Another treat today from The Savory Collection, and an extract from The Savory Collection: The Singers. Ivie Anderson is the vocalist on the song My Old Flame, first featured in the picture Belle of the Nineties.
I felt that Cécile McClorin Salvant's was worth transcribing in full. Such insight, expressed with such enthusiasm is a pleasure to read.
"Ivie Anderson is melodrama. I don’t know if there will ever be that level of melodrama in American music ever again. That is… It’s incredible and that track. I mean I love My Old Flame. That’s one of my favourite songs period. Any time I hear it by anyone I’m happy; I’m a happy camper. The arrangement, that Duke Ellington arrangement with that band, is wild. It’s also extremely dramatic. I mean, it’s high drama. It’s beyond cinematic I think, hearing that and the way she sings it. I mean, she really throws it out at us. She’s just really… throwing it right into our face in such an incredible way. I love the directness of her voice, love the vibrato; I love that… it’s not intimate in any kind of way …
I don’t know what the opposite for intimate is but it is what that is and it is exciting. I mean there’s something so exciting about that for me. I’ve always loved Ivie Anderson ever since I heard her in a day at the races doing AllGod’s Chillun Got Rhythm. I mean she just…its like a shot of espresso and I love it and I love when I hear something like that. It makes me feel what weird music this is, it’s so strange this music; it can be so strange, almost like extra terrestrial. I mean where is that coming from? What is that? I don’t think there’s anything like that, I mean within jazz itself. I don’t think there’s anything as strange as that sound and it is in large part due to the arrangement and to the band, Duke Ellington’s band, but also in large part to the strangeness of Ivie Anderson. And when I say strange I mean that in the best way. It makes me want to listen to that again. I mean I really want to hear that again. Something that extraordinary requires a few more listens to just start understanding a little bit of what’s going on. I loved it. I really loved it."
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