Elaine Delmar
Speak Low
by Howard Lawes
As legendary jazz vocalist Elaine Delmar releases her new album, Speak Low, on the Ubuntu label later in July, Howard Lawes talks to Elaine about her career and listens to the new album, but we can start with a taster:
Last April (2023) the BBC broadcast a programme of jazz from Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club. The occasion was a tribute to Burt Bacharach, presented by Clive Myrie, and one of the stars of the show was the singer Elaine Delmar. Elaine was introduced by James Pearson who said "We are very excited to be working with our next performer, she has been a star of the British music scene (she will hate me saying this) since the 1950s, and she is also no stranger to this place...". The programme also included a short conversation between Clive Myrie and Elaine in which she described learning her craft in the working men's clubs of the North of England and also, with a girlish twinkle in her eye, wondering if she might be too old to sing songs about love. The answer of course, as Clive Myrie reassured her, was that you are never too old, which is undoubtedly true. (The programme is currently availabale on BBC iPlayer here and Elaine's performance starts at 14:40 minutes in).
These few words hint at Elaine's long and illustrious career and via a conversation with me on Zoom she filled in some of the details. Elaine's father was the cornet player Leslie "Jiver" Hutchinson, who studied music at the Alpha School in Jamaica before joining the West India Regiment of the British Army as a bandsman. Although the regiment was disbanded in 1927 Hutchinson was able to visit London with the regimental band to play at ceremonial functions. In the 1930s Hutchinson was one of several West Indian musicians to return to London, others were trumpeter and trombonist Leslie Thompson and the dancer Ken "Snakehips" Johnson. All three were members of the Emperors of Jazz, formed in 1936, which became one of the leading swing bands in London. In the late 1930s a dance band, led by "Snakehips" Johnson and called the West Indian Orchestra was billed as playing 'ultra-modern music' (i.e. not jazz). Melody Maker described the band as "one of the smartest swing outfits" in London and as they became more popular, they released several records and were regularly broadcast on the BBC. Elaine Hutchinson was born a few days after the start of World War II. , Ken Johnson was chosen as her godfather, and despite the war, music and dancing continued with more record releases and BBC radio broadcasts. Sadly in 1941, a bomb landed on the Cafe de Paris where the West Indian Orchestra was playing and "Snakehips" Johnson was killed, Leslie "Jiver" Hutchinson was one of the few band members who survived. Hutchinson went on to play in Geraldo's Orchestra for a while and then, towards the end of the war, formed his own Coloured Orchestra, including several of the surviving members of the West Indian Orchestra and bassist Coleridge Goode.
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Here is Leslie "Jiver" Hutchison and his Coloured Orchestra playing I Can't Get Started in 1947.
After the war, the Hutchinson family moved to Wood Green. Elaine's father was a busy, touring musician while her mother was a wonderful homemaker. Elaine studied classical piano and dancing and was able to go to Trinity Grammar School where she acted in school plays and played in the hockey team. She might have gone on to study at the Royal Academy of Music but instead decided to embark on a musical and stage career and began singing with her father's orchestra which by now, had regular engagements at dance halls, clubs and military bases. Elaine's stage career began when she won a role in Sam Wannamaker’s 1957 production of Finian’s Rainbow at the Shakespeare Theatre in Liverpool. Around this time Elaine's talent was being noticed by others in the music and theatre industries. From the early '60s, Elaine made several appearances on the London stage in such musicals as No Strings, Cowardy Custard and Bubbling Brown Sugar (with Billy Daniels), The Wiz and Jerome Kern Goes to Hollywood (1985) which marked the centenary of the composer's birth. This show ran both in London and on Broadway after which Elaine made her New York cabaret debut at the Ballroom in New York.
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Here is Elaine singing Twentieth Century Blues from Noel Coward's Cowardy Custard:
In music, while still a teenager, Elaine was hired by one of her father's friends, Coleridge Goode to join a band called The Dominoes. As Goode says in his book, Bass Lines, "It was clear that to get enough work and make a success the music had to be more commercial than before. I decided we needed a singer but, despite a lot of auditions and try-outs, we had great difficulty getting someone with a good style who could sing in tune. Eventually, after many disappointments, we found the perfect vocalist. She was the daughter of Leslie ‘Jiver’ Hutchinson and her name was Elaine Delmar". Elaine only stayed with the band for a month while Goode joined up with Jamaican saxophonist Joe Harriott to become part of the British, progressive jazz scene of the late 1950s and 1960s.
Elaine with Coleridge Goode on bass. Photograph courtesy of Elaine Delmar / Tomorrow's Warriors
In 1959 Leslie Hutchinson was killed in a car crash and Elaine, still only young, came to rely on the support of others in the music industry. Elaine had adopted the stage name Elaine Delmar on the suggestion of pianist Colin Beaton who was to become her accompanist and played on the recordings Elaine Sings Wilder (1966) and La Belle Elaine (1968). It was a prescient choice of name as Elaine has gone on to establish herself as a hugely popular singer on cruise ships. Elaine's first recordings were singles, I Loves You Porgy (1959), written by DuBose Heyward, George and Ira Gershwin, a hint perhaps of her love of Gershwin music that was to blossom in later years and That Old Feeling (1960). Her first EP, A Swinging Chick (1961) featured Victor Feldman on vibraphone and was produced by Dennis Preston, a long-time supporter. Band leader and agent Victor Lewis was an agent and promoter who arranged bookings for Elaine. Some of this work involved travelling to the north of England to appear in working men's clubs and Elaine remembers this as a rather lonely time, although it proved to be a valuable experience in developing her stagecraft.
Elaine considers herself to be a jazz-influenced singer of wonderful songs. One of her icons is the American singer Lena Horne who, like herself, began performing from age 16 (in Lena's case at the Cotton Club), and went on to have success on stage and screen as well as being a world-famous cabaret singer. Elaine likes to build a team of trusted people around her and establish long-term musical relationships with pianists in particular. One such was Pat Smythe who nurtured her talent while at the same time was a member of revolutionary outfits such as saxophonist Joe Harriott's freeform band and Indo-Jazz Fusions. Elaine was recruited to perform at an Indo-Jazz Fusions concert at the Royal Albert Hall where she turned her hand to Indian raga. If Pat Smythe was unavailable Michael Garrick was another trusted friend who also arranged songs for her. Victor Lewis joined forces with Brian Epstein and in 1964 Elaine joined a tour they promoted of the American saxophonist Cannonball Adderley who Elaine remembers with great affection.
One of the last albums Elaine released with Pat Smythe was Elaine Delmar and Friends (1976) after which her stage career took over, notably as Irene in the London production Bubbling Brown Sugar (1977), a musical recalling the music and artists of the Harlem Rennaissance. Jerome Kern Goes to Hollywood was staged at the Domar Warehouse in 1985 and was followed by a run on Broadway.
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Here is Elaine singing I've Got The World On A String from the "and Friends" album with Tony Coe on saxophone:
Returning to a cabaret-style performance Elaine released her album, The Spirit of the Song (1990) with the Brian Dee Trio and Brian Dee became another trusted musical director. Over the next few years, Elaine concentrated on celebrating the music of Broadway with albums such as S'Wonderful (1992), Nobody Else But Me (1997), But Beautiful (2001), Ev'rything I Love (2005) and Strike Up the Band (2006), all accompanied by Brian Dee. In 1999, Elaine took part in the Soho Jazz and Heritage Festival and subsequently became a regular performer at Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club appearing with the organist Jimmy McGriff in 2000 and pianist Cedar Walton in 2002. In 2010 she sang at the Barbican with Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Big Band and her jazz credentials were recognised with awards at both the 2013 and 2023 Parliamentary Jazz Awards. In 2015 Elaine was one of the star performers in the BBC Prom, The Story of Swing, presented by Claire Teal. In 2020 Elaine became one of only four women to have been awarded the Jazz Lifetime Achievement Silver Medal by the Musicians Company, the others being Dame Cleo Laine, Marion McPartland and Norma Winstone OBE.
Elaine's new album, Speak Low (2024) has twelve tracks of songs by Elaine accompanied by Barry Green on piano, Jim Mullen on guitar and Simon Thorpe on double bass. In addition, Andy Panayi plays flute on the title track. The songs are Elaine's favourites that either haven't been recorded before or are performed differently. Send in the Clowns (Sondheim) and Yours Sincerely (Rodgers / Hart) are arrangements by Pat Smythe while There's a Boat Dat's Leavin, Soon for New York (G Gershwin / I Gershwin) is arranged by Brian Dee. Even in her 80s Elaine's voice is as clear as ever, her articulation impeccable and not a single word is lost. For Elaine, the song is the important thing, she is not one of those singers who sing a few lines and then stand around on stage while her band plays several instrumental improvisations. Speak Low is an album in that mould, there is a lot of great singing and the musicians, who play beautifully, are fine accompanists.
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Elaine's album Speak Low can be pre-ordered and sampled here and Elaine's website is here.
