Last years 2 disc set by vocalist Jackie Ryan (“Doozy”) was on my list of best jazz discs, and her concerts exhibit the perfect combination of swing and sensuality. Her latest release is actually a compilation of her “best” love songs, which is actually a redundancy, because almost everything Ms. Ryan puts out is a love song! Still, it’s a an excellent introduction to one of the few singers who is able to capture the emotional intent and passion of each song she delivers. Because jazz tends to be a male-dominated art, we at AAJLA thought it would be wise for us of the Y-chromosome to peak into the mind of Ms. Ryan, and find out what has made her one of the most romantic singers of this generation. What man doesn’t want to know how a woman thinks. (After 25 years of marriage, this writer just scratching the surface!). We’ve put a few questions to Ms Ryan for our benefit….
FIRST CRUSH AS KID
It was my sister’s boyfriend! I still kind of remember him. It was totally innocent, I was about eleven. I don’t even know if it was her boyfriend; it could’ve been just a guy who came over. I just remember one time he simply put his hand on my shoulder and neck, just in a friendly way, but I for me, I was blushing, and had a big crush. I never let him know, but, you know, I’ve looked at pictures of him since, and he was darned good looking!!! I think even my mother had a crush on him!
FIRST LOVE SONG
My sister used to play music around the house, and I think it was “A Thousand Stars In The Sky.” I actually sang it. I was probably four; I remember that I would lean out my window at night and sing to the stars. I was VERY dramatic and romantic as a child.
ROMANTIC JAZZ SINGER
Johnny Hartman. The Bethlehem ones, and especially the one with John Coltrane. Anything he did
FAVORITE ROMANTIC RECORD
That’s extremely easy, because I wore it out; “Amoroso” by Joao Gilberto. That is THE most romantic ever. I could’ve first heard it with an early boyfriend who turned me on to Brazilian music. Just about the time I got turned onto jazz. But, it wasn’t so much that-it’s just the music. It’s an incredibly romantic album. The arrangements are by Claus Oberman, who did all those Jobim records. I wore the grooves of that album out. Fortunately, it now comes on cd!
Everything hit me about that record, being it was one of the first Brazilian records I ever heard. The way he sings really excited me. I didn’t realize until I understood “the Brazilian way” of the fluidity of melody and rhythm. He would sing behind the beat, ahead of the beat, and sometimes he’d even just drop a bar. I heard that they actually arranged the strings around him and his guitar. In other words, they first recorded him, and then put in the string arrangements on . That’s why it’s so natural. His singing was like the beautiful Brazilian breeze on the beach.
MOST ROMANTIC MUSICIAN
Gee any musician that touches you in their playing I would consider romantic.
Far too many to mention really. So so many today and yesterday that were romantic. I guess you’d have to say all of the great musicians were romantic.
Nat Kind Cole of course. So sweet and tender.
I love Toots Thielemans’ plaintive chromatic harmonica. He really really touches me deeply. Always has. Red Garland. Bill Evans, Jim Hall, Wes Montgomery, my friends, guitarists Larry Koonse and Romero Lubambo’s guitar playing.
They have a lot of heart. These are just the people who come to mind here.
But like I said, every great musician is a romantic player in some way. I think Dori Caymmi’s music is extremely romantic. I used to go listen to him all by myself in LA when I lived there years ago and just tear up it was so beautiful. Oh and Joao Gilberto!
I am sure I am not mentioning people I should and will think tomorrow ‘Oh no I should have said so ‘n so! But here is just what I can think of today.
There are just too many romantic players I love to name anyone as the most, though!
SONGWRITER THAT WRITES THE BEST LOVE SONGS.
Well, Antonio Carlos Jobim wrote some incredible love songs…Luiza has the most incredible lyrics.
I loved him also in his singing. It was so honest. I consider his singing to be so romantic!
Lord, haveyou ever heard his song Gabriela? My God!
Many Latin songwriters, Augustin Lara, well all of the Latin songwriters. Because Latin music is about romance period. The things they say in Spanish we just don’t express in English.
But I love the lyrics of Alan and Marilyn Bergman today. Alan Bergman singing his own songs, too, on that newer release of his, like Jobim, when he sang his own songs. I just think, well no one can do that better. The songwriter certainly knows what they meant when they wrote the lyrics. Even if they just talk it, it’s romantic.
Their Like A. Lover has to be one of the most romantic songs. Those are English lyrics to Dori Caymmi’s ‘O Cantador’. Very romantic. Of course Johnny Mercer. My God! Midnight Sun! “Your lips were like a red and ruby chalice, warmer than the summer night.” Wow! Talk to me !!
So many songwriters from that era of the Great American songbook. The Gershwin’s. Cole Porter, Jerome Kern, um, Shwartz and Deitz, Rodgers and Hart, Johnny Mandel, Johnny Burke, Jule Stein, Harry Warren, all of them from that era. Ray Evans lyrics on Maybe September. or Never Let Me Go.
Oh I loved that man. They knew how to write a love song!
I got a chance to know Ray for a couple of years. He told me if Ira Gershwin were alive today he’s be sitting on a corner begging for change because no one was looking for romantic songs anymore. He was a bit sad about it.
I do think today it is getting a bit harder to find romance in Jazz. Sorry, but it does seem to me to be getting a little cooler out there. So this is why I tend to look back to a time where we weren’t afraid to say romantic things. But perhaps a new songwriter will come out and surprise me!
MOST ROMANTIC MOVIES
Off the bat…I can think of some older movies of course…since I really love the old movies best….like Roman Holiday, Splendor in The Grass, Umbrellas of Cherbourg. I thought a particularly touching movie was Guess who’s Coming To Dinner . For me one part that really touched me was when Sidney Poitier’s mother talks to her husband asking him if he had forgotten what it was to be young and to be so in love. It was so beautifully and poignantly acted by Beah Richards. She opens his eyes to his son’s passion and he starts to remember. You knew here was a woman who never spoke back to her husband…But here she had to fight for her son. An incredible scene.
But the most touching moment in that film is the final scene when Spencer Tracey says, that if their love is even a fraction of the love that he and his wife (Katherine Hepburn) shared throughout the years that that was more than enough to pull them through the challenges they would face. In that scene they looked at each other, he and Katherine Hepburn, with tears in their eyes and in such a way that we all knew it was not acting. That was Spencer’s last movie and you knew that they both knew it would be. One of the most beautiful moments of love I’ve ever seen in a movie. It would still make me cry. Ah I’m a real sap!
Then of course there is Moonstruck which I have seen a million times. Very funny, very sweet and very romantic!b Loved that movie! “La Bella Luna!!”….and I think Clint Eastwood did an amazing job with The Bridges of Madsion County. I didn’t care for the book actually. But he made it so poignant. And of course Meryl Streep can do no wrong. And man, he certainly picked the right music for it! didn’t he!
MOST ROMANTIC ACTOR
Again I think back to the old movies…Gregory Peck, Burt Lancaster, Sidney Poitier, Marcello Mastriani, wow! Those were the guys!
Of the newer actors I think Kevin Kline is a great actor! He is funny as heck and can play so many types. Hugh Jackman is pretty darn sexy….but what is also nice about him is that he doesnt seem to take himself too seriously…to me someone can’t be romantic if they take themselves too seriously, you know what I mean? It’s gotta be about that twinkle in the eye!
I love Christopher Walken because he is amazingly funny. But maybe he isn’t really romantic! I’m just trying to think of actors I like…but I am having a hard time thinking of a really romantic movie! Javier Bardem was good in Woody Allen’s last movie. And heck Penelope Cruz sure thinks he’s romantic! Paul Newman, he was like a tiger when he was young…but I thought he was a lot sexier as an older man. I think Morgan Freeman is sexy!
I think it’s all about how comfortable one is with oneself! Now that is sexy!
If that bit of divulgence won’t make you want to hear this hopelessly romantic lady, nothing will. Check out her latest collection of love songs, and get ready to be woo’d by the lady who lives the verse, “abide in faith, hope and love…the greatest of these is love.”