Petra Van Nuis and her quartet gave a concert this afternoon in Ephraim, WI. Petra (pronounced Pay-tra) is a jazz vocalist from Chicago, IL and is "...one of the keepers of the flame when it comes to the fading art of tasty jazz singing" (from the playbill, front page reproduced below). Her repertoire is drawn from the Great American Song Book and her biography notes that "...she enjoys unearthing obscure songs and her extensive repertoire is both impressive and unique," both understatements! In the video above she sings Alone Together, from the 1932 Broadway musical Flying Colors, a great jazz standard. In the video, she is accompanied by her husband, jazz guitarist Andy Brown, arguably the best jazz guitarist you've never heard about.
I'm always surprised when high-level jazz hits the Door County Peninsula. In this case, the connection was through double bassist Joe Policastro who is, if I have this right, married to Robert Clarke's daughter (see the playbill below--click to enlarge).
On a personal note, Petra sang the great Ella Fitzgerald song A Tisket a Tasket (you can listen to Ella's 1938 recording with the Chick Webb orchestra here). This is the first jazz recording I can remember hearing and I must have been only five or size years old. I can remember walking into our kitchen, hearing the band on the radio doing the "So do we, so do we" chorus and understanding what it meant to be hip. Petra had her group do the "No, no, no, no..." response that was originally sung by Ella and I couldn't resist chiming in! A great, nostalgic afternoon of big-band jazz!
No comments:
Post a Comment