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About Last Night

Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

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Archives for February 8, 2009

TT: Blossom Dearie, R.I.P.

February 8, 2009 by Terry Teachout

41AN1HT1R8L._SL500_AA240_.jpgI once described Blossom Dearie as “the hippest person in the world.” It was a forgivable piece of hyperbole, though she was surely one of the strangest creatures in the world, a fey woman with a tiny, childlike voice and a hard-earned reputation for craziness who sang in a style precisely equidistant between jazz and cabaret, accompanying herself on the piano with supreme delicacy and finesse. She was also an exceptionally fine composer whose best songs, “I’m Shadowing You” and “Sweet Surprise” in particular, deserve to be much better known. Her long run at the now-defunct Danny’s Skylight Room, which lasted into the twenty-first century, gave those not yet born when the New York cabaret scene was at its height a chance to know something of what it was like.

Her best records were the solo albums she made in the Seventies for Daffodil, her own label, all of which, alas, are now out of print, including Needlepoint Magic, the live album that introduced me to her crystalline way with a song and to which I am listening as I write these words. This compilation of her earlier sides for Verve is almost as good, though, and provides an even clearer sense of her jazz roots, which ran very deep (Miles Davis admired her greatly).

I first heard Blossom sing in 1979, became a fan on the spot, and stayed that way forever after. She was the first cabaret singer I made a point of hearing in person when I moved to New York, and I continued to seek her out from then until 2002, when I caught one of her last live shows and wrote about it in my Washington Post column:

As for Blossom Dearie, who has settled into Danny’s Skylight Room for a hyper-extended run, I can do no better than to say of her what Walter Winchell said of the Stork Club: She’s the New Yorkiest thing in New York. Her piping, super-sly voice and crystalline pianism haven’t changed much in the past four decades–the only difference is that she now brings a sharply sardonic edge to tough-minded songs like “The Ladies Who Lunch”–and if you long for the long-lost days of cabaret at its classiest, you’ll find them here.

That brief review sums up part of what Blossom Dearie meant to me: I identified her with New York, the city of my dreams, so much so that I named a cat after her. The cat and I finally made it to New York, but now that Blossom is gone, my dreams will never again be the same.

* * *

Stephen Holden’s excellent New York Times obituary is here.

Doug Ramsey’s eloquent tribute is here.

Blossom Dearie sings “Surrey with the Fringe on Top” on The Jack Paar Show:

Terry Teachout

Terry Teachout, who writes this blog, is the drama critic of The Wall Street Journal and the critic-at-large of Commentary. In addition to his Wall Street Journal drama column and his monthly essays … [Read More...]

About

About “About Last Night”

This is a blog about the arts in New York City and the rest of America, written by Terry Teachout. Terry is a critic, biographer, playwright, director, librettist, recovering musician, and inveterate blogger. In addition to theater, he writes here and elsewhere about all of the other arts--books, … [Read More...]

About My Plays and Opera Libretti

Billy and Me, my second play, received its world premiere on December 8, 2017, at Palm Beach Dramaworks in West Palm Beach, Fla. Satchmo at the Waldorf, my first play, closed off Broadway at the Westside Theatre on June 29, 2014, after 18 previews and 136 performances. That production was directed … [Read More...]

About My Podcast

Peter Marks, Elisabeth Vincentelli, and I are the panelists on “Three on the Aisle,” a bimonthly podcast from New York about theater in America. … [Read More...]

About My Books

My latest book is Duke: A Life of Duke Ellington, published in 2013 by Gotham Books in the U.S. and the Robson Press in England and now available in paperback. I have also written biographies of Louis Armstrong, George Balanchine, and H.L. Mencken, as well as a volume of my collected essays called A … [Read More...]

The Long Goodbye

To read all three installments of "The Long Goodbye," a multi-part posting about the experience of watching a parent die, go here. … [Read More...]

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