Volume 21 Issue 2 - October 2015

Beat by Beat | Jazz Stories
Remembering Ray
ORI DAGAN
Whodunit? Ray Jessel done it. He lived a life that was full.
Much more than this, he did it his way, right up until
the night he passed away in his sleep at 85, just a few
months ago.
Born in Cardiff two weeks before the stock market crash of 1929,
the acclaimed Jewish-Welsh-Canadian-American was five times
recognized by the Manhattan Association of Cabarets and Clubs.
Jessel’s songs were recorded by Louis Armstrong, Jimmy Durante,
Michael Feinstein and John Pizzarelli, to name a few. He will forever
be considered a master composer, lyricist, musician and cabaret
performer. If that weren’t enough, in his final year on the planet, at
84, he became a YouTube sensation, when he performed What She’s
Got (The Penis Song) on the NBC reality television program America’s
Got Talent.
“The comedy was always there, and so were the one-liners,” recalls
his beloved sister Vivienne Muhling, with whom he was extremely
close. “When he was in college in Cardiff, he wrote a story in his
college magazine which was a whodunit, and he started
by saying “Who done it? The butler done it!” (laughs).
Before showing me a 1965 Broadway playbill of Baker
Street, which brought Jessel to New York City to collaborate
with Marian Grudeff, Muhling reminisces about
her brother’s humble beginnings as an aspiring classical
composer.
“Grudeff persuaded him to write for a revue called
Spring Thaw in Toronto – that was the beginning of it.
Then, when Alex Cohen came here to put on the very
first musical that opened the O’Keefe Centre, which
was Camelot with Richard Burton, he was told about
the two of them. Then, when he needed someone to
write Baker Street, he called Ray, and that’s how he got
to New York from Toronto.
“But let me go back a little. He wrote his first song at
two-and-a-half years old, and he wrote it because we
were close, and I went off to school because I was five
… When we got older there was a competition in the
weekend papers, a songwriting competition, and we
wrote a song together called ‘Stargazing’ which I still
have a copy of, and we lost out to a pair of old spinsters
who had written ‘Cruising Down the River on
Sunday Afternoon’– so he was already writing popular
music, even though he thought of himself as a classical
composer then.
“In Toronto, he did a lot of writing for people – he
wrote whole programs for them for them to go on stage
– Pamela Hyatt is one of those singers.”
Indeed, at Lisa Particelli’s “GNO Jazz Jam,” on a June
night in 2011, actress and singer Hyatt was showcased.
Out of her five selections, three were by Jessel, including a definitive
version of Life Sucks and Then You Die, what she calls “Jessel’s ode to
Shirley Temple.” That night, Hyatt’s brilliance matched that of Jessel’s
on The Things You Do and I’m All Right Now, a classic collaboration
between Jessel and his wife Cynthia Thompson. The two met in 1980
and collaborated on songs since then.
Hyatt had the amazing experience of working with Jessel in 1958 for
CBC’s musical revue Off Limits directed by Norman Jewison, co-starring
with Jack Creley, Dave Broadfoot, Sammy Sales, Sheila Billings
and Jimmy Hannan.
“Ray wrote deliciously silly material,” says Hyatt, “and it was always
fun to perform his songs. That show broke all house records for the
Mountain Playhouse in Montreal, ran the entire summer. Looking
back, I am hugely privileged to have worked with Ray in his youth,
and been given the opportunity to perform his and Cynthia’s songs
in my dotage.” Asked if she has a favourite Jessel tune, Hyatt says:
“I adore his and Cynthia’s tender ballad I’m All Right Now because
the images are so precise and they don’t demand any self-pitying
nonsense. He was a brilliant wordsmith with a great love of his fellow
humans, our foibles, our fears, our utter lunatic behavior. His songs
really covered so much of the human condition. They were never
Jazz Stories continues on page 35, following the Blue Pages
Ray Jessel
St. Philip’s Anglican Church
Sunday, October 4, 4:00 pm | Jazz Vespers
Bernie Senensky Quartet with Bernie (piano), Bill McBirnie (flute),
Terry Clarke (drums), and Steve Wallace (bass)
Sunday, October 18, 4:00 pm | Jazz Vespers
John MacMurchy Quartet with John (clarinet and saxophone), Mark
Kieswetter (piano), Dan Ionescu (guitar), and Ross MacIntyre (bass)
Sunday, November 1, 4:00 pm
Mariachi Vespers with Jorge Lopez & Mexico Amigo Band
St. Philip’s Anglican Church | Etobicoke
25 St. Phillips Road (near Royal York + Dixon)
416-247-5181 • stphilips.net • free will offering
Featuring some of Toronto’s best jazz musicians
with a brief reflection by Jazz Vespers Clergy
October 18, 4:30 pm
Joe Sealy (piano) & Paul Novotny (bass)
November 1, 4:30 pm
ALL SAINTS DAY with The Chameleon Jazz Band
Christ Church Deer Park, 1570 Yonge St. 416-920-5211
(north of St. Clair at Heath St.)
www.thereslifehere.org Admission is free; donations are welcome.
34 | Oct 1 - Nov 7, 2015 thewholenote.com