Dearest Blossom

Blossom Dearie, a beloved Jazz and standards singer and pianist, died a few months ago after a long career of keepin' it real. I was introduced to Blossom in college while working at the adorable Boutique Darlings. We were allowed to pick the music that was played in the shop and I would often bring in my old fartsy faves--Michael Feinstein, Frank Sinatra, Fred Astaire, etc. But my dearest co-worker and friend Cecile brought in her copy of Blossom Dearie one day and my instant reaction was "who is this child singing?"

Blossom's voice is the tiniest, itsy bitsy little thing you've ever heard and I must admit very hard to take initially. But after hours upon hours of standing around listening to the same CD's on repeat I took to Blossom and became one with her rendition of "Deed I Do."

I came across a wonderful article on Pop Matters today that highlighted the life of Blossom and how the writer,Will Layman, a writer, teacher and musician, came to love this wonderful lady too.

Below I have pulled out a few of the more interesting pieces from the article and you can also listen to some of Blossom's songs through the LaLa playlist while you read. A few of my favorites from the list are "Deed I Do," "Tout Doucement,"
"I Won't Dance," and "They Say It's Spring."

Blossom continued to play at NY and London supper clubs well into her old age and was one of the last remaining supper club performers of her time. She died peacefully in her sleep on February 7, 2009 in her Greenwich Village apartment.

Blossom Dearie - Blossom Deari...

Blossom Dearie was born in 1924 in East Durham, New York, and she came of age as a singer and pianist in the ‘50s, a time when the hippest music in America wasn’t far off from the supper clubs and cabarets—a kind of “indie” music for its time. Blossom, a preppy-looking white woman with a sound that was the very opposite of “down home”, shared a social and music scene with the likes of Miles Davis, the baddest and hippest jazz musician on the planet.

Her career boomed, artistically and commercially, in the ‘60s, and whether through cleverness or pugnacity she made few commercial compromises as the decades passed. She appeared on television singing great songs because the hosts were charmed by her. Her career was inadvertently boosted by the success of a jingle she recorded for Hires Root Beer in 1962, leading to the release of Blossom Dearie Sings Rootin’ Songs, but her art was essentially untouched.

In the ‘70s, she recorded some pop songs associated with the singer-songwriter movement ("Killing Me Softly” and “Both Sides Now") to no real ill effect—at the same time doing more composing herself. She also helped out her pal Bob Dorough by doing some cameo singing for his work on the kids’ show Schoolhouse Rock. She was open-minded, but she knew what she wanted in her art.

From the first notes of “‘Deed I Do” ("Do I want you? Oh, my, do I. Honey ... ‘deed I do"), my ears were in handcuffs. Here was a jazz singer lacking all the usual histrionic business. No trills or swoops or over-drama. No grunting or fake authenticity, but also no sentimentality or cheesiness.

I was only a 14-year-old kid, but I could hear intelligence and wit in Blossom Dearie’s attack on a lyric. Blossom sings:

I won’t dance, don’t ask me
I won’t dance, don’s ask
I won’t dance, monsieur, with you
My heart won’t let my feet do things they should do

And you can hear a twinkle in her phrasing that acknowledges the cleverness and irony in the words. Later, when the lyrics rhymes, “For, heaven rest us / I’m not asbestos!”, Blossom makes the ingenious lyric seems not precious but a thrill. But when she finally sings, “I know that music leads the way to romance / So if I hold you in arms I won’t dance”, it’s clear that what she’s finally saying is—when you hold me in your arms I’ll do way more than dance.

All this is clear because in Blossom’s voice there is the surface sound of innocence—a little girl tone and pitch—that is Turned Just So into experience by the way Blossom places her syllables against the beat. It’s not an obvious thing, but it is a very effective thing: Blossom swings her little girl voice in a way that makes clear that she is no little girl. And so, like the aftertaste of a great glass of wine, her voice becomes impossibly powerful through an act of implication and subtlety.

Blossom Dearie, rest in peace. You sang directly to me, and every note, every syllable, every purring vowel was a thrill.