Barbara Lashley, A Love Affair with Song

Barbara with Richard Hadlock at Old St. Hilary Church, Tiburon, CA, 1985. Courtesy Richard Hadlock.

Lashley and Richard Hadlock

Richard Hadlock (b. 1927) chose Barbara as vocalist for his “20^th Century Masters” performance series, 1985-90.  Both informative and tuneful, the concerts celebrated great American songwriters – Jerome Kern, Cole Porter, Fats Waller, George Gershwin, Duke Ellington and so forth — and were presented at Fisherman’s Cottage in North Beach San Francisco and historic Old St. Hilary Church in Tiburon to the north.

Hadlock was among Lashley’s exceptional colleagues and a close friend.  He is a superb clarinet, soprano, tenor and baritone saxophone player active in Bay Area Jazz from the early 1960s until recently.  Richard studied with reed masters Sidney Bechet, Garvin Bushell and Lee Konitz.

He wrote Jazz Masters of the Twenties (1965, Da Capo 1988) and has written for a wide range of jazz publications, newspapers and liner notes.  His ongoing Annals of Jazz radio series has aired on Bay Area radio since 1959.

Butch Thompson and his Berkeley Gang

Shattuck Hotel, Berkeley CA, May 1985

This live recording session was a sincere effort to fuse pianist Butch Thompson with jazz musicians from the Bay Area and Berkeley, including Lashley.  It coincided with a San Francisco broadcast of A Prairie Home Companion on which Richard Hadlock was a guest, pianist Thompson a regular feature and drummer Hal Smith a frequent substitute.

Despite high production values the album was ultimately unsuccessful, coming off like an average jam session albeit with superlative players.  Only two of Barbara’s vocals made it to the finished LP.  I’ve included recovered outtakes and a couple of Hadlock’s featured instrumentals.  (Unfortunately the cassette source suffers compromised speed stability.)

Butch Thompson and his Berkeley Gang, Stomp Off Records, SOS 1122 and outtakes.

Leon Oakley (cornet), Richard Hadlock (alto, soprano sax), Bob Mielke (trombone), Butch Thompson (piano in band tunes), Ray Skjelbred (piano in duet songs) Mike Duffy (string bass) and Hal Smith (drums).

Truckin’ (fragment) – unissued vocal

Someone to Watch Over Me – unissued vocal (Skjelbred duet)

Raisin’ the Rent – unissued vocal (Skjelbred duet)

How Deep is the Ocean – unissued vocal (Skjelbred duet)

You’re Lucky to Me – unissued instrumental (announcing by Hadlock)

Love Is Just Around the Corner – unissued instrumental (personnel by Jim Watt)

LASHLEY – Berkeley Gang Shattuck unissued complete 1985.mp3

Am I Blue? – issued vocal

I’m Checkin’ Out Goombye – issued vocal

“I feel like I’m in love, that I’d rather be here than anyplace else.” Drummer John Markham (left), San Francisco Chronicle, August 1984.

Hasty Finale

Barbara Lashley electrified Bay Area Jazz for a decade.  But in 1992 her song was cut short.  She died in her late fifties of complications from a rare lung disease, sarcoidosis.

Her beauty, charisma and will-to-sing are sorely missed.  Yet her pure spirit still inhabits these simple songs.  Richard Hadlock offered this note of farewell on his Annals of Jazz radio program in November 1992:

“We all loved her so much that when I went to a memorial for her yesterday everyone I spoke to thought that they had the most special relationship to Barbara.  That she was so special to them no one else could possibly understand the closeness.  We all felt that way, and that’s the effect she had on people.  This is one of the sweetest human beings I’ve ever known.  And she sang that way – gently and lovely.”

Lashley with Skjelbred, Strauss, Hadlock, Oakley and Mielke. Mielke collection.

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Great thanks to Richard Hadlock for providing photos, clippings and his recollections.  Thanks to Abe Galvan, Hal Smith and Steven Strauss for their assistance and memories.  Music and images are from the personal collections of Richard Hadlock and Bob Mielke.

Barbara Lashely’s tale and the story of early jazz continue at the JAZZ RHYTHM website: www.JAZZHOTBigstep.com.

Lashley, Skjelbred, Helm, Mielke

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