DOROTHY DONEGAN ( II )

 
 SUNDAY AFTERNOON IT'S A BOOGIE WOOGIE TIME IN SENTIR EL BLUES., Today Mss. DOROTHY DONEGAN ! 

Aprofitem que aquesta setmana s´ha commemorat un día de record a totes les dones., avui dediquem aquesta tarda de Boogie -Woogie a SeB a la extraordinaria DOROTHY LONEGAN, una dona que disfrutaba tocant , poc ortodoxa si voleu, que li agradaba barrejar cançons tradicionals amb les seves vibrants peçes de Boogie-Woogie . 

Dorothy Donegan (April 6, 1922 – May 19, 1998) was an American classically trained jazz pianist primarily known for performing in the stride piano and boogie-woogie style. She also played bop, swing jazz, and classical music.

Donegan was born and grew up in Chicago, Illinois and began studying piano at the age of eight. She took her first lessons from Alfred N. Simms, a West Indian pianist who also taught Cleo Brown.She graduated from Chicago's DuSable High School, where she studied with Walter Dyett, a gifted teacher who also worked with, among others, Dinah Washington, Johnny Griffin, Gene Ammons, and Von Freeman. She also studied at the Chicago Musical College and, later, the University of Southern California. In 1942 she made her recording debut. She appeared in Sensations of 1945 with Cab Calloway, Gene Rodgers and W. C. Fields and was known for her work in Chicago nightclubs. She was a protégée of Art Tatum, who once called her "the only woman who can make me practice." (She said that Tatum "was supposed to be blind...I know he could see women."

In 1943, Donegan became the first African American to perform at Chicago's Orchestra Hall She later said of this pathbreaking performance that:

In the first half I played Rachmaninoff and Grieg and in the second I drug it through the swamp – played jazz. Claudia Cassidy reviewed the concert on the first page of the Chicago Tribune. She said I had a terrific technique and I looked like a Toulouse-Lautrec lithograph.

In May 1983, Donegan, along with Billy Taylor, Milt Hinton, Art Blakey, Maxine Sullivan, Jaki Byard, and Eddie Locke, performed at a memorial service for Earl Hines, held at St. Peter's Evangelical Lutheran Church in New York City. Her first six albums would prove to be obscure when compared to her successes in performance. It was not until the 1980s that her work gained notice in the recorded jazz world. In particular, a recorded appearance at the 1987 Montreux Jazz Festival and her live albums from 1991 were met with acclaim. Even so, she remained best known for her live performances. She drew crowds with her eclectic mixture of styles and her flamboyant personality. Ben Ratliff argued in the New York Times that:

her flamboyance helped her find work in a field that was largely hostile to women. To a certain extent, it was also her downfall; her concerts were often criticized for having an excess of personality

Donegan was outspoken about her view that sexism, along with her insistence on being paid the same rates as male musicians, had limited her career. In 1992, Donegan received an "American Jazz Master" fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, and in 1994, an honorary doctorate from Roosevelt University

Donegan died of cancer in 1998 in Los Angeles, California.

                              

                            


                            

Bye Bye Boogie Dorothy Donegan 1987

Pianist Dorothy Donegan in Concert at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1987 With her are bassist Major Holly and drummer Oliver Jackson. 

From the "Last Post" 

The death of Dorothy Donegan this past spring (May 19, age 76, Los Angeles) was lamentably largely ignored by the press and the jazz media as they did regrettably throughout most of the pianist's lifetime. The AP wire did give the indomitable artist lead preference in its daily obits round-up and the New York Times, with its promise of "All the News That's Fit to Print," gave Dorothy her due, including a one-column candid photo of the pianist in performance, and jazz author Chip Deffaa warmly recalled her "strength, energy, and imagination" in his New York Post column. 

Interestingly, though, Times jazz scribe Ben Ratliff quoted his noted jazz predecessor, John S. Wilson's coverage of a Town Hall appearance in 1971 citing that '"Ms. Donegan showed a technical virtuosity that could be compared only to that of Art Tatum and a swinging drive that might be equaled by Mary Lou Williams." Oddly omitted was the Wilson quote that Donegan carried ever closest to her heart, ". . . She is potentially the greatest jazz pianist playing today." A reflection on this comment comes into focus with Chip Deffaa recalling in his obit, "She was probably the only jazz artist who, in the 1990's, could somehow satisfy the very different audiences of the Village Vanguard (the high temple of jazz purism) and the Tavern on the Green (the glitzy tourist nightspot) - both of which she loved."