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Blossom Dearie, a jazz singer with an insousciant, kittenlike voice, passed away from natural causes over the weekend. Dearie’s career stretched from Paris cabarets to her establishing her own label, and her discography—which included a few tracks about grammar and multiplication tables that aired on ABC’s Schoolhouse Rock! in the 1970s—is about a mile long. She retired from performing in 2006, citing health reasons. A few selections from her career after the cut.
Dearie was 84.
I think “Unpack Your Adjectives” is far superior to “Figure 8.” I haven’t seen her contributions of SHR listed in some of the obits, though, which is unfortunate.
She also sang my favorite song about Rhode Island.
@bcapirigi: and my favourite song about Dusty Springfield.
Thank you for the Schoolhouse Rock! homage — the New York Times obit failed to mention that at all.
Jazz singers who play it cool tend to be overlooked, and nobody played it cooler than Ms. Dearie. Thanks for the post.
@Reidicus: You got that right: Stephen Holden is 68. Long ago he wrote annoying music criticism for Rolling Stone. Now he writes obtuse movie criticism for the New York Times.
@bcapirigi: Mine too!
A true original. RIP, Blossom.
I’m guessing the NYT obit writer wasn’t a thirtysomething.