The high-point of singer Jackie Paris's recording career came in 1955. Over the course of three days in November, Paris recorded Jackie Paris (or Songs by Jackie Paris) for the Wing label, a Mercury subsidiary based in Chicago that launched in May 1955 to handle the 12-inch recording spillover at the parent company. In 1955, Paris's voice was at its romantic, club-cool peak. Equally impressive was the album's arranger—Manny Albam—who perfectly framed his voice using New York's finest jazz studio musicians at the time.
The uptempo songs There Will Never Be Another You, Wrap Your Trouble in Dreams, Indiana and My Kind of Love featured Sam Marowitz and Hal McKusick (as); Frank Socolow and Eddie Wasserman (ts); Al Epstein (bar); Bill Triglia (p); Barry Galbraith (g); Milt Hinton (b) and Osie Johnson (d), with Albam conducting.
The lush brass-and-strings ballads included That Old Devil Called Love, I Can't Get Started, Goodnight My Love, Strange, Heart of Gold, Cloudy Morning, Heaven Can Wait and Whispering Grass featured Romeo Penque (fl,oboe,eng-hrn,b-cl); Janet Putnam (harp); Bill Triglia (p); Barry Galbraith (g); Milt Hinton (b); Osie Johnson (d); five strings and Albam conducting. [Photo of Milt Hinton above courtesy of NPR]
Don't Hurt the Girl and Tell Me Something Sweet were recorded with an unknown band in September 1956. They were for a different Mercury release, but in later years wound up folded into the CD version of the Jackie Paris album.
Paris had an unfortunate career. As we know from director Raymond De Felitta's film 'Tis Autumn: The Search for Jackie Paris—one of jazz's most exquisite documentaries—Paris should have been a much bigger deal over a longer period of time. But his pushy personality and out-sized ego kept getting in the way. [Photo above of Jackie Paris and Charlie Parker in the early 1950s]
Once Paris sufficiently annoyed record company executives, musicians and club owners, opportunities dried up, especially as jazz tastes changed. Paris, like a number of jazz artists of the period, forgot he was in a commercial line of work in which his livelihood depended on consumers paying money for what he did. In order for that to happen, a certain amount of give and take was necessary on his part to convince those holding opportunities to make them available to him. In short, his early fame went to his head, resulting in a destructive superiority complex. An unfortunate and sad outcome given his enormous talents and taste.
On Songs by Jackie Paris, the singer's voice was warm, hip and embracing. Every note was beautifully articulated, perfectly phrased and seductively delivered. There was a with-it intelligence and vulnerability in his voice that was largely unmatched in his peers. Unfortunately for Paris, this album may have marked the beginning of the end for him. Unable to find champions willing to put up with him, Paris inflexibly stood his ground and inched downward at a snail's pace over the next 50 years.
Jackie Paris died in 2004.
JazzWax tracks: The documentary 'Tis Autumn: The Search for Jackie Paris is an astonishing work and can be found here. Here's the trailer...
The album Songs by Jackie Paris can be found here.
The album also can be found at Spotify.
JazzWax clips: Here's I Can't Get Started...
Here's Strange...
And here's Heaven Can Wait...
