TRIBUTE TO BESSIE SMITH
Tiziana Ghiglioni (vocals), Oscar Klein (trumpet), Dick Wellstood (piano), Lino Patruno (guitar)

http://www.linopatruno.it
http://www.cambiamusica.it
http://www.michaelsupnick.com

Bessie Smith (July, 1892 or April, 1894 — September 26, 1937) was the most popular and successful female American blues singer of the 1920s and 1930s.

As a way of earning money for their impoverished household, Smith and her brother Andrew began performing on the streets of Chattanooga as a duo, she singing and dancing, he accompanying on guitar; their preferred location was in front of the White Elephant Saloon at Thirteenth and Elm streets in the heart of the city’s African-American community.

By the early 1920s, Smith had starred with Sidney Bechet in How Come?, a musical that made its way to Broadway, and spent several years working out of Atlanta, Georgia’s 81 Theater, performing in black theaters along the East Coast. Following a run-in with the producer of How Come?, she was replaced by Alberta Hunter and returned to Philadelphia, where she now lived. Smith became the biggest headliner on the black Theater Owners Booking Association (T.O.B.A.) circuit, running a show that sometimes featured as many as 40 troupers and made her the highest-paid black entertainer of her day. Gee was impressed by the money, but never adjusted to show business life, especially not Smith’s bisexuality. In 1929, when Smith learned of Jack Gee’s affair with another performer, Gertrude Saunders, she ended the marriage, but never sought a legal divorce. Smith eventually found a common-law husband in an old friend, Richard Morgan, who was Lionel Hampton’s uncle and the antithesis of her husband, and with whom she stayed until her death.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bessie_Smith