• Home
  • About
    • Doug Ramsey
    • Rifftides
    • Contact
  • Purchase Doug’s Books
    • Poodie James
    • Take Five: The Public and Private Lives of Paul Desmond
    • Jazz Matters
    • Other Works
  • AJBlogs
  • ArtsJournal
  • rss

Rifftides

Doug Ramsey on Jazz and other matters...

Joyce Collins, 1930-2010

January 29, 2010 by Doug Ramsey

The pianist and singer Joyce Collins died recently in Los Angeles following a long illness. She was 79. Highly respected in jazz circles, Collins played with a sensitive touch and subtle use of chords. Her singing was an outgrowth of those values, with attention to interpretation of the meaning of songs and, as Marian McPartland put it, “…deep feeling, a way of lingering over certain phrases, telling her story in a very Joyce Collins.jpgpoignant way.” Collins’s recorded debut as a leader had Ray Brown on bass and Frank Butler on drums. Earlier, she worked with Bob Cooper and Oscar Pettiford, among others, later toured and recorded as a pianist and vocalist with singer Bill Henderson and played with Benny Carter. Collins’s following included many musicians who sought out her gigs, which became increasingly rare in recent years as she depended increasingly on teaching for a living. Most of the recordings under her own name and with Henderson have become collectors items going for elevated prices on Amazon or as bargain LPs on eBay, but one of her best, Sweet Madness, with bassist Andy Simpkins and drummer Ralph Penland, is still in print.
Collins was born in Nevada and went to college in northern California, but not for long, for a reason I explain in Take Five: The Public and Private Lives of Paul Desmond.

…Joyce Collins, like Desmond, was a musician not majoring in music. Dave Brubeck heard her in 1947 playing in a bar in Stockton, where she was a student at Stockton Junior College. He thought she was too good a musician for Stockton J.C. and recommended that she move to San Francisco and study with his piano teacher, Fred Saatman.
“I don’t know why,” she said, “since I didn’t know who he was, but I took his advice. I went to San Francisco State, enrolled as a liberal arts major, called up Fred Saatman and started with him.”
She found herself in two classes with Paul Desmond, one on Shakespeare, another on the American novel.
“I’d go plugging along, never missed a class, studied hard. Lucky to get a C. He rarely came to class. He’d breeze in, always looking sleepy. Literarily brilliant, but sleepy. And of course he got A’s. I was so shy and so in awe of him, I was tongue-tied. It was hard for me to make conversation, but I always used to say to him, ‘We’re the hare and the tortoise.’ He was so witty. He was talking to a girl and I kind of overheard him, and he said, ‘There’s a vas deferens between us.’ I thought it was the wittiest thing I’d ever heard. It went around. People quoted that.”

For more about Joyce Collins, including a rare piece of video, see Bill Reed’s blog, The People vs. Dr. Chilledair.

Share:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)

Related

Filed Under: Main

Comments

  1. Gordon Sapsed says

    January 30, 2010 at 1:52 am

    Thanks, Doug, for this piece about Joyce. I was never able to see her perform, but have the album with Jack Sheldon and also exchanged e-mails with Joyce before her passing.
    There is at least one more video of Joyce on YouTube – shot in Italy with top Italian jazzmen- Joyce comping at the piano.


  2. RUTH OLAY says

    January 30, 2010 at 10:24 am

    Joyce and I have been friends since l956. I was working at YeLittle Club and had hired Buddy Motsinger who was a close friend of Joyce’s in San Francisco. That is how I got to meet Joyce.
    Buddy and I worked together for 11 years and he, I and Joyce would gather at one place or another and just talk, they would play and we
    were all very close. We were confidants and treasured our time together.
    I loved Joyce’s playing and there was one exceptional song she did that was written by the Bergmans..called “The Job Application”. Nobody that I know
    has ever recorded that song.. she did it to perfection and it was always requested.. The contents of the lyrics are so very moving that often there are a few seconds of silence when it’s over until people start to applaud..
    All of her friends loved, admired and enjoyed Joyce.. her wit, her intelligence and sensitivity.
    RIP, Joycie.
    I love you and miss you.
    Ruth Olay

  3. bill mays says

    January 30, 2010 at 10:42 am

    I just this morning heard news of Joyce’s passing. She was a dear person, whom I met shortly after moving to L.A. in 1969. She (Terry Trotter, as well) was studying “legit” piano with Victor Aller, and recommended him to me (I studied with Victor for a year or more). I used to hear Joyce at many of the L.A. clubs and loved her taste, timing, sensitivity.

  4. Dick McGarvin says

    January 31, 2010 at 8:57 am

    Like those who have posted comments, and so many others, I was a fan of Joyce’s and saw her perform many times. (Thanks to Ruth Olay for reminding me of THE JOB APPLICATION, every bit as moving as Ruth says.) Another favorite of Joyce’s was Ornette Coleman’s TURNAROUND, which she did often.
    Joyce was also a fine composer. Two of the songs on her SWEET MADNESS album are hers – the title track and VERMELHO.
    Something else about Joyce: She was the piano coach for one of the Bridges brothers for the move “The Fabulous Baker Boys”. She told me which one, but I’ve since forgotten. I’m thinking it was Beau. I do remember she said it was great experience and that she really enjoyed doing it.
    Joyce was very nice and talented lady and, so far as I know, the only jazz musician that Battle Mountain, Nevada has produced.

  5. Liz Kinnon says

    February 1, 2010 at 8:32 am

    Just a note that the video (mentioned in one of the comments below) was with some of the top Brazilian musicians, and was recorded when she went to play in Brazil (not Italy).
    I met Joyce in 1981 at the Dick Grove School of Music. We connected immediately and became very close, sharing so much music, so many stories, and many, many laughs over the years.
    I will miss her terribly, but I’m very grateful for the wonderful gift it was to know her.

  6. Bill Holman says

    February 1, 2010 at 4:39 pm

    I’ve known Joyce for over fifty years and have seen her through her trio, her marriages, her friendships with Jimmie Rowles, Jeri Southern, and me, and her enthusiasm for her teaching. She was so appreciative of the efforts of others, and occasionally would admit to liking something she had done.
    Joyce produced and arranged a CD for Wilfred Brimley, the actor, who loves to sing; though the band was a trio plus a horn, she took it very seriously, and would call now and then with a question on arranging, being careful to not impose.
    A great lady, earthy yet proper. A sweetheart.

  7. Rebecca Bonney says

    February 7, 2010 at 1:47 pm

    I met Joyce at the Dick Grove School of Music as I was one of her students. I was pretty much a beginner and I loved Joyce’s quote “where you are is where you are”. I treasured her Jazz Keyboard Classes and became good friends with her, Liz Kinnon, and Jennifer Russell (another Groover). We called ourselves the Ladies Who Lunch.I had a brief music career but can thank Joyce that I even had a career! I loved listening to her stories about musicians, men, and life. She made me laugh and I will miss her terribly. She was the hippest older woman I ever knew.

  8. Michael Cullen says

    February 8, 2010 at 4:59 pm

    Joyce was my friend and teacher since 2000. The best teacher I ever had and a delight to be with. She had a great fund of jokes/jazz stories and a session at Joyce’s was always over 2 hours.
    I miss her already

  9. Ted Hughart says

    March 10, 2010 at 1:25 am

    The unforgettable Joyce Collins — my first steady gig after arriving from Minnesota in 1965 was with Joyce at the Carousel Theatre bar in West Covina. It was about 100 miles round trip every night and we always drove together — Her edgy wit usually sparked some hysterical conversations about our marriages, both of which were failing at the time — but the most memorable thing to me was her powerful time groove. This was a piano/bass duo and trumpeter Larry Maguire, who was in the pit at the Carousel and listened to us most nights, offered a great compliment when he said, “when you guys are playing, I can always hear the drums.”
    Thanks for the ride, Joyce!

  10. Bill Reed says

    March 14, 2010 at 10:29 pm

    To the best of my knowledge, obits for jazz photog Ted Williams, who died last October, appeared in neither (LA or NY) “Times.” Same thing, recently, with Joyce Collins. Ironically, and mercifully, not the case with great guitarist Jimmy Wyble. Go figger? In the instance of Collins, there was an effort made by the family to get the L.A. Times to respond, but to no avail. Guess it helps to be a washed-up, drugged-out kid star.

  11. Kathy Joyce Waterbury says

    May 23, 2010 at 1:32 am

    Joyce was my first cousin and I could hardly wait for her to come to Reno where she would sit at our piano and play “Malaguena” when I was a little girl. That is my first memory and I never forgot it. Heard from a relative and I am so sad.

  12. Bob Day says

    August 23, 2010 at 7:56 am

    I just finished listening to her 1981 LP on Discovery (bright yellow cover; bought it at the late Tower Records Picadilly in 1989 for 1.99 pounds). I actually bough it because I’ve always enjoyed Jack Sheldon, but JC was a revelation… What a fine way with great songs.

  13. Bill Benjamin says

    August 24, 2010 at 2:14 pm

    Although familiar with her recordings, I only heard Joyce Collins live once. It was in the late 1970s at Rick’s Cafe in Chicago. It was Bill Henderson’s gig, but true to form for Bill, he shared the stage equally with Joyce and Dave McKay. Joyce was a truly special artist…a wonderful singer with piano chops to match. It’s a shame that artists of her depth are virtually unknown by the general American public.

  14. Tina Stevens says

    November 24, 2010 at 12:42 am

    I was cleaning out my Favorites on my computer and came across Joyce’s website. When it didn’t come up, I knew….
    I moved here in 1978 at age 25, eyes wide open, and saw Joyce in a club and took a vocal piano self accompaniment weekend class with her at Dick Grove in the early 80’s (which my Mom in Ohio paid for). Enjoyed it immensely even though it was early on Sundays. Saw her with Wilford Brimley – loved it. Such a sweet human being. Sensitive, soft. I use what I learned in her class with every gig (I’ve been playing in a club for 19 years every Wed.) and thank the universe for sending me to her. I bet she’s really getting it on now…. Cheers to music!

Doug Ramsey

Doug is a recipient of the lifetime achievement award of the Jazz Journalists Association. He lives in the Pacific Northwest, where he settled following a career in print and broadcast journalism in cities including New York, New Orleans, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland, San Antonio, Cleveland and Washington, DC. His writing about jazz has paralleled his life in journalism... [Read More]

Rifftides

A winner of the Blog Of The Year award of the international Jazz Journalists Association. Rifftides is founded on Doug's conviction that musicians and listeners who embrace and understand jazz have interests that run deep, wide and beyond jazz. Music is its principal concern, but the blog reaches past... Read More...

Subscribe to RiffTides by Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Doug’s Books

Doug's most recent book is a novel, Poodie James. Previously, he published Take Five: The Public and Private Lives of Paul Desmond. He is also the author of Jazz Matters: Reflections on the Music and Some of its Makers. He contributed to The Oxford Companion To Jazz and co-edited Journalism Ethics: Why Change? He is at work on another novel in which, as in Poodie James, music is incidental.

Archives

Recent Comments

  • Garret Gannuch on Armstrong And Ellington: Azalea
  • Patrick Hussey on Armstrong And Ellington: Azalea
  • mel on Armstrong And Ellington: Azalea
  • Orsolya S. on Armstrong And Ellington: Azalea
  • Doug Ramsey on Monday Book Recommendation: Lilian Terry’s Jazz Friends

Doug’s Picks

Monday Book Recommendation: Lilian Terry’s Jazz Friends

Lilian Terry, Dizzy Duke Brother Ray And Friends (Illinois) Lilian Terry’s book is full of anecdotes about her friendships with the musicians mentioned in the title—and dozens of others. Enjoying modest renown in Europe for her singing, Ms. Terry has also been involved in radio and television broadcasting and is a cofounder of the European […]

Share:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)

Monday Recommendation: Oscar Peterson Plays 10 Composers

Oscar Peterson Plays (Verve) In this five-CD reissue, the formidable pianist plays pieces by ten composers who dominated American popular music for decades. Peterson had bassist Ray Brown and guitarist Barney Kessel, succeeded by Herb Ellis. It’s the trio that made Peterson famous with Jazz At The Philharmonic and–by way of the 10 albums reproduced […]

Share:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)

Monday Recommendation: DIVA At 25

The DIVA Jazz Orchestra 25th Anniversary Project (ArtistShare) It has been a quarter of a century since Buddy Rich’s manager and relief drummer Stanley Kay found himself conducting a band whose drummer was young Sherrie Maricle. Intrigued by her playing, Kay set out to find whether there were other women jazz musicians of comparable talent. […]

Share:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)

Monday Recommendation, Keith Jarrett Trio: After The Fall

Keith Jarrett, Gary Peacock, Jack DeJohnette, After The Fall (ECM) In 1998 Keith Jarrett was emerging from a siege of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome that had sidelined him for two years. As he felt better, he was uncertain how completely his piano skill and endurance had returned. He decided to test himself. He gathered his longtime […]

Share:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)

Monday Recommendation: Gerard Kubik, Jazz Transatlantic

Gerhard Kubik, Jazz Transatlantic, Vol. I and Vol. II (University Press of Mississippi) The first volume of Kubik’s work is subtitled, “The African Undercurrent in Twentieth–Century Jazz Culture;” the second, “Jazz Derivatives and Developments in Twentieth-Century Africa.” The descriptions indicate the depth and scope of the Austrian ethnomusicologist’s research, which has taken him to Africa […]

Share:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)

Monday Recommendation: Magris In Miami

Roberto Magris Sextet Live in Miami @ the WDNA Jazz Gallery (J Mood) Widely experienced and recorded in Europe, pianist Magris demonstrates in this club date that he knows how to reach an American audience steeped in Latin and Caribbean music. The front line has trumpeter Brian Lynch at his fieriest, and the imaginative young […]

Share:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)

More Doug's Picks

Blogroll

All About Jazz
JerryJazzMusician
Carol Sloane: SloaneView
Jazz Beyond Jazz: Howard Mandel
The Gig: Nate Chinen
Wonderful World of Louis Armstrong
Don Heckman: The International Review Of Music
Ted Panken: Today is The Question
George Colligan: jazztruth
Brilliant Corners
Jazz Music Blog: Tom Reney
Brubeck Institute
Darcy James Argue
Jazz Profiles: Steve Cerra
Notes On Jazz: Ralph Miriello
Bob Porter: Jazz Etc.
be.jazz
Marc Myers: Jazz Wax
Night Lights
Jason Crane:The Jazz Session
JazzCorner
I Witness
ArtistShare
Jazzportraits
John Robert Brown
Night After Night
Do The Math/The Bad Plus
Prague Jazz
Russian Jazz
Jazz Quotes
Jazz History Online
Lubricity

Personal Jazz Sites
Chris Albertson: Stomp Off
Armin Buettner: Crownpropeller’s Blog
Cyber Jazz Today, John Birchard
Dick Carr’s Big Bands, Ballads & Blues
Donald Clarke’s Music Box
Noal Cohen’s Jazz History
Bill Crow
Easy Does It: Fernando Ortiz de Urbana
Bill Evans Web Pages
Dave Frishberg
Ronan Guilfoyle: Mostly Music
Bill Kirchner
Mike Longo
Jan Lundgren (Friends of)
Willard Jenkins/The Independent Ear
Ken Joslin: Jazz Paintings
Bruno Leicht
Earl MacDonald
Books and CDs: Bill Reed
Marvin Stamm

Tarik Townsend: It’s A Raggy Waltz
Steve Wallace: Jazz, Baseball, Life and Other Ephemera
Jim Wilke’s Jazz Northwest
Jessica Williams

Other Culture Blogs
Terry Teachout
DevraDoWrite
Alex Ross: The Rest Is Noise
On An Overgrown Path

Journalism
PressThink: Jay Rosen
Second Draft, Tim Porter
Poynter Online

Share:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)

Related

Return to top of page

an ArtsJournal blog

This blog published under a Creative Commons license

Copyright © 2018 · Magazine Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in

loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.