Afraid of the Dark
The Guardian's obituary for Barbara Jay lands a week after her death, and ECM has Enrico Rava's first record with the Fearless Five. Then NBC, 1956, where Nat King Cole gets his own television show and then ends it himself.
LioraBarbara Jay sang for Ronnie Scott and for Benny Goodman, and the obituary ran yesterday. Tonight, Washington sells a Hammond organ for fifty dollars. Later, Nat King Cole walks away from his own show. It's Friday. Let's go.
LioraIt's Friday, October 23rd. This is The Daily Quintet. I'm Liora. Five stories from the world of jazz, in about ten minutes. Here we go.
One. The Lead: Barbara Jay, the singer who took the chair in Ronnie Scott's nine piece in 1953 and
LioraJazz lost a singer eight days ago, and the obituary only ran yesterday.
Barbara Jay died on the fifteenth of October, at ninety four. The Guardian published Peter Vacher's obituary yesterday, and all of this is his.
She was born in Cardiff in August of 1932. At sixteen she took the J out of Jones and became Barbara Jay.
Then a small ad in the Melody Maker. "Wanted," it said. "Girl singer." The trombonist Geoff Love had placed it. By the summer of 1951 she had the Astoria on Charing Cross Road, six afternoons and six evenings a week.
In 1953 the saxophonist Pete King called with the singer's chair in Ronnie Scott's nine piece band. Scott, Vacher writes, was never very happy with girl singers anyway. Benny Green was in that band. She stayed longer, he said, than all the other girl singers put together.
LioraIn 1970 she sent a tape to Benny Goodman's people and toured Europe for six weeks with the last of the King of Swing's all star British big bands. She earned more, she said, than she had ever done in her life.
She married Tommy Whittle in 1967, and the partnership lasted until his death in 2013. In 1993 she devised the Ella Fitzgerald Songbook with Maxine Daniels and Rosemary Squires, which ran some four hundred performances.
Two. Listen to This: Enrico Rava's Corners, out on ECM on October 16
LioraToday's record is new, it was cut in Rome, and the band is called the Fearless Five.
Enrico Rava's "Corners" came out on ECM a week ago, the sixteenth of October. Rava plays trumpet and flugelhorn, Joe Lovano is on tenor, Matteo Paggi trombone, Francesco Diodati guitar, Francesco Ponticelli bass, and Evita Polidoro drums and voice.
They recorded it in July of 2025, with Manfred Eicher producing. The label says it is the group's first record for ECM.
Here is the tip. Nine tracks, and two of them run long. The opener runs eleven thirty nine. Lovano's tune, "Sun Rava," ten forty three.
LioraAnd a Christmas record, because of where we go next. The Library of Congress calls "The Magic of Christmas" a 1960 Christmas album by Nat King Cole. The French national library holds the disc, names the orchestra and choir under Ralph Carmichael, and names no label at all.
Now NBC, 1956. Nat King Cole gets his own show on television. Tonight on The Bridge: why he ended it himself, and what he said about Madison Avenue. Silas has the story.
Three. The Bridge: In 1956 Nat King Cole got his own show on NBC
LioraOne true story from this music's history, every day. Silas tells it, I ask the questions. Silas, where are we?
SilasNBC television. Monday night, November 5th, 1956. A fifteen-minute show at 7:45 p.m., and the host is Nat King Cole. He knows this network. NBC gave him a radio show in 1946, King Cole Trio Time, and it ran eighteen months. Now he gets television. Before it airs, Cole says the show "could be a turning point." He hopes it means Black performers on television, regularly. CBS News later called it the first network variety program starring an African American.
LioraSo who pays for it?
SilasAt first, NBC does. It runs as a sustaining program. That means the network pays, and there's no sponsor. NBC expects the advertisers to come once they see the show. Gordon Jenkins and Nelson Riddle arrange and conduct. The guests include Ella Fitzgerald, Harry Belafonte, Peggy Lee. Ron Rodman, a music professor, says many came "with minimal compensation." Another writer says union scale. Cole works at union scale too, and the show costs him money, because touring pays more.
LioraDo the sponsors come?
SilasSome do, city by city. Rheingold Beer in New York. Gallo and Thunderbird Wines in Los Angeles. Regal Beer in New Orleans. Coca-Cola in Houston. By one account, Carter Products, the deodorant and shaving cream company, signs on nationally, but only fleetingly. The big national sponsors stay away. The reason the sources give: they don't want to offend white Southern customers.
Only one source tells the next part, so take it as the story goes. Cole tells his manager, Carlos Gastel, that the Houston Coca-Cola deal proves a Southern company's customers don't leave over a Black star. And when Max Factor says no, Cole answers in anger, mocking the idea that Black performers wear some different kind of makeup.
LioraSo NBC gives up?
SilasNo. In July 1957 NBC doubles the show to thirty minutes and moves it to Tuesday at ten. By then 77 stations carry it, nearly half of them below the Mason-Dixon line. In October it moves again, to 7:30. Still no big national sponsor. So it's Cole, not NBC, who ends it. He sees a losing battle between the network and the advertisers. The last show airs December 17th, 1957.
LioraDid he ever say why?
SilasHe did. In February 1958 he wrote about it in Ebony, in a piece titled "Why I Quit My TV Show." These words reach us as reprinted, not from the magazine itself, so hold the exact wording loosely. "For 13 months, I was the Jackie Robinson of television. I was the pioneer, the test case, the Negro first." And this: "I found myself standing there with the bat on my shoulder. The men who dictate what Americans see and hear didn't want to play ball."
Then there's the line everyone remembers. Nobody can pin down when he said it. But source after source gives it to Cole: "Madison Avenue is afraid of the dark."
His widow, Maria Cole, put it this way: "Nat never looked or sounded better in those shows."
LioraHe built the show. All they had to do was pay for it. That's The Bridge. Back to today, right after this.
Four. On the Road: Washington sells a Hammond organ night for fifty dollars
LioraTonight, coast to coast.
Tonight's ticket is in Washington, and it is fifty dollars.
Blues Alley has Mike LeDonne's Groovers Quartet, billed as Hammond B three Week. Two shows, seven o'clock and half past nine. Fifty dollars, and seven more in fees. The club names nobody but LeDonne.
Now the sweep.
In Chicago, the Green Mill runs three bills. Chris Foreman from five to a quarter past seven. The Andy Brown Quartet from eight to midnight. Then the jam, one in the morning to half past three, with Marquis Hill, and five dollars to get in after one.
In New York, Mezzrow has the Paula West Quartet at six and half past seven, then the Richard Johnson Trio at nine and half past ten. Advance seats are gone for two of those sets, and walk ins can still sit in the bar.
LioraIn Austin, the Elephant Room has the Drew Simpson Quintet at six and Extreme Heat at nine. Ten dollars, and no cover before eight.
And in Philadelphia, Chris' Jazz Cafe has the Aaron Matson Quintet at half past seven and half past nine, twenty five dollars.
Five. One More Note: Sixty nine years ago today Johnny Griffin cut The Congregation at the Van Gelder studio
LioraSixty nine years ago today, Johnny Griffin took a band into the Van Gelder studio in Hackensack, New Jersey, and cut "The Congregation."
October twenty third, 1957. Sonny Clark on piano, Paul Chambers on bass, Kenny Dennis on drums.
The French national library prints that session date three times, on three different pressings, and all three agree. On the same date in 1962, the same library cannot settle whether Art Blakey's "Caravan" sessions ran one day or two.
Outro
LioraThat's the Quintet. If today's show earned it, follow The Daily Quintet wherever you listen.
The Daily Quintet is an AI-crafted production, researched and checked by humans. Every listing you heard came from the venue's own page.
That's your Friday. I'm Liora. See you tomorrow.