Hats Off To Kenny

With the Toronto Jazz Festival in full swing, I was reminded by Alexander Green that the death of Jazz singer Kenny Rankin preceded that of Michael Jackson by only a couple of weeks.



While I only listened to Kenny's music, Alex knew him better and had this to say about him:

"As far as I could tell, the man didn’t have a pretentious bone in his body. Not that he didn’t have the talent and more than a few high profile fans…

Johnny Carson was bowled over by Kenny. He booked him on the Tonight Show more than 20 times, even writing the liner notes for his debut album.

Paul McCartney was another fan. “No one can sing ‘Blackbird’ like Kenny Rankin,” he said. McCartney even asked him to perform it when he and John Lennon were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

Saxophone great Stan Getz admired him, too. He described Kenny’s pristine tenor as “a horn with a heart.”

Kenny was a fine guitarist, incidentally. (He played on Bob Dylan’s landmark 1965 album “Bringing It All Back Home.”) He wrote beautiful compositions performed by Peggy Lee, Mel Torme, Georgie Fame, Carmen McRae and many others.

But he was best known for his interpretations of others’ songs.

He rarely changed the lyrics. But, like most jazz artists, he would often radically rework a song. Those who felt he strayed too far from the melody missed the point entirely.

“My interpretation of the song is purely emotional,” he once said. “We’ve all experienced disappointment and heartache, and that’s what I draw on… I’m really hurting for the people in the song. When I sing I’m feeling, not thinking.”

Despite his tremendous talents, Kenny spent most of his career in relative obscurity, garnering attention primarily from jazz aficionados and fellow musicians.

But while Kenny never won the widespread acclaim or financial rewards of more commercial artists, he experienced one important success: He spent his life exercising his talents, doing exactly what he wanted to do.

“I just feel privileged that I’ve been allowed to continue in my craft,” he said. “When someone tells you a song changed their life, or inspired them to look at things in a slightly different way, well, you can’t ask for a better reward than that.” "

As someone who practises a craft, I can relate to that last quote.

Read everything that Alex said about Kenny . Just like Kenny's music, it has soul.