Teri Thornton
September 1 marks the birthday of a friend.
Singer / Pianist Teri Thornton would have been 69 years young today.
Here's another site about her. Click.
She was very kind to me when I was first starting to sing around New York many, many years ago. She often asked me to sit in with her when she was working somewhere and we would often hang, talking into the dark a.m., long after the audiences had gone home.
Teri had the single most idiosyncratic piano style I have ever heard. She played to back herself up. All that her piano playing was asked to do was to fit HER own singing style, which was rhythmically eclectic and imaginative, but always spot on. Pretty smart and efficient, when you think about it. And she played for everyone else the way she played for herself. So, sitting in with her was always a rhythmic adventure. There was always something of a rodeo quality to singing to Teri's piano work.
Forgive me one personal story.
One night, I stopped by a club she was working in. She asked me to sit in. I picked a tune, which I had wanted to do slowly. She asked, "HOW slow?" I said, "Slow." I counted it off, and off we went, with Teri playing half the time I counted. I found myself having the time to, oh, find an apartment or do my laundry during any given measure. Towards the end of the A section, I turned to her in a panic, my eyes open in terror. She looked at me and smiled, "You said, slow!" And she presented me with the gift of exploring a song in a way that I never would have thought of on my own. A wonderful gift, indeed.
She had been very sick with cancer, although holding it at bay, and quite down emotionally when the Monk Competition came along. She was so thrilled to win it, and to have her career back when everything seemed to be over and done with in life for her.
Those of us honored to have known her only wish that there could have been more of it before the cancer got her. You only wish she could have had more upside to make up for some more of the downside.
But she was here. She was tough. And she was the best.
Happy Birthday, Teri.
Born: Detroit, 1934
Died: Englewood, N.J., 2000
Education: Attended Northern High and Mumford High Schools (Detroit) but never graduated.
Discography:
On CD: "Devil May Care" (Riverside, 1961); "I'll Be Easy To Find" (Verve, 1999).
Out of print but not out of mind: Thornton's second LP, "Somewhere in the Night" (Dauntless, 1962), and her third LP, "Open Highway" (1963, Columbia).
posted by Gotham 6:34 PM
