Dorothy Donegan
Encyclopedia
Dorothy Donegan was an American
classically trained jazz
pianist primarily known for performing in the stride piano
and boogie-woogie
style. She also played bop
, swing jazz, and classical music
.
, Illinois
and began studying piano at the age of eight. She took her first lessons from Alfred N. Simms, a West Indian pianist who also taught Cleo Brown. She graduated from Chicago's DuSable High School
, where she studied with Walter Dyett
, a gifted teacher who also worked with, among others, Dinah Washington
, Johnny Griffin
, Gene Ammons
, and Von Freeman
. She also studied at the Chicago Musical College
and, later, the University of Southern California
. In 1942 she made her recording debut. She appeared in Sensations of 1945
with Cab Calloway
, Gene Rodgers
and W. C. Fields
and was known for her work in Chicago nightclubs. She was a protégée of Art Tatum
, who once called her "the only woman who can make me practice." (She said about Tatum that "He was supposed to be blind...I know he could see women.")
In 1943, Donegan became the first Black to perform at Chicago's Orchestra Hall
. She later said of this pathbreaking performance that:
In May 1983, Donegan, along with Billy Taylor
, Milt Hinton
, Art Blakey
, Maxine Sullivan
, Jackie Byard, and Eddie Locke
, performed at a memorial service for Earl Hines
, held at St. Peter's Evangelical Lutheran Church in New York City. Her first six albums would prove to be obscure when compared to her successes in performance. It was not until the 1980s that her work gained notice in the recorded jazz world. In particular, a recorded appearance at the 1987 Montreux Jazz Festival
and her live albums from 1991 were met with acclaim. Even so, she remained best known for her live performances. She drew crowds with her eclectic mixture of styles and her flamboyant personality. Ben Ratliff argued in the New York Times that:
Donegan was outspoken about her view that sexism
, along with her insistence on being paid the same rates as male musicians, had limited her career. In 1992, Donegan received an "American Jazz Master" fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts
, and in 1994, an honorary doctorate from Roosevelt University
.
Donegan died of cancer
in 1998 in Los Angeles
, California
.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
classically trained jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
pianist primarily known for performing in the stride piano
Stride piano
Harlem Stride Piano, Stride Piano, or just Stride, is a jazz piano style that was developed in the large cities of the East Coast, mainly in the New York, during 1920s and 1930s. The left hand may play a four-beat pulse with a single bass note, octave, seventh or tenth interval on the first and...
and boogie-woogie
Boogie-woogie
Boogie-woogie has the following meanings:*Boogie-woogie, a piano-based music style*Boogie-woogie , a swing dance or a dance that imitates the rock-n-roll dance of the 1950s*"Boogie Woogie" , a song by EuroGroove and Dannii Minogue...
style. She also played bop
Bebop
Bebop differed drastically from the straightforward compositions of the swing era, and was instead characterized by fast tempos, asymmetrical phrasing, intricate melodies, and rhythm sections that expanded on their role as tempo-keepers...
, swing jazz, and classical music
Classical music
Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...
.
Life and career
Donegan was born and grew up in ChicagoChicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
, Illinois
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
and began studying piano at the age of eight. She took her first lessons from Alfred N. Simms, a West Indian pianist who also taught Cleo Brown. She graduated from Chicago's DuSable High School
DuSable High School
DuSable High School was a public high school in Chicago opened in the Bronzeville neighborhood in 1934. It was named after Chicago's first permanent non-native settler, Jean Baptiste Point du Sable. DuSable was built to accommodate the growing Phillips High School in the 1930s. The campus was...
, where she studied with Walter Dyett
Walter Dyett
Walter Henri Dyett was an American violinist and music educator. As musical director at DuSable High School in Chicago, he trained many students who went on to become well-known musicians.- Career :...
, a gifted teacher who also worked with, among others, Dinah Washington
Dinah Washington
Dinah Washington, born Ruth Lee Jones , was an American blues, R&B and jazz singer. She has been cited as "the most popular black female recording artist of the '50s", and called "The Queen of the Blues"...
, Johnny Griffin
Johnny Griffin
John Arnold Griffin III was an American bop and hard bop tenor saxophonist.- Early life and career :Griffin studied music at DuSable High School in Chicago under Walter Dyett, starting out on clarinet before moving on to oboe and then alto sax...
, Gene Ammons
Gene Ammons
Eugene "Jug" Ammons also known as "The Boss," was an American jazz tenor saxophonist, and the son of boogie-woogie pianist Albert Ammons.-Biography:...
, and Von Freeman
Von Freeman
Earle Lavon Freeman Sr. is an American hard bop jazz tenor saxophonist. He is the father of jazz saxophonist Chico Freeman.-Biography:...
. She also studied at the Chicago Musical College
Chicago Musical College
Chicago Musical College is a division of Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt UniversityIt was founded in 1867, less than four decades after the city of Chicago was incorporated...
and, later, the University of Southern California
University of Southern California
The University of Southern California is a private, not-for-profit, nonsectarian, research university located in Los Angeles, California, United States. USC was founded in 1880, making it California's oldest private research university...
. In 1942 she made her recording debut. She appeared in Sensations of 1945
Sensations of 1945
Sensations of 1945 is a 1944 American musical-comedy film which was released by United Artists.This film was an attempt to recapture the ensemble style of films such as Broadway Melody of 1936 by showcasing a number of top musical and comedy acts of the day, in a film linked together by a loose...
with Cab Calloway
Cab Calloway
Cabell "Cab" Calloway III was an American jazz singer and bandleader. He was strongly associated with the Cotton Club in Harlem, New York City where he was a regular performer....
, Gene Rodgers
Gene Rodgers
Gene Rodgers was an American jazz pianist and arranger. He is best known for being the pianist on Coleman Hawkins' famous 1939 recording of "Body and Soul"....
and W. C. Fields
W. C. Fields
William Claude Dukenfield , better known as W. C. Fields, was an American comedian, actor, juggler and writer...
and was known for her work in Chicago nightclubs. She was a protégée of Art Tatum
Art Tatum
Arthur "Art" Tatum, Jr. was an American jazz pianist and virtuoso who played with phenomenal facility despite being nearly blind.Tatum is widely acknowledged as one of the greatest jazz pianists of all time...
, who once called her "the only woman who can make me practice." (She said about Tatum that "He was supposed to be blind...I know he could see women.")
In 1943, Donegan became the first Black to perform at Chicago's Orchestra Hall
Symphony Center
Symphony Center is a music complex located at 220 South Michigan Avenue in the Loop area of Chicago, Illinois. Home to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Chicago Sinfonietta, Symphony Center includes the 2,522-seat Orchestra Hall, which dates from 1904; Buntrock Hall, a rehearsal and...
. She later said of this pathbreaking performance that:
In the first half I played Rachmaninoff and Grieg and in the second I drug it through the swamp – played jazz. Claudia Cassidy reviewed the concert on the first page of the Chicago Tribune. She said I had a terrific technique and I looked like a Toulouse-Lautrec lithograph.
In May 1983, Donegan, along with Billy Taylor
Billy Taylor
Billy Taylor was an American jazz pianist, composer, broadcaster and educator. He was the Robert L. Jones Distinguished Professor of Music at East Carolina University in Greenville, and since 1994, he was the artistic director for jazz at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in...
, Milt Hinton
Milt Hinton
Milton John "Milt" Hinton , "the dean of jazz bass players," was an American jazz double bassist and photographer. He was nicknamed "The Judge".-Biography:...
, Art Blakey
Art Blakey
Arthur "Art" Blakey , known later as Abdullah Ibn Buhaina, was an American Grammy Award-winning jazz drummer and bandleader. He was a member of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community....
, Maxine Sullivan
Maxine Sullivan
Maxine Sullivan , born Marietta Williams, was an American blues and jazz singer.She was born in Homestead, Pennsylvania, and married jazz musician John Kirby in 1938 , and stride pianist Cliff Jackson in 1956...
, Jackie Byard, and Eddie Locke
Eddie Locke
Eddie Locke was an American jazz drummer.Locke was associated with the Detroit jazz scene in the 1940s and 1950s, playing from 1948 to 1953 with drummer Oliver Jackson in a variety show called Bop & Locke...
, performed at a memorial service for Earl Hines
Earl Hines
Earl Kenneth Hines, universally known as Earl "Fatha" Hines, was an American jazz pianist. Hines was one of the most influential figures in the development of modern jazz piano and, according to one source, is "one of a small number of pianists whose playing shaped the history of jazz".-Early...
, held at St. Peter's Evangelical Lutheran Church in New York City. Her first six albums would prove to be obscure when compared to her successes in performance. It was not until the 1980s that her work gained notice in the recorded jazz world. In particular, a recorded appearance at the 1987 Montreux Jazz Festival
Montreux Jazz Festival
The Montreux Jazz Festival is the best-known music festival in Switzerland and one of the most prestigious in Europe; it is held annually in early July in Montreux on the shores of Lake Geneva...
and her live albums from 1991 were met with acclaim. Even so, she remained best known for her live performances. She drew crowds with her eclectic mixture of styles and her flamboyant personality. Ben Ratliff argued in the New York Times that:
her flamboyance helped her find work in a field that was largely hostile to women. To a certain extent, it was also her downfall; her concerts were often criticized for having an excess of personality.
Donegan was outspoken about her view that sexism
Sexism
Sexism, also known as gender discrimination or sex discrimination, is the application of the belief or attitude that there are characteristics implicit to one's gender that indirectly affect one's abilities in unrelated areas...
, along with her insistence on being paid the same rates as male musicians, had limited her career. In 1992, Donegan received an "American Jazz Master" fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts
National Endowment for the Arts
The National Endowment for the Arts is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created by an act of the U.S. Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government. Its current...
, and in 1994, an honorary doctorate from Roosevelt University
Roosevelt University
Roosevelt University is a coeducational, private university with campuses in Chicago, Illinois and Schaumburg, Illinois. Founded in 1945, the university is named in honor of both former President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. The university's curriculum is based on...
.
Donegan died of cancer
Cancer
Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...
in 1998 in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
.
Discography as a leader
- 1946: September Song (Jubilee)
- 1954: Dorothy Donegan Piano (MGM)
- 1955: Dorothy Donegan (Jubilee)
- 1957: Dorothy Donegan at the Embers (Roulette)
- 1957: Dorothy Donegan Live! (Capitol)
- 1959: Donnybrook with Dorothy (Capitol)
- 1960: It Happened One Night (Roulette)
- 1963: Swingin' Jazz in Hi Fi (Regina)
- 1975: The Many Faces of Dorothy Donegan (Mahogany)
- 1979: Makin' Whoopie (Black & Blue)
- 1980: Sophisticated Lady (Ornament)
- 1980: Live in Copenhagen 1980 (Storyville)
- 1986: Live at the Widder Bar (Timeless)
- 1990: Live at the 1990 Floating Jazz Festival (Chiaroscuro)
- 1991: The Incredible Dorothy Donegan Trio (Chiaroscuro)
- 1992: Dorothy Donegan Trio with Clark Terry (Chiaroscuro)
- 1995: I Just Want (Audiophile)