I was so impressed, because she was a girl. Melba Liston was just somebody [who] you really wanted to meet and be around all the time, because, she was just that sweet, and just that nice and outgoing, and very, very talented" (ibid.). Soon after that initial meeting, Lynne was approached by Liston to perform one of her original songs, "We Never Kissed," with the singer's trio. Liston's song became a fixture in the repertoire for Gloria Lynne's trio. When Lynne's sophomore album project transpired, with the idea to record it with strings, she requested Liston as musical arranger for the entire album: "I asked her [Liston], 'Can you do strings?' It was her first string date, my first string date. I requested her; I figured that she's talented and why not" (ibid.). Raymond Scott, the producer and musical arranger for Lynne's debut album, secured Liston as arranger, and her song "We Never Kissed" was added to a string of standards for the album. According to Lynne, "I liked the song so ... we wanted to record it with strings. It's a fabulous piece of material" (ibid.). Such collaboration between Gloria Lynne and Melba Liston was timely, considering the music industry's predilection for recording black female jazz singers performing popular songs with strings. For example, Ella Fitzgerald's 1956 album on Norman Granz's newly created label, Verve, ushered in such a concept. (2) Other singers followed suit including Dinah Washington, Della Reese, and, of course, Gloria Lynne. Like Washington and Reese, Lynne drew upon her gospel roots as expressed with pleading and melismatic lines, vocalese singing, punctuating the end of songs with dramatic vocal delivery. She balanced these approaches with her distinct phrasing, interpretive storytelling ability, and "[vocal] range and technical control" (Feather 1959). …
“我们从未吻过”:与梅尔巴和弦乐的约会
钢琴家、作曲家/编曲家、前乐队指挥雷蒙德·斯科特在20世纪50年代末发现了崭露头角的爵士/流行歌手格洛丽亚·琳恩。1958年,格洛丽亚·林恩在珠穆朗玛峰唱片公司录制了她的首张专辑《格洛丽亚·林恩小姐》,很快引起了著名音乐评论家的注意。爵士评论家纳特·亨托夫和伦纳德·费瑟给格洛丽亚·林恩小姐点了赞,这使她得以在曼哈顿著名的爵士俱乐部演出,包括Village Gate和Birdland(见Lynne and Chilton 2000, 86)。1959年,在她的首张专辑大获成功之后,林恩的唱片公司不仅给了她录制第二张专辑《孤独与感怀》的绿灯,而且还把完全的艺术控制权交给了她。作为回应,她做了一件在当时是前所未有的事情:要求一位女性担任这个项目的音乐编曲。格洛丽亚·林恩选择的编曲人不是别人,正是另一位崭露头角的艺术家梅尔巴·利斯顿。女性艺术家之间的音乐合作当然是罕见的,尤其是在20世纪50年代的非裔美国女性;大多数艺术决策都掌握在白人男性制作人和唱片公司高管手中。正如Gloria Lynne回忆的那样,这种类型的伙伴关系“在当时是闻所未闻的”(Lynne interview, 2013)。这样一个创造历史的时刻值得特别关注。本文探讨了歌手格洛丽亚·林恩和长号手兼作曲家兼编曲梅尔巴·利斯顿在专辑《孤独与感伤》中的音乐合作。在评估梅尔巴·利斯顿对《孤独与感伤》音乐编排的贡献时,我从口述历史中广泛取材,包括个人经历叙事或“对话叙事”、回忆录和个人采访。在与Gloria Lynne录制专辑之前,Melba Liston在纽约市与Dizzy Gillespie的管弦乐队一起演出。作为乐队中唯一的女性,她的知名度很高,她对长号(一种被认为是男性的乐器)的熟练程度,以及她在乐队中担任编曲的角色,通常由男性主导,很快引起了许多观察者的注意,其中包括格洛丽亚·林恩(Gloria Lynne)。格洛丽亚·林恩回忆起她第一次见到梅尔巴·利斯顿是在20世纪50年代的纽约爵士乐现场:“我见到梅尔巴,我印象深刻,因为她是个女孩。梅尔巴·利斯顿是一个你真的很想见到并一直在身边的人,因为她很可爱,很好,很外向,非常非常有才华”(同上)。初次见面后不久,利斯顿找到琳恩,邀请她和利斯顿的三人组一起演唱她的一首原创歌曲《我们从未亲吻过》(We Never Kissed)。利斯顿的这首歌成为格洛丽亚·林恩(Gloria Lynne)的三重奏曲目中的固定曲目。当琳恩的第二张专辑计划出现时,她想用弦乐录制这张专辑,她请利斯顿担任整张专辑的音乐编曲:“我问她(利斯顿),‘你会用弦乐吗?’”这是她的第一次约会,也是我的第一次约会。我问她;我觉得她很有才华,为什么不呢”(同上)。琳恩首张专辑的制作人和音乐编曲雷蒙德·斯科特(Raymond Scott)请来了利斯顿担任编曲,她的歌曲《我们从未亲吻过》(We Never Kissed)也被加入了这张专辑的一系列标准中。琳恩说:“我很喜欢这首歌……我们想用弦乐来录音。这是一件极好的材料”(同上)。考虑到音乐行业对黑人女爵士歌手用弦乐演奏流行歌曲的偏好,格洛丽亚·林恩和梅尔巴·利斯顿的这种合作是及时的。例如,艾拉·菲茨杰拉德1956年在诺曼·格兰兹新创建的厂牌Verve上的专辑就引领了这样一个概念。其他歌手也纷纷效仿,包括黛娜·华盛顿、黛拉·里斯,当然还有格洛丽亚·林恩。像华盛顿和里斯一样,琳恩利用她的福音根源,用恳求和优美的台词表达,用声乐演唱,用戏剧性的声音表达歌曲的结尾。她用她独特的措辞、解释故事的能力和“[声音]范围和技术控制”平衡了这些方法(Feather 1959)。…
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