He's Back! - New Jersey Jazz Society

1992 he ruptured his top lip when he played
at a Philadelphia club without warming up.
He continued to play with the injured lip
during the next week’s engagement at New
York’s Blue Note resulting in an infection
that left him unable to play. After the injury
the trumpeter never regained his former
virtuoso technique and mostly played the
more forgiving flugelhorn, on which he did
retain his full and distinctive tone. He last
performed this past June at a party for the
release of his CD, On the Real Side.
During a five-decade career in jazz Freddie
Hubbard appeared on more than 300
recordings and he received a Jazz Masters
Award from the National Endowment for
the Arts in 2006. Hubbard is survived by his
wife of 35 years, Briggie Hubbard, and his
son, Duane.
■ Frances Lynne, 82, singer, 1926, Dallas,
TX – December 14, 2008, San Francisco,
CA. Though she toured for a year with
Gene Krupa and spent time in New York in
the 1950s appearing on Art Ford’s television
jazz sessions with musicians like Bobby
Hackett and Zoot Sims, Frances Lynne spent
most of her career in San Francisco, and the
pure-voiced, graceful jazz singer was known
mainly to connoisseurs. “Often discussed
but seldom heard, Ms. Lynne is a charming
singer,” wrote jazz writer Doug Ramsey.
February 2009
JerseyArticlesJazz
Frances Lynne
is shown in
1949 photo
with (from
left) bassist
Norman
Bates, alto
saxophonist
Paul Desmond
and pianist
Dave Brubeck.
(Chronicle
File)
In the
1940s Lynne
appeared in
Bay Area
clubs with a
group called the Three Ds that included
Dave Brubeck, Paul Desmond and bassist
Norman Bates. She recalled the experience
in Ramsey’s 2005 book Take Five: The Public
and Private Lives of Paul Desmond.
“And, you know, those little jobs at the
Geary Cellar and the Band Box never
seem to die. I still hear people talking
about them. And I’m glad, very happy,
because that’s my only claim to
immortality. I got a lot of offers in
those days, but I wanted to stay with
the group. I was like a little puppy, I
was having so much fun.”
She was married for 52 years to the
noted trumpeter John Coppola who
appears on her well regarded 1991 CD
Remember. In her later years she
reverted to her Texas roots and took up
the guitar, forming a country band that
played at a San Francisco gay bar called
the Endup. Lynne was an ardent supporter
of animal rights, supporting the
Page Cavanaugh.
Publicity photo courtesy CTSIMAGES
Humane Society and other organizations,
and at one point having a dog and 14 cats.
■ Page Cavanaugh, 86, pianist-singer,
January 26, 1922, Cherokee, KS –
December 19, 2008, Los Angeles, CA.
Page Cavanaugh led his popular trio from
the 1940s into the 1990s and was one of
southern California’s most enduring jazz
lounge performers. He died of kidney
failure. Cavanaugh’s trio appeared with
Frank Sinatra and played on NBC Radio’s
The Jack Paar Show. The group also
appeared in a number of movies, including
A Star is Born, Romance on the High Seas,
Big City and Lullaby of Birdland. The trio
hit the pop music charts with the hits
“The Three Bears” and “She Had To Go
and Lose It at the Astor.”
The group performed at a time, critic Don
Heckman told the Los Angeles Times,“when
jazz and popular music were in much closer
sync than they are today, so that groups like
Nat Cole and George Shearing and Page
Cavanaugh could play with distinctive jazz
flavor and still reach large audiences and
sell a lot of records.”
For many years the Page Cavanaugh Trio
was a fixture on the California nightclub
scene performing often at Ciro’s, the
Trocadero, the Captain’s Table, the
Money Tree and the Balboa Bay Club. JJ
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