LP-663

Lorez Alexandria - Early In The Morning

Released 1960

Recording and Session Information

Lorez Alexandria, vocals, Joe Newman, trumpet; Al Grey, trombone; Frank Wess, tenor saxophone, flute; Frank Foster, tenor saxophone; Ramsey Lewis, piano; John Gray, Freddie Green, guitar; Eldee Young, bass; Redd Holt, drums
Chicago, March 15-17 1960

10004 So long
10005 Don't explain
10006 Early in the morning
10007 Good morning heartache
10008 Trouble is a man
10009 I ain't got nothin' but the blues
10010 Baby don't you cry
10011 Rocks in my bed
10012 I almost lost my mind
10013 I'm just a lucky so and so

Track Listing

Early In The Morning	Bartley, Hickman, Jordan	March 15-17 1960
Don't Explain	A. Herzog, B. Holiday	March 15-17 1960
So Long		March 15-17 1960
Good Morning, Heartache	Fisher, Drake, Higginbotham	March 15-17 1960
Trouble Is A Man	Wilder	March 15-17 1960
I Ain't Got Nothing But The Blues	George, Ellington	March 15-17 1960
Baby Don't You Cry	Buddy Johnson	March 15-17 1960
Rocks In My Bed	Ellington	March 15-17 1960
I'm Just A Lucky So & So	Ellington, David	March 15-17 1960
I Almost Lost My Mind	Joe Hunter	March 15-17 1960

Liner Notes

WHAT MAKES a jazz singer? Many things, and if we knew them all, we'd be able to produce such singers almost at will. And we can't. Wishing won't make it so, as the scarred egos of countless singers testify.

Sometimes a singer can be a jazz singer fpr one tune, one night. Doris Day, for instance, is to me a jazz singer on one record - April In Paris. And Rosemary Clooney for another - Tenderly. Perhaps there's a clue as to the why of jazz singing.

Lorez Alexandria says, "a lyric is dead until you breathe life into it," and I think she has, in this statement, hit at one of the essential elements of jazz singing which, whem added to swinging and a few more, make a jazz singer. And on the other hand, without which you can't be a jazz singer at all unless you are gifted with a rare voice — the kind that appears once in a generation.

Bringing a lyric to life, bringing a song to life, making those sounds into reality and above all into a personal reality which can then make it live in the mind of the listener and become part of his or her experience —these are the essential elements of jazz singing and they're not too far removed from the essential elements of any art.

Lorez Alexandria IS a jazz singer. I make that statement flatly, because she has reached me time after time on records and made the lyric and the song and the whole musical complex come to life.

She's a native of Chicago, from a musical family, sang spirituals, jubilees and semi-classics with an a-capella choir and taught in the Chicago park system recreation program. She sang with King Fleming's big band, his combo, and his vocal group in the midwest, and in recent years has been out on her own as a singer with a growing body of fans that includes Miles Davis and Sarah Vaughan.

She digs Ella Fitzgerald ("the most fabulous musicianship") and Frank Sinatra ("his phrasing always completely kills me") and, as any careful listener can hear, she has been greatly influenced by the horn players of jazz, including Lester Young and Charlie Parker.

When she selected the material for this LP, Lorez planned it with these thoughts in mind:

"I don't think blues have to be yelled, I'm not a blues shouter. We were striving for the mood-type thing and I wanted to attempt another phase of what I can do. I'm not entirely happy with the album — no singer ever does an LP she's altogether pleased with — but I am plexscd to this degree: These were things I wanted to do and I did as much as I can. I know that I did the BEST I could and we do have the light, the mood, and the blues."

Lorez has conviction about the importance of lyrics. "When you're telling a story you must have the liberty of speech. The only thing I think about when I am singing is what the lyric says to me and what I want it to say to the public."

The songs on this album are a beautiful cross-section of the blues ballads of the past few years. There's the sprightly Early In The Morning," which Louis Jordan made into a hit in the late '40s; the lovely Don't Explain and Good Morning Heartache which Billie Holiday wrote and recorded and made into classics; Rocks In My Bed, which was one of Ivie Anderson's greatest vocals with Duke Ellington; I Almost Lost My Mind, Ivory Joe Hunter's great blues ballad; I'm Just A Lucky So And So, and I Ain't Got Nothin' But The Blues, other Ellington standards; and Baby Don't You Cry. Little Miss Cornshucks' So Long, plus Alec Wilder's haunting Trouble Is A Man.

On all of these, Lorez sings as a jazz singer should: with conviction, with the phrasing and flexibility of an instrument, and with a deep concern for the communication of the lyrics. She has assistance throughout by musicians of the first rank. On side 1, she is accompanied by Ramsey Louis (piano): Eldee Young (bass); Red Holt (drums), Johnny Gray (guitar). On side two, they are joined by Joe Neasman (trumpet); Frank Wess and Frank Foster (tenors); Al Grey (trombone), and Freddie Green (rhythm guitar). The tenor solos are by Frank Foster, the flute solos by Frank Wess.

And the singing by Lorez Alexandria, singer, whose warmth, feeling, and ability to breathe life into a lyric - i.e. to sing creatively — marks her as one of the very few real jazz singers to emerge in recent years.

Ralph J. Gleason, whose syndicated column, The Rhythm Secton, originates in the San Francisco Chronicle.