Carmen McRae

Late Career & Legacy

Early Life

Career Beginnings

• Born April 8, 1920 at Harlem Hospital in New York City
• Began to study classical piano at age 8 and began to sing popular music for fun
• 1938-39: After graduating high school, Carmen becomes interested in jazz, meets Irene Kitchings (wife of jazz pianist Teddy Wilson) and Billie Holiday, and sets her heart on a career as a jazz musician. Carmen was only 8 years younger than Billie Holiday.
• Billie Holiday recorded Carmen's song "Dream of Life."

• 1940-43: Carmen befriends many well-known jazz artists such as Nat "King" Cole, Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk, Dizzy Gillespie, and Kenny Clarke at various jazz clubs in New York
• 1944-46: Carmen marries Kenny Clarke, who is drafted into the war. She tours with Benny Carter's, Count Basie's, and Mercer Ellington's band and makes her first recording.
• Clarke goes on a European tour with Dizzy Gilespie's band. He has an affair, and his marriage with Carmen ends (not officially divorced until late 1950s).

• Never sells a million copies or wins a Grammy
• Avoids publicity and radio and television interviews that others stars take in as a regularity
• 1970s-80s: begins to be known as one of the greatest jazz singers of all time, next to Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, and Anita O'Day. Tours widely in the US and abroad and makes many recordings with many well known jazz artists.
• Last two albums were tributes to Thelonious Monk and Sarah Vaughan
• 1990s: Carmen's health suffers due to her chronic drug use, and does not make an attempt to change her lifestyle to regain health. She is unable to continue performing.
• 1994: Receives a master's of jazz fellowship for lifetime achievement from the National Endowment from the arts, but is too ill to accept the award. Falls into a coma and dies November 10th, 1994.
• Wants to be remembered for one thing: her music

Career Beginnings continued...

• 1953: Clarinetist Tony Scott hired Carmen to be an intermission pianist and singer at Minton's Playhouse, the club where bebop was developed in the 1940s. Here, she gained a great following and honed her own personal style
• 1955: Carmen signs contract to record for the Decca label and her first album is released. Ties with Ella Fitzgerald for Metronome magazine's Singer of the Year award and Down Beat magazine votes her Best New Female Singer of the Year. Performs at Carnegie Hall.
• First big hit: "Skyliner" in 1956
• Performed most often at the Blue Note club in New York throughout her career
• Begins love affair with bassist Ike Isaacs in late 1950s and they marry, but are divorced by 1961.
• Other love affairs include a relationship with French guitarist Francois Vaz from 1967-68.

Carmen's Style

• Began career during the beginning and rise of bebop, leaving behind familiar sounding harmonies and rhythms
• Lusty, full-throated, powerful, smoky voice; intricate, subtle, and controlled.
• Voice lowered and darkened with age as a result of use of cigarettes and marijuana
• Unique ability to project the emotional connotations of a song with a musical intelligence that was derived in part from her knowledge of the piano
• Could bring a tear to the eye or a lump to the throat with her reading of a lyric
• "Every word is very important to me. Lyrics come first, then the melody. The lyric of a song I might decide to sing must have something that I can convince you with. It's like an actress who selects a role that contains something she wants to portray."
• Performs popular ballads and jazz numbers with bop phrasing and inflections
• Nicknamed "The SInger's Singer"
• Especially inventive as a scat singer, with an instinctive feeling for rhythm
• Thoroughly competent pianist

Carmen's Personality

• Throughout her career, became more inclinced to asserting her independence
• Sometimes very difficult and feisty
• "Diva"
• Tough, outspoken, highly opinionated
• Doesn't let anyone "stomp around" in her life
• Protects her career, artistry, space, and time
• Takes charge, sometimes quite rudely, but nurtures young talent
• Exudes charm when she wants to, and serves as a role model for other singers
• Moody, testy, demanding, and outright course
• Gained a reputation as being bisexual or lesbian

Carmen McRae