Not long ago, I posted about jazz's dalliances with Shakespeare. Recently, I wrote about Maxine Sullivan's twirl with the Bard here. Over the weekend, Michel Weber in Switzerland hipped me to Bob Crosby's own Elizabethan foray. Back in April 1939, Crosby and his Bob Cats recorded four songs that were issued as Shakespeare in Swing, a Decca album featuring four sides on two 78s.
Bob, of course, was Bing's brother. Though his accomplishments as a vocalist and bandleader were overshadowed by his superstar sibling, he ran a top-notch Dixieland-swing band. But what hit me about these four sides wasn't the Crosby band, which was superb. Nor the Shakespearean tie-in, even though I'm a sucker for the genre's clever use of Old English lyrics (Dearest Darest I, Thou Swell, Were Thine That Special Face, To Keep My Love Alive, etc.). [Photo above of Bob Crosby]
What hooked me was Crosby's singer, Marion Mann. I was never a big Bob Crosby collector, so I wasn't fully familiar with Mann. So I began listening to her many sides with the band. Like her peers in the swing era, Mann had a strong, commanding voice. Her vocals for Crosby were fluid and lilting, effortlessly climbing into the upper register or dropping down, all while retaining its warmth. Who was Mann (above)? I did a little digging:
Mann was born Marion Bateson in Ohio, and as a teen sang in a girl's trio on a local radio station. She first sang professionally with Emerson Gill's regional band in the early and mid-1930s. Then she was hired away by Crosby and recorded with the band from 1938 to 1940. [Photo above of Marion Mann]
But Mann's singing career nearly ended before it began nationally. According to my newspaper research, Mann was seriously injured at age 19 in a car crash near Progress, Pa., in December 1933. At the time, she was Emerson Gill's top-billed vocalist. The car's driver, Milan Hartz, 24, also was in the band and was injured in the crash.
A half hour before the band was to appear on stage, Hartz's car skidded off an icy Jonestown Road and into a telephone pole. According to newspapers of the era, Mann suffered a serious scalp wound, fractured collar bone, fractured pelvis and dislocated left hip. The band was heading to Zembo Mosque of the Shrine (above) in Harrisburg, Pa., to perform for the Potentate's Ball, a holiday season affair.
The icy weather had delayed the band's trip, resulting in haste. Other members of the band whose cars were delayed reportedly drove past the accident site, unaware it held their star singer and two bandmates. In addition to Hartz, James Harry was in the car but was uninjured. According to Billboard, Hartz wound up becoming a Broadway pit musician and American Broadcasting Co. composer and conductor in the early 1950s. [Photo above of the Zembo Mosque's dance floor]
How long it took Mann to recover and rejoin Gill's band is unclear, but she remained with Gill for several additional years. She probably did not make the band's Boston opening the following week. Nevertheless, she must have remained on the payroll, which certainly says something about Gill.
When she joined Bob Crosby in '38, newspapers reported that she had been offered seven jobs with seven leading bandleaders but chose Crosby because "she likes the way the Dixieland band swings." [Photo above of Bob Crosby and Marion Mann in an ad for Sears Silvertone Lowboy radio.]
Crosby's band backing Mann during the Shakespeare in Swing session in 1939 included Billy Butterfield (tp), Warren Smith (tb), Irving Fazola (cl), Eddie Miller (ts), Floyd Bean (p), Nappy Lamare (g), Bob Haggart (b), Ray Bauduc (d) Marion Mann (vcl) and Bob Crosby (ldr). [Photo above of Billy Butterfield in 1947]
The four songs were Blow, Blow Thou Winter Wind; It Was a Lover and His Lass; Oh Mistress Mine; and Sigh No More Ladies. According to From the Vaults, when Mann left Crosby, she joined radio's Breakfast Club on WMAQ for NBC from 1942 to 1947. In between, in 1945, she recorded Musicraft sides with Jose Bethancourt and his Orchestra, a Latin-flavored pop orchestra. [Photo above of Marion Mann]
Marion Mann died in 1966 and Bob Crosby died in 1993.
JazzWax tracks: Here are all four Shakespeare in Swing sides with Marion Mann on vocals:
Here's Blow, Blow Thou Winter Wind...
Here's It Was a Lover and Her Lass...
Here's Oh, Mistress Mine...
And here's Sigh No More, Ladies...
To hear all of Bob Crosby's recordings of these songs, go here.
