Lakenheath Old Boys

We are all former students at Lakenheath High School and other public schools in East Anglia. We were in school in the 70s and 80s and drank deeply from the well of British culture of those decades - the pints, the telly, and of course the footie!

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Blossom Dearie (1927-2009) RIP

It's been a year of bad news already for jazz fans and fans of popular song and it keeps on coming. Yesterday came news of the death of Blossom Dearie at 82. With King Pleasure and Lambert, Hendricks and Ross, Blossom virtually invented "vocalese" (check out her solo on "Moody's Mood for Love"). She was a terrific pianist as well and her version of "Manhattan" is the definitive one IMHO. I saw her about ten years ago in Boston and was amazed that she had the same light, girlish voice into her seventies.

She'll be missed.

posted by The Blue Devil @ 10:00 AM 

2 Comments:

Blogger gooner71 said...

I'm sorry Bob, I thought she'd passed away at least 10 years ago.

2:00 PM  
Blogger The Blue Devil said...

That's a fair comment. I often feel that way when I see obits.

By the way, I was reminded by an NPR tribute of Blossom's involvement with Bob Dorough in the brilliant "Schoolhouse Rock" series. Here's Blossom doing the quite excellent math lesson - "Figure Eight."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jeq5a8bBh8c

2:39 PM  

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