Simple Requests: New American Music for Computer and Live Performers.  Works by Chambers, Kathman, Lyons, Oakes, Stolet, Sung and Terry.  Cambria compact disc 1088, issued 1996.

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The Janet Lawson Quintet, jazz vocalist. Cambria Compact disc 1101, issued in 1993.

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Peggy Gilbert and The Dixie Belles: Dixieland Jazz, 1986 on Cambria Records, CD-1024 LC5882.  Jacket includes an extensive article on the All-Women's Bands in Los Angeles. Released on compact disc, 2006.

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Althea Waites performs the Piano Music of Florence Price, 1987 on Cambria Records, C-1027. Includes the premiere recording of the Sonata in E Minor from 1931, lp.

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Music by Women Composers from Around the World, Cambria cassette, 1988, including works by Deon Nielsen Price, Kazuko Osawa, Haruna Aoki and Ruth Watson Henderson.

 

Lucille Field Sings Songs by American Women Com­posers. Works by Ruth Crawford Seeger, Miriam Gideon, Dorothy Klotzman, Florence Price, Patsy Rogers, and Nancy Van de Vate. Cambria compact disc 1037, issued in 1990. With pianist Harriet Wingreen of the New York Philharmonic.

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Music by Zenobia Powell Perry, Cambria CD 1138. Distributed by Naxos.

Janis-Rozena Peri, soprano; Darryl Taylor, tenor; Joyce Catafalno, flute; Berkeley Price, clarinet; John Crotty, Deon Nielsen Price, piano. Contents: Cycle of Songs on Poems by Paul Lawrence Dunbar; Sinner Man So Hard, Believe! (1967); Hallelujah to the Lamb (1969); Sonata for Clarinet and Piano (1963); Sonatine for Piano (1963); O de Angels Done Bowed Down (for mezzo-soprano and piano); Homage to William Levi Dawson on His 90th Birthday (for solo piano); Threnody Song Cycle (for soprano and piano); Selections from Heritage and Life: A Cycle of Songs (soprano and piano); The Hidden Words of Baha’u’llah (soprano, flute, piano) (1977); Promenade for Piano, Flight for Piano.

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All selections are ASCAP.

they are available through Jaygayle Music.

 

Recorded at West Virginia University in 2001, the album was produced by Jeannie Pool. Tim Rhodes was the recording engineer; editing and mastering was done by Jonathan Marcus of Orpharion Recordings. This project was funded in part by a grant from the F. Eugene Miller Foundation.

To obtain a copy, contact Jaygayle Music at 818-446-0082 or e-mail: jaygaylemusic@yahoo.com; or write: P.O. Box 8144, La Crescenta, California, 91224-0144 and enclose $12 for each disc (which includes postage and handling).  It is also available through Naxos and available for downloading through various Internet sites.

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REVIEWS

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Zenobia Powell Perry, a Lost Thread

Jun26 by perkustooth  Cambria CD-1235

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"These artists and this composer have graced these pages twice previously.  First, in the wonderful production of Perry’s opera, Tawawa House and some of the musicians appeared in an article on Valerie Capers.  The present disc and the two previously mentioned articles are all indebted to a significant degree to the work of musicologist and composer Jeannie Gayle Pool.  It was she who kindly sent me this disc for review and her scholarship which brought forth the production of the opera (Perry was the subject of her doctoral thesis). Zenobia Powell Perry (1908-2004) was an American composer. pianist and teacher who counts R. Nathaniel Dett and Darius Milhaud among her teachers.  Her sound is not far from that of Aaron Copland in her use of basically tonal harmonies and folk elements.  She is, in a sense, a lost populist and quite a gem."

 

"This 25 track disc fills a major gap in the discography of American music in general and music of black Americans in particular.  Perry has roots in African and Native American (Creek) ancestry and Pool’s work may very well have rescued her from total obscurity.  The lost thread of which I refer in my title is to suggest that there is more populist and jazz-influenced American music that needs to be brought to light. Listening to this disc is pure entertainment.  These are undiscovered gems lovingly rendered with love and authority by Josephine Gandolfi, Deanne Tucker and (civil rights advocate and retired judge) La Doris Hazzard Cordell.  The entire project seems to be a labor of love and one can only hope that it will not be the last installment in the recorded canon of Perry’s work."

 

"These 25 tracks are all brief pieces.  They range from the 1935 Childhood Capers to the 1985 suite from Tawawa House arranged for piano four hands by Josephine Gandolfi.  The entertainment here ranges from light pieces like the Childhood Capers to some more deeply thoughtful pieces with jazz-inflected harmonies.  Some are quite demanding technically, a tribute to Perry’s skills as a pianist."

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"The Homage to William Levi Dawson on his 90th Birthday, Times Seven, Soliloquy, Nocturne, A Jazz Trifle and Rhapsody seems to be rather substantive works and pique the curiosity as to what else lies undiscovered.  The suite from Tawawa House is great but it will have to hold that place until the full opera can be recorded.  It is worth hearing, especially as one of the few operas dealing with slavery."

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"The very fine recording done a Bosendorfer piano at Stanford University by engineer Mark Dalrymple.  The production by Pool and Gandolfi leave this writer wanting to hear more.  Kudos!"

 

Album contents: 

Pavanne (1962) (2:46); Times Seven (1964, rev. 1985) (5:32); Soliloquy (rev.1979) (4:16) Homage to William Levi Dawson on his 90th Birthday (1990) (4:16); Round and Round (1977) (1:23); Orrin and Echo (1970) (:45); Vignette No. 1 (1990) (:32); Vignette No. 2 (1990) (:50); Childhood Capers (1935) (:50); Ties (1970) (:41); March (Three Notes) (1980) (1:22) Performed by Jodi Gandolfi.  Nocturne (1961) (2:12); Teeta (1972, rev.1988) (2:41); Blaize (1985) (2:09); Flight (1970) (1:33), Performed by Deanne Taylor.  A Jazz Trifle (1986) (2:12); Rhapsody (1960) (5:04),  Performed by LaDoris Cordell. Suite from the opera, Tawawa House (1985, revised 2014). Arranged for piano four-hands by Jodi Gandolfi: Overture (2:04); Cake Walk (2:50); Sunday Dance Tune (2:00); Prelude (2:21); Fire Music (3:06); Jumping Over the Broom (2:35), Performed by Jodi Gandolfi and Deanne Taylor. Total Time:  56:16