LISTEN TO ONE: When the World Was Young
Carol Ventura didn't just fade into obscurity, she disappeared into oblivion. She made two albums for Prestige. and nothing else. But two albums for Prestige is not chopped liver, and you'd think she could have had some kind of a career after that--enough that there is very close to nothing about her on the Internet. She gets a brief mention on a web page called Obscure & Neglected Female Singers Of Jazz & Standards (1930s to 1960s), part of a site called Steve Hoffman Music Forums, and how Hoffman came up with even this much information is a bit of a miracle, although she lived long enough for someone to have found her. Much of her life, though, seems to have been terribly sad. According to Hoffman (my only biographical source)
If word of mouth is true, this New Jersey native wounded up living in the streets, due to mental illness. She allegedly needed to be medicated, and would take to a homeless life on those occasions in which she stopped using medication. She is said to have passed away at a senior home in 2010.
She came from a show business family, her father a vaudeville performer, her mother a singer, her brother a drummer. She sang with Charlie Spivak, and replaced Keely Smith in Louis Prima's Las Vegas act. Smith left Prima in 1961, so this would have been before her Prestige debut.
Probably as a result of her work with Capitol artist Prima, she got a record deal with that label, and this being 1962, the girl group era, that was the direction Capitol pushed her in, with a single called "Mr. Muscles." Jazz critic Gene Lees, who wrote the liner notes for her first Prestige album, was suitably horrified by this career choice:
This attempt to make a sow's ear out of a silk purse is comparable to the attempt of Russian commissars to turn the gypsies into hard-working dawn-to-dark farmers. Forget it, Charlie, nobody turned up. It would be impossible to infuse into Carol's singing the hostility, maladjustment, latent delinquency, bad tone, and general musical incompetence that it takes to be a successful rock and roller.
Lees's mock horror at the hobgoblin of rock and roll would perhaps have been more appropriate in 1958 than at the dawn of the Beatles era, but he's not entirely wrong. "Mr. Muscles" is not much of a record, and yes, it is on YouTube, so you can judge for yourself.
He's also not wrong about Ventura's genuine talent as a jazz singer, with a considerable vocal range, and an approach the encompasses humor, drama, and musicality, including a delightful interpolation of scatting into the traditional folk sone "Lonesome Road."
Hoffman, whose research into Ventura's life is extraordinary, seems to have looked less closely into her music. The one thing he doesn't know about her is her music. writing that this album was recorded "supposedly in Sweden (according to a YouTube poster; I don't know if it is true)."
It was recorded in Sweden. How Ventura arrived in Stockholm is lost to history, as is how she connected with Benny Golson. We can safely assume he didn't decided to work with her on the strength of "Mr. Muscles." Lew Futterman, who produced the other Golson sessions in Sweden at this time, apparently was aware of her strengths as a vocalist. Lees, in his liner notes, quotes Futterman as having first heard her in West Orange, NJ. Futterman had heard that there was a singer worth hearing in a local lounge, but:
When we arrived, the place turned out to be a bowling alley...We stood around in the roar of ten pins, trying to figure out what was going on. Then we heard what sounded like Barbra Streisand. As the song ended, the voice cracked ludicrously and we realized we'd been listening to a marvelous satire...The girl went into a hilarous impression of Ethel Merman...[and then] the most sensitive interpretation of "When the World Was Young" I'd ever heard.
Futterman's idea of putting her together with Golson's Swedish orchestra after Jimny Witherspoon (or before -- there's no precise date for this session) was an inspired one, as was what must have been his suggestion that they do "When the World Was Young," with its Johnny Mercer lyric to a melody by French composer Philippe-Gérard.
This is a wonderful album. The song selection is varied and unexpected. Another highlight is Bill Evans's beautiful "Waltz for Debbie," with lyrics by Lees. She does "Meditation" by Antonio Carlos Jobim, just starting to become well known in North America. She does Futterman's lyric to "Frere Jacques" (this may have been a mistake. She does a bravura version of "If Ever I Should Leave You" from Camelot, and a song by Stephen Sondheim. and lots more. This album is a forgotten masterpiece. And yes, it's all on YouTube.
Someone shoud have taken better care of Carol. But listen to this album. You won't regret it.
Ventura and Golson got together again in London, the following year, for a second Prestige session. The first album is titled Carol!, the second I Love to Sing. Prestige released on 45 RPM single from each session, "Night Song" / "Say No More" from the first, and "Please Somebody Help Me" / "No Man" from the second.
Nothing from I Love to Sing has been uploaded anywhere that I can find. although it is sometines possible to find copies of both albums on Amazon and eBay. As of this writing, eBay vendors are also offering a couple of 45s for sale, one on Roulette and the other no label listed. And even more obscure, a web page for a company called Heritage Auctions was offering, as of this writing, an acetate recording of eleven songs by Ventura, with the following information:
This double-sided acetate was recorded at Regent Sound Studios - by comparing the label to similar acetates from the studio, it appears that it was made in the mid-late 60s. The eleven-track disc was likely a demo made by Ventura to attract the interest of other record companies. Carol Ventura Sings (printed on the label) may have been the working title. The type-written track listings seem to be a collection of standards, which might have been easier to acquire/record than the more modern selections on her first two albums.
Heritage had a floor of $500 for the item.
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