Review: Mary Stallings Spins Classic Jazz With Style & Substance at Dizzy's

The captivating veteran singer booked for several December dates at Dizzy’s made jazz songs delicate, decorative, and delectable.  Her name: Mary Stallings.  She was one of 11 children and one of many memorable Marys worth knowing about.  “Mary’s a Grand Old Name” asserted George M. Cohan in the title of a song and its lyric for a musical he wrote for a show with a prominent character named Mary, and it’s been a grand old name for fictional and real ladies over the years, ranging from the Marys in old nursery rhymes (one who had a little lamb and the one who was quite contrary) to those mentioned in the Bible, to members of royalty in various countries, nanny extraordinaire Mary Poppins, and the wife of Abraham Lincoln presented currently in the Broadway show Oh, Mary!

It’s also been the name of ships such as the Queen Mary and Mary Celeste.  A voyage by the latter caused shock and wide attention when it was famously discovered in 1872: mysteriously adrift, with supplies and valuables intact, but without any of its passengers or crew.  No trace of any of them was ever found. Theories and questions about what happened inspired films, radio shows, plays, novels, and a short story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, famous for tales of Sherlock Holmes.      

Exactly 100 years after the Mary Celeste’s maiden voyage in 1861, Mary Stallings went on her maiden voyage as a recording artist. (Yes, she’s been sailing through the seas of music for quite a while; go ahead and do the math.)  The graceful, assured, lovely-voiced lady has navigated a singing career that began in childhood, performing in a gospel group with her family and then gigging with Louis Jordan’s Tympany Five while she was still in high school. The captain of her musical crew at Dizzy’s had the same first name as one of the captains of the ill-fated vessel: David.  That’s the primo pianist David Hazeltine, leading his quartet that includes another David (Mr. Williams, on bass), trumpeter Eddie Henderson, and drummer Joe Farnsworth.  Unlike the unlucky deserted Mary Celeste, Miss Stallings had many “passengers” at Dizzy’s the night I caught her ship-shape show: pretty good luck for Friday the 13th, but it’s not just luck that causes an entire run to sell out.

The opening number “I Want to Be Happy” sets out the mission of pleasing the paying patrons. The original text of this 99-year-old showtune goes “...but I won’t be happy ‘til I make you happy, too,” but smiling Stallings changes it to “but I won’t be happy unless I can make you happy, too.”  Mission accomplished.  Following this was a shorter number of songs than one usually gets in a set, but this was due to a large amount of time lavished on almost all of them.  Some took music and language in a languorous manner or allowed for generous amounts of time for the instrumentalists to stretch out in solos that were frequently pleasing side trips and showcases for their skills and deft mood-painting.  

The singing and stylings of Mary Stallings can be characterized as tasteful, creative, often gentle and generally affecting. The opposite of bombastic or hyperkinetic, her work is indicative of a “less is more” kind of elegant discretion, with the notable exception that she often takes a one-syllable word and spreads it over two, three, or four notes as she embellishes and embroiders melody lines — bending and changing them, the adjustments resulting in refreshing reinventions.  It is an inspired choice to give “Give Me the Simple Life” more weight, with the wishes outlined in the lyric taken more seriously, with a cozy, unrushed approach, with much yearning.  The Stallings-sculpted surprising shifts in emphasis are arguably most valuable during ballads taken at the super-slowest, lowest-energy pace. Without the special touches and ear-catching variations and the ear-pleasing timbre, these numbers could descend into sluggish somnambulant blandness.  Instead, attention is sustained as the relax-to-the-max tempo becomes hypnotic in the best way.  Thus, Billy Strayhorn’s “Day Dream” remained dreamy and dazed, not dangerously droopy.   

Mary Stalling’s few comments between songs were mostly just about the songs, non-earth-shattering facts such as when she recorded things with these musicians or setting up “Blue Skies” to say it reminds her of her childhood and that she loved Dinah Washington’s version of it.  (We can hear a Washington influence in some of her phasing and liberties with melodies, with suggestions of a couple of spoonfuls of sophisticated low-key blues-y touches in the mix.)

Those jazz-leaning music fans willing to lean in and really listen to the musical equivalent of sitting by the fireplace in the low-flame, slow-burning  phase will find that the presence of Mary Stallings likewise warms the room and creates a comfort zone.

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For more about the singer, see her website at www.MaryStallingsJazz.com

For info on shows at Dizzy’s and the other spaces within Jazz at Lincoln Center, see www.jazz.org

Header photo courtesy of Jazz at Lincoln Center

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