[Tradjazz] Keely Smith, still ticking

[Don Robertson]

Brother Barbone posted this on DJML, I know some of us especially Bruce 
McN are big Keely Smith fans.

Don Robertson



Keely Smith, still performing, still hip at age 80.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone

www.barbonestreet.com
www.myspace.com/barbonestreetjazzband


June 5, 2008 - NY TIMES - by STEPHEN HOLDEN
Still Swinging, Still Hungry, Keely Smith Keeps the Passion
“I’d kill right now for a meatball sandwich,” Keely Smith declared from 
the stage of Birdland on Tuesday evening. Ms. Smith, who has recently 
acquired the nickname Queen of Swing, has expressed the same craving for 
meatballs on New York nightclub stages before. Performing clearly 
stimulates her appetites.

I have an imaginary picture of her chomping down on a sandwich at 4 a.m. 
in a Las Vegas diner after a marathon performance with Louis Prima in 
the early-1960s heyday of Sin City. On Tuesday she recalled that Mr. 
Prima struck her as the handsomest man she had ever seen until they 
divorced, and then she realized he was ugly.

No meatball sandwich materialized, but a thoughtful ringside patron 
offered her a zucchini tied with a ribbon.

Ms. Smith also announced that she is now 80. “I’m an old woman,” she 
said, then pointed to her waist and added, “But from here down I’m not.”

When one fan declared, “I love you,” she snapped back: “You say you love 
me. How old are you?” She can’t help herself; she is attracted to much 
younger men, she admitted. Her swinging rendition of “Can’t Take My Eyes 
Off You” included one critical word change. “Thank God love has arrived” 
became “Thank God lust has arrived.”

Of course Ms. Smith is kidding. But she’s not. Over the years raunchy 
Wife of Bath comedy has threatened to overtake music as the focus of her 
act. This is not to say that Ms. Smith has lost her chops. With her 
excellent quintet — Dennis Michaels on piano, Mike Merritt on bass, Mike 
Morreale on trumpet, Jerry Vivino on saxophone and Steve Bargonetti on 
guitar — she lighted a fire under “Jump, Jive an’ Wail” and “Let the 
Good Times Roll.”

But there have always been two sides to Ms. Smith — the tomboyish cutup 
and deadpan comic foil for Mr. Prima’s pranks, and the balladeer whose 
signature song, “I Wish You Love,” was perked up on Tuesday with a brisk 
Latin beat. But ballads predominated. The set’s five slower songs 
included “You Go to My Head” and “I Have Dreamed.”

Who knows what they mean to her today. In reasonably good voice, she 
reeled them off without devoting much attention to interpretations. Her 
familiar vocal sound — warm and colored with a sense of regret — sufficed.

Keely Smith performs through Sunday at Birdland, 315 West 44th Street, 
Clinton; (212) 581-3080, birdlandjazz.com