The Great Jazz and Pop Vocal Albums: Rosemary Clooney's Blue Rose

I think he was right not to encourage that, but part of me is curious as to what that might have sounded like, since Rosemary did not sing a lot of blues. Who knows! But what she did do is, of course, a classic and that is this album with Duke Ellington. And she came up with the idea to work with Ellington. Duke had been a contract artist on Columbia Records years previously, and had gone independent for a little while. George approached him, and he didn't think Duke would go for it because he remembered that he'd brought to him the idea of doing an album with Sarah Vaughan and he'd turned that down. So he didn't really expect him to reply positively when he brought the idea of doing an album with Rosemary Clooney. But he did.

He was kind of surprised. I think he realized it would be a whole new kind of a thing for him. And at that point the two of them are also trying to think of a way they could get Duke back on Columbia Record. So all three of them agreed to do this thing. The only problem was that Rosemary was stuck in Los Angeles, she was in the middle of a pregnancy, and Duke was touring all over the place. And they decided that rather than wait for Duke to get to Los Angeles, to get the orchestra to Los Angeles, that they would use overdubbing, which was a brand new technology. They'd record tracks and Rosemary would sing to them. And in hindsight it seems, like, what was the rush?

What did it really matter if it came out exactly then? They couldn't wait another six months? Especially since Duke was constantly traveling and he was probably going to be in Los Angeles within a few months anyhow. But they decided to go ahead and do it this way. I think they really wanted to do it before anybody changed their mind. So they laid down all these tracks. Duke did the arrangements in collaboration with his musical partner Billy Strayhorn. And then, while the band was touring, Billy took the tracks to Los Angeles and worked with Rosemary and got her to add her voice over these tracks, and worked with her and rehearsed with her. And he would shuttle back and forth while they were working on the arrangements, and they put it all together. In the latter part of her life Rosemary remembered this all very well, these details about working with Billy Strayhorn. Almost everybody who worked with Strayhorn absolutely adored him. He was much beloved by the musicians, by the players in Duke's band, the singers that would work with the band, and different guest stars like Lena Horne and Rosemary Clooney. They all adored Billy Strayhorn, a very lovable guy apparently. And Rosemary remembered great in great detail working with Strayhorn.

The thing about Blue Rose, I think, that Rosemary acknowledges herself, was first of all in doing an album with Duke Ellington. She was mainly known for doing pop singles, things like "Come On A My House," and "This House" and other songs about houses. And at that point she was mainly known for that, for the sort of ephemeral pop singles. And for her to stretch to the point where she could do this is purely jazz focus, and these sort of deeper songs. That's what they all were. Some of them were kind of nonsensical in nature, but they all made sense particularly musically and melodically. And it was a whole different kind of a thing for her where she really had to apply herself. The idea of sort of stretching and sustaining a mood for twelve songs was really a new concept then. In this age of pop singles, to get somebody to listen to one voice for twelve tracks in a row was a whole new concept. Not that many singers would even do shows that were particularly long in nightclubs at that point.

Most of the big nightclubs had these sort of reviews. You would not get what you get today, which was to go and hear one singer doing ninety minutes worth of songs, doing sixteen songs in a row. It would have been very rare to have heard that as late as the mid 1950s. So, for her to be able to stretch out and sustain a mood for that long was a big deal for her. And she really realized this is the album that turned the corner for her, that allowed her to move on to being more than just another hit parade person, but a real substantial interpreter, like people she admired. Like Billie Holiday, and like Peggy Lee, and these other singers that were were moving into this new format. So it was a whole stretch for her that really paid off.

Blue Rose was originally written as an instrumental and, that is to say, it did not have lyrics, but they decided to do it nonverbally, with Rosemary Clooney humming, and sort of scatting, but just sort of intoning the melody to herself. And there is this great tradition with Ellington of nonverbal singing. He'd made some classic records going back to the 1920's things like "A Creole Love Call" with Adelaide Hall, "Transbluesency" with Kaye Davis, and there was this great tradition in the Ellington band of nonverbal singing. He did more than any other jazz composer, I think, using the human voice in ways other than singing words. So, Blue Rose was a great extension of that. And, unlike say, Kaye Davis, who really had an operatic voice, for Rosemary to do it was a whole different thing. And when she couldn't relate to it, Strayhorn gave her this instruction that you should pretend that you're standing in front of your mirror and you're getting ready for a big date and you're just kind of humming to yourself when you hear Duke Ellington on the radio. And Rosemary always said, that was the instruction that allowed her to get into the song, that allowed her to find her own pathway into the music.

One track that always leaps out to me is "I'm Checkin' Out, Goombye," and it is kind of a reminder of how deep the Duke Ellington, Billy Strayhorn songbook is. We all know the big hits: "Mood Indigo,” "Sophisticated Lady" and "Don't Get Around Much Anymore". But "I'm Checkin' Out, Goombye" is a sort of inconsequential little rhythm song that Duke wrote in the late 1930's, recorded once then forgot about it. And it also seems that the title, "Goombye," was some sort of a catch phrase that Duke was trying to promote. If that song caught on and the phrase would catch on, it would sort of promote the song, but it never really happened. But even Duke's throwaway songs are better than most composers' classics. And it's just a sort of inconsequential little piece that turns into this absolute gem the way she sings it. "You're in the know, you got to go, the cake is all dough." It's not exactly Cole Porter, but it's kind of perfect in its own way. A very unassuming, very gentle, flowing little bit of a rhythm song that she turns into an absolute, sort of a minor treasure.

The version of "Sophisticated Lady" that you hear on the record is a particularly strong one. Of course Duke played "Sophisticated Lady" a zillion times. It was one of his very first hits as a composer, and a song that was in his book until the day he died. For many, many years it was a feature for the baritone sax player. Most of the live versions are Harry Carney's baritone sax all the way through. But this particular track really sounds like a Billy Strayhorn arrangement, and it's got all these different harmonic voicings that we're used to hearing in a Strayhorn song.

It's a very, very different Ellington Orchestra treatment of a classic Ellington piece. And Clark Terry, the trumpeter, pointed out that this is, you know, a great example of quintessential Strayhorn. Or, in a larger sense, of Strayhorn and Ellington working together, because of course it's Strayhorn's arrangement of an Ellington tune. And it really, really brings out Rosemary's voice and shows what a great vocal arranger Strayhorn was. It’s kind of a shame that he didn't get to work with more great singers on the level of a Rosemary Clooney. Most of the writing he did for vocals was within the context of the Ellington Orchestra. And it would have been interesting... Well, first of all, it would have been great if he'd been able to live longer than he did. He only lived to be about fifty-two. But, if he'd been able to keep going and to write for great singers like Rosemary Clooney in the future, it would have been quite amazing. It's really the sort of team up between the two of them, or the three of them if you want to think of it like that, that is really extraordinary. And it's just an absolutely brilliant recasting of a familiar song for a fresh voice.