SwingDJs

Anyone have anything with her on it? I heard a poor quality recording on one of my Django CDs of the two doing a duet on a medley of Bei Mir Bist Du Schon and St. Louis Blues. The woman could play the horn and had quite a voice...

Oh...my gosh. I am in LOVE. I was searching for this version of "Some of These Days" I heard somewhere (very loungey, and I think maybe modern--I might've heard it on the radio) and was clicking on every name that came up on MP3.com that sounded female. I ran into Valaida and clicked on some tracks on her albums on Amazon.com. I couldn't stand to listen to more than 5 or 6. It was too painful to be transported by them but have no one around to dance with.

Almost all her albums are on my Wish List now.

Trumpet player, band leader, singer. Fun stuff.

One of the unsung geniuses of early Jazz - had two strikes against her to start with: female and black. Her life would make an amazing screenplay.

Quite an accomplished dancer, trumpet player and singer - got her start in a group with her sisters Lavaida and Alvaida (!)(tutored by her mom who was a music teacher) - She turned pro at age 15, and was a headliner with the Noble Sissle/Eubie Blake show in Harlem "Chocolate Dandies"; she later sang with Earl Hines' outfit, and she and Earl had a long time on-and-off relationship.

She toured Europe in the late 30's and got caught in the Nazi invasion of Denmark and was turfed into a concentration camp for a spell, until friends in the US State Dept. managed to secure her release.

She was so beaten up by the experience that Earl Hines saw her onstage some years later and didn't even recognize her at first.

Died in 1956 or 57, I cant recall - I did a feature on her on my radio show, and I play her stuff fairly often.

The two Melodie Jazz Classics releases of her stuff are pretty good, and are of pretty good sound quality.

i have this cd:



good amount of danceble tunes.

at www.owf-internetradio.de we have recently done a show about Valaida with rare pe and a few post-war tracks, in total nearly 60 mins of music! - Maybe this show is still in the archive of the station! We love her music and her style and hope, that a lot of people will do so! If there's interest in our actual show, have a look at www.swingology.de
Although in German, the music will do the rest!

Swingcerely

Maja & Sven