Jazz Orchestra honors Mildred Bailey

Finally, Mildred Bailey is getting some hometown respect.

She is one of the most influential musical figures ever to come out of Spokane – and certainly the most influential ever to come out of Tekoa, Wash., where she was born.

Yet the woman known in the 1930s as “Mrs. Swing” has been mostly neglected here at home since her death in 1951.

The Spokane Jazz Orchestra is rectifying the situation with a concert titled “Mildred Bailey Comes Home” at The Met in Spokane on Saturday, and at the Empire Theater in Tekoa on Sunday.

Guest artist Daryl Sherman, a New York pianist and vocalist, will perform Bailey’s songs accompanied by the orchestra. It will play the original arrangements from the Red Norvo Collection at the Yale University Music Library. (Norvo was Mr. Swing to Bailey’s Mrs. Swing – they were married from 1933 to 1945.)

Sherman is the perfect choice for a tribute. She recorded a 1996 CD titled “Celebrating Mildred Bailey and Red Norvo.”

Wrote the Village Voice: “No one has done more than Sherman to keep the disarmingly light, ardently swinging sound of Mildred Bailey alive.”

The SJO’s music director, Dan Keberle, says that Bailey has become “almost forgotten” because of her early death and that the orchestra is proud to, in a sense, “bring her home.”

Here’s a quick refresher course on Bailey’s life and career:

“ She was born Mildred Rinker in Tekoa, a member of the Coeur d’Alene tribe. She was raised mostly in Spokane.

“ At age 17, she moved to Seattle and landed a job as a “demonstrator” (singer) at a sheet music store.

“ She moved to Los Angeles in the early 1920s and started singing at speakeasies, in the bluesy style of Ethel Waters and Bessie Smith.

“ She was hired in 1929 by Paul Whiteman to be a featured singer in his famous jazz orchestra – the first “girl singer” to front a major big band.

“ She had a huge national hit in 1932 with Hoagy Carmichael’s “Rockin’ Chair” and went on to have a string of hits with Norvo into the 1940s.

“ Her health began to decline in the 1940s – she had diabetes, heart problems and emotional problems.

“ She died in New York of heart ailments in 1951. The organist at her funeral played “Rockin’ Chair.”

Bailey’s influence extends beyond her own career, if only for one overriding reason: She started Bing Crosby’s career.

In 1925, Crosby and Bailey’s brother, Al Rinker – known as the Musicaladers – showed up on her Hollywood doorstep. She let them stay with her for weeks and used her connections to arrange an audition for them. They won, and later were hired by Whiteman.

Crosby went on to become, arguably, the biggest all-around entertainer of the 20th century. He later credited Bailey with teaching him “much about singing and interpreting popular songs.”