I
loved music from the time I heard the classical pieces in ballet.... and
from the semi-classical
pieces I played on piano from age 9 thru 12.
I used to love to hear my piano teacher play her
modern compositions.
At 13 I listened and cried passionately to George Gershwin's 'Porgy & Bess'...
every song was a miracle. It was the creative musical of its day...it was jazz
in its way. Jazz dancing
in musicals became my focus and with college came
Rogers & Hart and
the Great
American Songbook.
My favorite musicals were
always Sondheims—where the angst
is high and the irony replete—the
rest
is
Jazz and learning more Jazz Standards!
In Los Angeles
during the mid-60's, I started acting professionally, playing
many roles,
on and off
stage, in tv and movies and real life. The role
I loved most
surfaced again in the 70's where,
together with my singing partner, we formed
a
band
called 'Passengers.' We sang original
songs and occasionally jazzed-up
a
standard. Simultaneously, my day-job was being
an 'electrician' in the movies.
Just before meeting Dave Getz,
and then needing Dave Getz
(see www.davegetz.com) as our drummer, I was hanging at the
Sportsman's Lodge
where Blossum Dearie and Bob Dorough would
play their tunes and Dave Frishberg
would sit in. I totally appreciated what
I
was hearing and wanted to do what they
did... jazz... but on other nites, I
was
appearing in a hilarious musical revue,
'El Grande de Coca Coca' on the
strip in Hollywood with Jeff Goldblum and Ron Silver.
Life intervened...'Passengers' ended, Dave became an artist, I got a real estate
license and went
to work
for a TV show. We had a beautiful baby, Liz Getz,
and to
this day, a beautiful, soulful singer,
and hip-hop dancer. We moved to Marin
County
in Northern California.
After completing
one last Sondheim show, Follies, in
'93,
I decided in those mid-90's years to start
sitting-in
and singing again: first
the Great
American Songbook and then while singing with Bread & Roses,
starting hearing
the broad spectrum of Jazz Standards and Classic Jazz pieces which, I'm
happy
to say, are so rich and the study of them so joyously unending,
that I have
found
my life's work—my main music theme!
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