Othella Dallas

Currently available from Brambus Records:

What's This Thing Called Love

Tracks: On The Sunny Side of the Street Melancholie It Don't Mean A Thing Strictly For The Tourists Georgia Sweet Georgia Brown What's This Thing Called Love? The Meshek Song Summertime Let The Good Times Roll Basin Street Blues Mack The Knife Black Coffee Maddalena Route 66

The Brambus-Jazz-Family is delighted to announce a top-quality new member: Othella Dallas, from Memphis, Tennessee, has a long history in dance, cinema, and singing which has been described in two books: Die Othella Dallas Story (with Eva Caflisch 1981, publisher Benteli) and the new book Traveling Shoes (with Ismene Kostaki-Joyce), to be published shortly. This is Jazz and the History of Jazz live, in which Othella has been influential for decades. We can trace this influence back to the legendary Josephine Baker and her friendship with such giants of jazz as Cole Porter and Duke Ellington.

Strictly for The Tourists, composed for Othella by the Duke in 1957, is revived in this album (recorded at Radio DRS 2) upon which she appears with three outstanding young Swiss musicians. It contains many other numbers which have long since taken their place in the cl assical repertory of jazz standards, as well as several new additions to her repertory. Passion and expression come together wonderfully in Ellington's It Don't Mean A Thing and Cole Porter's What's This Thing Called Love?. Intensity and expressiveness are join wonderfully in this project.