I’ve been listening to a lot of Blossom Dearie since learning of her death. What a loss.
I had the good fortune to do a recording with her a few years back. I was doing the sound and incidental music for a Children’s TV pilot for my friends Bob and Anniken. They had managed to convince Blossom to record I Wanna Be Loved by You for the theme song. I had been playing a lot of gigs with an excellent bass player (Nick Walker) and drummer (Matt Jorgenson) that year so I offered their services and my studio. On the afternoon of the session, the three of us rehearsed and recorded several instrumental versions of the song. My intention was to run the board when Blossom showed up and let my colleagues be her backing musicians. I was nervous and excited to have Blossom coming over to my humble home studio and found myself neurotically triple checking levels and taping down anything that could rattle. We had been warned that she could be somewhat quirky and demanding. Bill Read makes good mention of this aspect of Blossom in his excellent Blossom post. It was an extremely hot August day and I was going to be forced to turn off my clunking old A/C once we started recording in order to get a reasonable sound quality. Recording in 100 degrees is a lot ask of someone who isn’t quirky and demanding!
Blossom arrived and we ran through the song for her a couple of times with the air still on. She had never performed the song before and decided that she would prefer not playing piano and instead concentrate on the vocal. Yikes – I had not thought of that! Blossom has a refined and inimitable piano style that is perfectly matched to her voice and the idea of me accompanying her filled me with dread. Fortunately, the rumors about Blossom were false that day. She was kind, friendly and professional and she put us all at ease. She sat at the piano with me and showed me a some chord voicings that she felt would work and she came up with a charming arrangement on the spot. She seemed to get a kick out my jerry rigged studio and we all had a good laugh when I stumbled around trying to run from hitting record on the tape machine in the bedroom and playing the piano in the main room. We recorded three takes of the song and she was back in an air conditioned car before the room got too hot. It was just a throwaway session for Blossom but it was a real thrill for me and my mates. This was the result of our efforts: