NANCY KELLY..THE REAL DEAL

BORN TO SWING
Nancy Kelly's circuitous journey to jazz excellence began in Rochester, N.Y. Music was a pervasive presence in her upbringing. Nancy's mother was an accomplished pianist and her father's love of music provided the impetus for what was to become her trademark; "The epitome of style, swing and intonation" Eventually a mixture of intimacy and a take no prisoner scatting style would complete the transformation from student to star.

Studying piano, drama, clarinet, and dance in Rochester and later voice at The Eastman School of Music gave Miss Kelly the foundation for the impact she would later make on the jazz world.

At age 18 Nancy toured the country with a rock band and discovered that by improvising and changing the phrasing and melody, she could create a new dimension in her singing, and in so doing, a true jazz singer was born. Kelly's musical epiphany was not unlike the discovery by Charlie Parker that playing the upper intervals of a chord (the top notes) instead of the middle or lower notes, he could create new lines. This comparison is apropos because in each case a new freedom and direction was realized.

A 4 year stint in Philadelphia headlining at a top jazz spot, she says, was "A jazz school for me, those cats knew every tune in every key" Now the metamorphosis is complete, Atlantic City Casinos, Birdland in New York , The Blue Note and engagements from Miami to Los Angeles followed, with jazz fests and Asian tours in between, creating a fan base unrivalled in jazz circles.

The past two years have found Nancy listed as one of the top vocalists in DownBeats annual reader's poll, which is a testament to her artistry.

Nancy Kelly's insightful introspective on jazz singing is summed up quite accurately, when she states "Becoming a great jazz singer does not happen overnight, it is a delicate balance of head and heart, one takes what one has learned about the art form and combines it with lifes experiences..and then you jump"

Miss Kelly describes her modus operandi as a swing singer infused with the bop idiom.
She can lull you with ballads or detonate a musical powder keg of show stopping proportions.

Quite analogous to the magic of Nancy Kelly, one might say, "What sunflowers were to Van Gogh, Nancy Kelly is to jazz".....

She is a true treasure imbued with sensitivity and grace and born to swing. In a word, THE REAL DEAL.

Dani Thompson-The Quintessential Performer

There is an intriguing, sylphlike quality to London born Danielle Thompson, with a whisper of vulnerability dancing just below the surface. These are attributes that quite simply vitalize and enhance all of her performances.
Solid British resolve and a firm belief in Kismet produce an energy and tender urgency that is hard to resist.

Ballet at the age of three, family singarounds and a natural flair for drama provided the initial impetus for the eventual journey she would take to the stages of the world.

In reflecting on her early years, Dani relates; "My childhood was wonderful from a professional standpoint as I began competition in ballet at four and piano from the age of six. Then verse speaking and voice (speech) competitions and .....always practicing - not much playtime at all and an extremely strict upbringing which at the time I thought was Victorian! I have very fond memories of my mother who was naturally funny and as sweet and giving as could be"

"I can remember walking through the forest with my father, I was a proper little English girl with white gloves on, basking in the joy of the moment" This scene has all the essential elements of a fairy tale and perhaps it is, as the years unfold, bringing her closer to her dreams and aspirations. One senses a particular affection and admiration for her father, whom she describes as a "wonderful man". At the age of seventeen Dani lost her mother to illness and this event must have drawn her even closer to her father.


After attending the Royal Academy of Music (12 Years) She won a prized scholarship to the prestigious East 15 acting school to study with Joan Littlewood. Initially her father was against her accepting the offer. Deeply disappointed, she was astonished the following day when he announced, "Guess who I had lunch with today?" and she was even more astounded when he informed her that it was none other than Joan Littlewood. During the luncheon he had quite pointedly inquired of Littlewood, "Does my daughter have any talent?" He was assured that she did and the scholarship was awarded. Another step in the journey was accomplished as Danielle became absorbed in scene study under the tutelage of Littlewood. After two years there, Stanislavski was undertaken with Margaret Bury, movement with Jean Newlove and a BA degree in Shakespearean studies followed.

The British Repertory Theatre was next, starring in more than 75 plays and musicals, she subsequently co-starred in national tours of "Two For The Seesaw" (as Gittel).."Stop The World I Want To Get Off" (as Evie), "Come Blow Your Horn" (as Connie) and many others. As Dani describes it, "In England, if you have talent you will always work" and work she did!.....

The USA beckoned next, ("I always felt that America was part of my Karma"). Honolulu found her in modeling sessions and roles in "Hawaii 5-0. She further honed her skills studying jazz with the late Ernie Washington, also some memorable big band gigs and service club engagements were part of her Hawaiian experience.

She soon began appearing in jazz clubs in Los Angeles and most recently (May 9th.) found her at the Cinegrill in L.A. where she received rave reviews for her one woman show, a true tour de force in every sense. Of late she has had supporting roles in "Flashframe" and "Babylon 5" as well as guest starring in two independent films "The Disturbance At Dinner" and "Disclaimer Date". These roles showcase Dani Thompson at her very best in both comedic and serious modes.


The late James Cagney, when asked for acting techniques, proffered this advice "Stand up straight, look the other guy in the eye and tell the truth"..... And Thompson accomplishes this while still exuding her natural ebullience and incalesence, not an easy feat.


Dani Thompson has graced the stage of the 66 California in Ventura, Ca. (June 9th.) and this writer witnessed a dazzling performance that captured the hearts of a very hard to please, very hip audience.


Possessing a sultry voice with a 3 1/2 octave range is an asset to say the very least and coupled with her ability to sing in French, Spanish and Italian, it embellishes her inherent talent even more.

As a thespian Danielle has a gift that is incalculable, the omnipresent eye of the camera simply adores her.

It was a confluence of circumstance that led to the penning of this piece and as you, the reader, will note I am duly impressed with this fine artist.

The seductiveness of the female voice in song, courts the soul of any man who listens. It is the lure of the siren and the irresistible call of the muse, Euterpe..................

Some upcoming appearances:
The Cinegrill, September 13.
66 California, October 6.
66 California, January 12
Lunaria, TBA

The Song Is You

Milcho Leviev..Jazz Innovator

The clouds of war were gathering over Europe in 1937, when Milcho Leviev was born in Plovdiv, Bulgaria. His journey to jazz fame had begun and he recalls it thusly:
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"During W.W.II Bulgaria was, for the most part, a fascist country, on the German side. My father was Jewish, but the Bulgarian Jews didn't go to the gas chambers, they were saved, like the Danish Jews. When the war ended I was 7. I experienced some bombing of my town at the end of the war; Hitler ordered Bulgaria to declare war on the USA! It was proper at that time for middle class family kids, war or no war, to have music lessons, so my brother started first. We had an old upright on which I started picking out tunes from that time, you know, from the big band era, but of course I didn't know, for example, that "In The Mood" was a 12 bar blues. My awareness of jazz, as an art form, came much later in my teens. A violinist friend of mine, who played jazz piano on the side, was actually one of my first teachers. I started listening every midnight to the 2 hours program "Voice of America" - Willis Conover's jazz radio show.
. What turned me on to jazz first, was not the big bands, or be bop, (I couldn't hear at first what Bird was doing) but the later, cool stuff - Miles & Gil, Bill Evans, and especially M. J. Q."
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In 1960 Leviev graduated from the State Music Academy in Sofia, eventually becoming the Musical Director for the state drama theater, and the Bulgarian radio and television big band. He also led the "Jazz Focus" Quartet which won a prize at the first Montreaux festival in 1967. He moved to Los Angeles in '70 and became a U.S. citizen in 1977.
In the years from 71-77 He began a memorable stint with Don Ellis. Leviev remembers:
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"The biggest impression a jazz musician had on me between 1955 (the year I started listening to jazz) and 1970, was Don Ellis. His orchestra was the first jazz group I saw in America, not only saw, but had the pleasure to occupy its keyboard chair for 7 years. I'll say one thing about Don: he could play New Orleans jazz as good as Wynton, (if not better), but his musicality led him to new, unexplored things with the time elements in music. He studied the folk music of India,Turkey, Bulgaria, and achieved highest results in terms of swinging, and grooving on odd meters. So, imagine what this was for me: a dream come true. I not only played, I wrote for the band. We recorded a double disk LP, "Tears of Joy" , live in 1971, (Columbia never released it on CD) - a lot of our highest quality music was played then."
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This magnificent jazz pianist has worked with the major players on the music scene namely, Art Pepper, Billy Cobham, Roy Haynes,Ray Pizzi, Charlie Haden, Ray Brown, Oscar Brashear, Mundell Lowe, just to name a few. He has recorded live at the legendary Ronnie Scott's in London. Leviev led a bop inspired quartet that featured Art Pepper, they recorded the superb albums "Blues For The Fisherman" and "True Blues" at this time. He also recorded with Gerald Wilson's big band and with Charlie Haden as well in '86. Milcho Leviev has a marvelous sense of humor that is revealed in the music he plays, there is a constant shift of ideas in his solos, He can be in a bebop mode and shift midstream to the fascinating mystique that he is famous for, with a bit of Monk added as an aside. His amusing attitude toward life is summed up in this hilarious anecdote:
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"The 22 piece (we had strings) Don Ellis Orchestra toured the U.S. extensively in 1971 on Greyhounds, sometimes we had to cover more than 600 miles a day. One sunny Sunday, while the band was having lunch in downtown Omaha, Nebraska, I, not being hungry told my friend Sam Falzone the sax player, that I was going to take a stroll. "Stroll!" said Sam, "are you crazy man, with your big black beard, black hat, and your hippie look, alone, Sunday, in downtown Omaha?" Nevertheless I took my stroll. In the middle of it, a beggar asked me for a dime. I gave him some change, and forgot about it. Approaching the restaurant, where the band was finishing its lunch, I noticed a police car pulling in front of the restaurant. Before I understood what was happening, the cops pushed me in the car, and sped away with me. In the police station they took my fingerprints, and conducted a thorough search. I asked "Would you tell me what are you looking for?", "Shut up", said a cop, and brought me to a cell where the beggar was. "Do you know this man?" asked the cop "I gave him a dime" said I, "A dime, eh," the cop replied sarcastically. To make the long story short - they had suspected me of making a drug connection!. It got cleared, but at one point during the interrogation, an officer asked me: "Do you have a record?" I said: "Yes, we just recorded one live, it's called 'Tears of Joy'.
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From 90-95, Leviev did solo gigs in Europe and in 1995 he received an honorary degree and a prestigious award from the Paris Academie Internationale des Arts. He has lectured at The University of Southern California on composition and improvising. Milcho is currently leading a highly acclaimed trio, "LESENTU" which includes Pat Senatore a gifted Bassist and Kevin Tullius on Drums. The piano artistry of Milcho Leviev has made him a revered member of the major jazz innovators of this century.

John Gilbert

The Amazing Theo Saunders

In California since 1985 this native New Yorker has captivated audiences on four continents and more than twenty countries. He has graced the stages of the world's most prestgious Jazz festivals, Night Clubs, and Concert Halls. From the Montreaux Jazz Festival to Carnegie Hall with the Village Vanguard in New York and the Jazz Bakery in Los Angeles included in the many venues in which he has perfomed . Leonard Feather considered by some the foremost Jazz authority in the world describes Theo in a Los Angeles Times review thusly.."A rhythm team composed of Theo Saunders on piano provided blistering support on the up tempos, with exemplary solos"...And Downbeat on a critique of Theo's " Three for All" CD states: "The real value of Saunder's writing, along with his playing, constitute the albums chief virtue"..Josef Woodward in the L.A. Times says of Saunders : "Pianist Saunders powers of interpretation and invention are forces to be reckoned with; On an average night he's provocative, on a good night he's mind bending".....I might add when Theo performs at 66 California the audience is always amazed at his remarkable facility and the torrent of notes that always fit the mood of the tune, every note and chord is perfect.......Maestro Saunders wrote the musical score for Leonard Nimoy's " A Passionate Journey Into The Life Of Van Gogh" ..... He was musical director for singer-actress Lanie Kazan...He also was musical director of the play "Peace Child" in the United States and USSR.
Theo's biographical sketch appears in " People in Jazz-Jazz keyboard improvisors of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries".....And these are but a few of the vast accompishments of this major talent. Some selected artists that he has peformed with are: Freddie Hubbard, Charles Lloyd, Bob Brookmeyer, Harold Land, Buddy Collette, Chris Connor, Zoot Sims, Teddy Edwards, and many many others. There are three recordings as leader:
"Sueblue" (Discovery), "High Standards (Polydor), and "Three For All" (Blue Chip Jazz). He has been a sideman on many CD's ....If this isn't enough His diverse musical talents have been utilized as musical director for opera and dance productions, He has performed on PBS as a member of the
"Jazz Tap Ensemble" (Pianist). I must add that as a friend of Theo, and having had the opportunity to listen to him perform, I would rank him right up there with the great keyboard artists of my time, and that my friends, has been quite some time !

Debby Yeager.....Lovely To Look At...Delightful To Hear

One of the greatest compliments that I ever received came from Dizzy Gillespie, who solemnly informed me that I had an "ear" for singers. And so, having said that, I must tell you that on my slim list of personal favorites, Debby Yeager is permanently ensconced. Debby got my undivided attention at the 66 California a couple of years back. On that night when she sang "You Don't Know What Love is" and "Senor Blues," I was more than impressed. It was so refreshing to hear a singer vocalize in an unaffected accent and with a sound so inherently sensual ......A cool clean sound with none of the vibrato filled efforts of lesser singers and this makes Miss Yeager a special artist.
The human voice is the ultimate musical instrument. After all, the brasses and the reeds are but pale imitations of the complex vocal capabilities of our sound mechcanism. Yeager takes full advantage of this special gift.

Emerging from a childhood of abuse to become the extraordinary performer that she is today, is a tale of twists and turns that are eventually reconciled when Yeager takes control of her life and becomes a major Jazz talent. The yellow brick road is there merely for the walking now, and Debby Yeager has turned her childhood trauma into an asset by bringing the simple message of "I know how you feel" to others who have shared her plight. The past, however, is long gone and my focus will be on her music and what I hope it brings to the Jazz world....and to Miss Y.

One could go on ad infinitum in recounting the accolades given to Yeager by writers and musicians, but simply put, this talented singer is at home in BeBop, Bossa Nova, or the tender ballad that she delivers with intimacy and soul, no doubt a reflection of her warm persona.

The poetry of the American love song is often overlooked, and when I read of Debby's reaction to singing a particular line from "You Don't Know What Love Is," which goes: "Do you know how a lost heart fears the thought of reminiscing" I was struck by the fact that I had always been touched by the Shakespearean overtones of those troubling words, so succinct but so all encompassing and so reflective of our fears......

At the age of four Debby Yeager studied ballet and did so for 19 years........then in 1976, as a singer, she auditioned for a pop band along with 37 other aspirants and won the job, thus working for the next several years. She then studied with Florence Riggs, the great Alan Copeland and Sue Raney a wonderful vocalist, Bob Dorough was also her mentor and friend. She became the polished performer that she is today as a result of those affiliations.

Yeager has often collaborated with Milcho Leviev the Bulgarian Pianist who has enjoyed a distinguished career and appears in Ventura on occasion. My compadre Stu Goldberg who is often mentioned by this writer has also accompanied Debby and is musical director of her newest project "The Psychology of Jazz" which is to be issued soon....
Debby has penned a psychological study entitled "Stolen Moments" which describes the phenomenon of repressed memory syndrome...A website www.debbyyeager.com will be up and running in a few weeks....

"Mood Swing" is Yeagers first CD.
I have a cassette tape of "Mood Swing" which is a frequent traveling companion, and the CD rests comfortably in my
player at home and is listened to often. This recording, which features such luminaries as Bob Dorough, Oscar Brashear, Doug Webb, Henry Franklin, Mark Massey, Frank Potenza,Marco Mendoza, Kurt Rasmussen, Steve Crum, Eric Stiller and Jason Harnell, showcases Debby Yeager at her multi faceted best...

Some thoughts on a few of the tunes

Venice Beach Memories: "And just when the hot sun sets beyond Catalina Island...we kiss...and hear the bells".......Ah yes !

Pucker Up: A mixture of cute sexiness and clever lyrics with Bob Dorough pitching in..Good solos by Doug Webb on Tenor and Pianist Mark Massey...Tres Hip

Nothing Like You: A sweet duet with Dorough inspired by the 1968 collaboration of Miles Davis and Bob Dorough...

Chances Are: Chances are you will never hear this song done as cleverly as it is done on this CD..It transforms this tune into a whole new genre..A brilliant effort.

Senor Blues: I have heard countless members of the distaff side express affection for this tune, it does seem to move the ladies ! and the guys as well I might add.

You Don't Know What Love Is: I don't think I will ever be able to express the emotion I feel when listening to this song...Be prepared to get a little misty eyed...

Every tune is a winner and Bob Dorough sums it up when he says.."Debby Yeager has assembled a stellar group of musicians and a stunning array of songs for her new recording..And I am proud to be a part of it. Her artistry and creativity are evident in every track"

Miss Yeager is a poised and polished professional with a sweet vulnerability that is definitely part of her charm. This endearing trait is evident when the lyric takes a plaintive turn. The music world will hear a lot more from Debby Yeager...Looks, Talent, and know how always prevail........Believe It !

For information on "Mood Swing" or to purchase this CD, send check or money order for $16.00,($18.00 outside USA) (postage, tax and handling included) to:
Debby Yeager Music
P.O. Box 802
Balboa, Ca. 92661

John Byner

John Byner..Actor/ Impressionist/ Comedian John Byner is a very cool guy, not at all like the frenetic funny men that regularly haunt the late night talk shows. He can virtually become Ed Sullivan and is recognized as the foremost Sullivan impressionist of all time. From Cagney to Bogart, and everyone in between, Byner is without peer. The range of sounds that he can achieve are incredible, and his voice has been heard on numerous cartoons and voice overs......On a summers day a few years back as I was visiting John on his boat in California, I remarked to him that he "did" Georgie Jessel like no other, In an instant he began an impression of the late entertainer that was so remarkable that I fully expected American Flags to start waving and his chest to become festooned with the Israeli medals that were Georgie's trademark in later years. John Wayne was next, "Hello Amigos and Amigesses" and as he began, I realized I was the recipient of a command performance by a master of his craft. John Byner has appeared on many Television shows as a guest and been in a number of series. "Bizarre" is among his credits and the role of Cotton Dunn in "Silk Stalkings" brought him many new fans. Hosting "Comedy On The Road" is another in his impressive list of Television endeavors. In "Soap" Byner brought the character of Detective Donahue to life for TV viewers across the Nation. In feature films He has starred in "The Man in the Santa Claus Suit" with the late Fred Astaire, this film has become a perennial Christmas favorite. In the last episode of "In The Heat of The Night" a two hour special, John was featured and received many accolades for his stellar performance. Name any late night talk show, Carson to Leno or Letterman and John has been a guest ...His films have ranged from "Lamb Chop in the Haunted Studio" to "The Mouse and the Motorcycle"....On stage with Mel Torme, Frank Sinatra, or Buddy Rich, this gifted comedian has always distinguished himself.However in the eyes of this writer I will always remember, above all, that summers day and his performance to an audience of one, Yours truly.. Continued success, J.B., and thanks !