Sweet Freda Payne
The audience at the Spokane Jazz Orchestra’s season opener Saturday night will hear two vocal powerhouses in one concise package:
“ Freda Payne, who had a huge hit in 1970 with “Band of Gold” and who has been a jazz and soul staple ever since.
“ Ella Fitzgerald, the “First Lady of Song,” the most honored jazz singer of all time.
The latter, of course, will be present in spirit only – she died in 1996. Yet her music will be recreated by Payne, who will perform her well-known “Tribute to Ella Fitzgerald” along with the 17-piece Spokane Jazz Orchestra, directed by Dan Keberle.
Variety magazine says she has “mastered the wordless scatting style developed by Ella.” She will sing such Ella standards as “A-Tisket, A-Tasket,” “Sweet Georgia Brown,” “Mack the Knife” and “It Don’t Mean a Thing.”
Payne is eminently qualified to take on the Ella songbook, since she is renowned for her range and her smoky style. She studied music growing up in Detroit with her sister Scherrie (who become one of the Supremes) and won Ted Mack’s Original Amateur Hour while still a teen. She moved to New York, where Pearl Bailey helped her land her first professional job. Payne toured in the 1960s with Quincy Jones and Duke Ellington.
Her big break came in 1970 with the songwriting team of Eddie Holland, Lamont Dozier and Brian Holland. They had just broken with Motown Records to start their own label, Invictus, and Payne was one of the first singers they signed. In 1970 her Holland-Dozier-Holland-
produced record “Band of Gold” went to No. 3, followed by Top 40 hits “Deeper & Deeper” and “Bring the Boys Home.”
Invictus, however, didn’t last. In the 1980s she returned to the jazz style of her roots and became a popular club attraction. She also made numerous forays to Broadway, where she starred in shows such as “Ain’t Misbehavin’,” “Blues in the Night,” “Jelly’s Last Jam” and “Hallelujah Baby.”
In 1981, she hosted her own TV talk show, “Today’s Black Woman.” In the 1990s, she launched a movie career, including a role in, as unlikely as it may sound, “Nutty Professor II: The Klumps,” with Eddie Murphy and Janet Jackson.
Recently, her Ella tribute show has taken her to London and San Francisco. According to Keberle, the SJO will be providing her with several new big-band arrangements that she can add to her Ella tribute. Expect to hear plenty of red-hot instrumental solos.