Fort Wayne Jazz Cabaret, with its intimate cabaret venue in downtown Fort Wayne at the LaSalle Inn at 517 West Washington Blvd. offers a free concert on July 13 at Three Rivers' Festival. Guylenn Delassus, a Parisian jazz vocalist with a career of world wide performance, sings a show of American jazz standards in the East Pavilion of at Headwaters Park from 11:30 am - 1:30 pm. Fort Wayne Jazz Cabaret, with its intimate cabaret venue in downtown Fort Wayne at the LaSalle Inn at 517 West Washington Blvd. offers a free concert on July 13 at Three Rivers' Festival. Guylenn Delassus, a Parisian jazz vocalist with a career of world wide performance, sings a show of American jazz standards in the East Pavilion of at Headwaters Park from 11:30 am - 1:30 pm. For a decade Guylenn was lead vocalist for the most important big band in the history of French jazz. Jazz has now expanded into what is known as world jazz, fusioning jazz arrangements and improvisation with the popular music style of many nations. But France was the second birth nation of jazz when, after World War I, Afroamerican GI jazz musicians stayed on in Paris believing they had found a a country free of racism.
Of the many American jazz musicians and singers in Paris in that era, probably Josephine Baker was the most famous. Jazz soon took root among the native French. Great American jazz singers like Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie, and Sarah Vaughan regularly appeared in Paris to perform over the decades.
The great tradition of solo jazz vocal performance, like jazz in general, took root among the native French. The big renowned Claude Bolling led the most important native French big band for decades. You can read his Wikipedia article. In the 1990's Guylenn sang on world tours with Bolling. She has performed with some of the most celebrated American jazz musicians, too. She got her start when she was called in to replace the great American jazz singer Sarah Vaughan who had fallen ill. She has performed with Dizzy Gillespie in Paris, and later on tour with the Jon Hendricks at the Twin Towers in New York City.
If the first picture here at the top you see two covers from cd's she released with the Claude Bolling Big Band providing backup. These cd's have been released and are still selling. You can find them on Amazon. They both won awards comparable to the American Emmy Awards, known as Victoires de la Musique. They also won prizes from a widely recognized jazz organization that has been giving its prizes since 1937, when Louis Armstrong won.
The more important of the two CD's is probably is the won that has Guylenn singing solo in the only full recording every of Duke Ellington's jazz composition Black, Brown, and Beige. The title refers to the Afroamerican experience in America of over 300 years. The composition premiered in Carnegie Hall in 1943, but due to certain critical reviews Duke Ellington shortened the composition when he recorded it in the 1950's. Duke Ellington's son Mercer, also a fine jazz musician, knew Bolling and was in Paris around 1990 when a very young Guylenn recorded Black, Brown, and Beige with Bolling. Mercer Ellington remarked that Bolling arrangement of his father's composition was so good that Bolling "must have been hanging out with the wrong crowd."
The Fort Wayne Jazz Cabaret booking with Guylenn Delassus at Three Rivers was arranged after all the national evening acts had already been booked. Making an effort to be there would be an excellent warm up for real jazz cabaret on the 24th and 25th. This kind cabaret exists in every great cit of the world. It exists in Indianapolis, where Cabaret Artistic Director Brenda Williams comes from. Brenda herself has been a standout widely touring soloist, and she continues to have an extensive fan base in central Indiana.
Fine jazz bands exist in Fort Wayne, but Brenda is bringing an experienced jazz piano accompanist Craig Hicks up from Indy for Guylenn on the 13th, and then on the 24th and 25th as well. There are excellent pianists already in Fort Wayne, but the high degree of improvisation seen in a vocalist like Guylenn requires a specialized piano accompanist who can see and follow where the singer is going when she departs from the straight melody and sheet music. This is perhaps the most unique individual type of singing that there is, and yet it requires long mastery of the language and special techniques of jazz voice singing.
Guylenn from July 10 to August 15 is Artist in Residence this Summer at Fort Wayne Jazz Cabaret. She will be available to young singers who would like to study the art of jazz singing. She is open to two weekend jazz vocal intensives on the first two weekends in August if there is interest, with Sunday even performing opportunities at the LaSalle Inn. If she discovers a young singer who is new with something unique to offer vocally, who has the self-confidence to stand up and sing without louder music hiding his or her mistakes, the evening of August 14 is being held in reserve for a last show before Guylenn returns to Paris. It would be an especially welcome plus if that young singer has the self-confidence, poise, and ease to work an audience as something of an entertainer. Her email is
