In my previous post, I made reference to the State Department sponsored tour of Russia by a band put together for Benny Goodman. Joya Sherrill was a featured artist on that tour from which emerged her hit record Katusha. Professionally, the tour must not have been the happiest of times for her. Here is an extract from the memoir by bassist Bill Crow, To Russia Without Love, written for Gene Lees' Jazzletter. Bill writes...
Joya Sherrill was a sensation in Moscow. Goodman didn't seem too happy about it. On the first concert in Moscow, the audience's response to Joya was thunderous. The Russians had never seen anyone like her. Joya, an elegant, beautiful black woman with graceful bearing and a mellow voice, was stunning in her white strapless gown. The Russians couldn't get enough of her. They especially loved the Gershwin medley Joe Lipman had put together for her.
For a sizzler to bring Joya on, Al Cohn had written a chart combining the tunes Riding High and I'm Shooting High. He gave it a long introduction to allow Joya enough time to walk across the stage to the microphone. There was a strong opening and a wonderful shout figure under her last chorus. Her second number, a Ralph Burns arrangement of The Thrill is Gone, began with a repeated bass figure at a slower tempo. Joya wanted me to start it while the audience was still applauding the opener, so she could begin singing as soon as the crowd got quiet again. In Seattle this routine had been very effective.
On our second concert in Moscow, Benny canceled Joya's opener and had her begin with The Thrill is Gone. He would announce her, let her walk out with no music, take her applause, and then after it was quiet again, he would count off the introduction, leaving Joya with at least four measures to wait before she could begin singing. It gave her a much less effective entrance, but she carried it off professionally and was very well received throughout the tour.
I never heard Benny refer to Joya by her name except when he announced her. She was always "the girl."
"Where's the girl? We'll put the girl on next."
One night Benny told me to play the introduction to The Thrill is Gone as straight eighth notes. It was a shuffle figure Ralph Burns had written to set the feeling for the whole arrangement. It would have sounded ridiculous as straight eighths, so I ignored Benny's instructions. As I started playing, he walked over and stuck his face right into mine.
"Straight eighths!" he yelled.
"NO!" I yelled back, right into his nose.
He snapped his head back and nearly lost his glasses. I wasn't going to play her music wrong just because Benny was jealous of her. Joya, unaware of all this, continued to sing, and I didn't hear any more about straight eighths.
One of Joya's songs was a Jimmy Knepper arrangement of The Man I Love. We couldn't understand why Benny insisted on also playing that song with the septet later in the program. It seemed redundant. There certainly were a million other tunes we could have played instead.
Katyusha was a prewar Russian popular song that Joya had learned in Russian. Benny didn't let her do Katyusha on the first Moscow concert, but even so, Premier Kruschev sent her a note saying her singing was "warm and wonderful." Katyusha was well received when Joya sang it on subsequent concerts.
The only place that song was not welcomed was in Tblisi, where the audience stamped and whistled until Joya stopped singing it. They were Georgians, and didn't want a Russian song. It was as if she had sung Yankee Doodle in Alabama. She skipped Katyusha and went into I'm Beginning to See the Light, with the band making up a head arrangement, and she soon had the Georgians eating out of her hand.
A letter in Izvestia criticized the "cabaret style" with which Joya sang Katyusha, and after that there were always a few in each audience who would whistle their disapproval when she sang it. Inside a bouquet she was given onstage at one concert was a note from a Russian fan praising her rendition of the song and claiming that the whistlers were "hired goons."
From the evidence contained on the RCA Victor album Benny Goodman in Moscow, no one would suspect that Joya had been with us on the tour. Benny specifically instructed George Avakian to omit her material, and told him not to mention her in the liner notes. George urged him to reconsider.
"It's my album," said Benny, "and that's the way I want it."
You can read the full version of To Russia Without Love in two instalments, part one here and part two here.
Away from the bandstand or concert stage, however, Miss Sherrill looked to have a joyous time as these photographs attest. These wonderful shots are copyright Getty Images and no copyright infringement is intended in gathering them here.
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