Beverly Kenney: Born to be Blue

The history of jazz is littered with tragedies, injustices and sad stories. But few stories are as sad as that of Beverly Kenney, a gifted singer and occasional songwriter whose career was cut short at a tragically young age.

And as a vocalist, she really was quite something: in a review of her superb 1959 album Born to be Blue, Allan Gilbert Jr, the editor of DownBeat magazine, said, “...she has the ability to gently, huskily slur, warp and mould her phrasing to achieve rare individuality.”

So why isn’t she better known, and why is information about her so sketchy? It seems that nobody – not her family; not her best friend, the actress Millie Perkins; nor any of her boyfriends – really knew the aloof, if kindly, melancholy and introspective blonde.

Born in Harrison, New Jersey on 29 January 1932, Beverly was the eldest of seven children, and displayed a gift for singing at a young age. She began her professional career with Western Union, then a telegraph company, while still in her teens. She worked at what was known as a ‘birthday singer’ – singing birthday greetings to celebrants as part of a ‘singing telegram’ offer.

After moving to New York City to further her ambitions, she recorded a demo tape in 1954 with the pianist and vocal coach Tony Tamburello (who also mentored a young Tony Bennett). By the end of that year, she’d moved to Miami and was working regularly at the Black Magic Room, where her light-touch, nimble singing, immaculate phrasing and breath control, and ability to swing was noticed by the Dorsey brothers, Jimmy and Tommy. For several months she toured with Dorsey Brothers Orchestra before returning to New York (Kenney later said that the Dorseys regarded her as “too much of a stylist”), where she sang with the likes of George Shearing and Kai Winding.

Her big break came in October 1955, when she was featured in a Jazz Benefit for Israel at Carnegie Hall, sharing the bill with Miles Davis, Art Blakey, Tito Puente, and Marian McPartland. She started to get really noticed by the NYC jazz community. Upon her debut at New York’s Basin Street Club, DownBeat critic Nat Hentoff praised her: “[She is] more flexible than Helen Merrill, swings more easily than Teddi King, and her musicianship and care for lyrics are far superior to Chris Connor’s.”

Her career then blossomed, thanks to both her enormous talent and her good looks. Between 1956 and 1960, Kenney recorded three albums for Royal Roost and three for Decca. Her debut, Beverly Kenney Sings for Johnny Smith (1956), was recorded when she was 24 and backed by a quartet led by jazz guitarist Johnny Smith. DownBeat’s Barry Ulanov reviewed it thus: “It looks as if finally, a new voice of unmistakable jazz quality has appeared to take its place beside those of Sarah Vaughan, Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald … Beverly is beginning to arrive and she is displaying the kind of ability and potential that should enable her to stay a long time.”

She then began a residency at Birdland accompanied by the Lester Young Quintet, and continued a run of acclaimed albums and concert appearances. Everything looked rosy, but unbeknown to her growing army of fans, Kenney was bi-polar (or in the parlance of the time, a ‘manic depressive’). She’d attempted suicide twice in the late 1950s and succeeded the third time, ingesting a combination of alcohol and Seconal on 12 April 1960, at the University Residence Hotel in Greenwich Village. She was just 28 years old. It’s impossible to know what anguish she was suffering, but to all appearances, she was doing just fine. Her father, Charles J. Kenney, had dinner with her two nights before her death and later said, “everything seemed fine”.

Sadly, Kenney was soon forgotten by all but the most ardent fans. But her short and enigmatic life and tragic death, as well as her remarkable vocal talents (check out the wonderful ‘Undecided’ on 1959’s Like Yesterday for a demonstration of her Dearie-esque, effortless voice and her lithe, almost athletic way with a lyric) meant that she became an object of a devoted cult in – inevitably – Japan, where all of her albums have been reissued on CD and have remained in print constantly. SSJ Records in Japan has also released three collections of previously unreleased material: Snuggled on Your Shoulder (2006 – this also contains that 1954 Tamburello demo), Lonely and Blue (2007), and What Is There to Say? (2009). More rare material has trickled out since.

It’s interesting, if rather pointless, to ponder what Kenney might have achieved had she lived. Chances are, though, that she wouldn’t have enjoyed the 1960s: she was repulsed by rock 'n' roll and even by her mid 20s she was fearing that she was a has-been. On 18 May 1958, she appeared on The Steve Allen Show, performing a song she wrote, ‘I Hate Rock ‘n’ Roll’. Apart from a bizarre appearance on Playboy’s Penthouse – where Kenney coaxed host Hugh Hefner into joining her to sing ‘Makin’ Whoopee’ – it was the only time she appeared on TV (both clips are worth tracking down on YouTube).

The aforementioned Steve Allen wrote the liner notes for her best-known album, Beverly Kenney Sings for Playboys (Decca, 1958) in which he commented, “A word to playboys: I would not recommend this album as 'Music to Make the Romantic Approach By'. You’re apt to get more interested in Beverly than the girl you’re trying to impress.”

He was right – when you listen to Beverly Kenney, you’re likely to forget about everything else.

from https://www.jazzwise.com