The Chris Connor Bio-Discography
Big Band Singer Period
by Iván Santiago

Return to the Chris Connor intro page

Pre-Recording Period
Chris Connor's pre-recording days were spent in Missouri's Kansas City (1927-1940) and Jefferson City (1940-1947). At home, her father enjoyed playing the violin, and encouraged his daughter to also play a musical instrument. She took eight years of clarinet study in school, becoming not only first chair in the clarinet section but also the school's top player for various years.

Her main interest was, however, singing. She remembers humming the song "Ramona" when she was about 6 years old. Her desire to sing was actually the chief reason why she became interested in playing an instrument; as she told Marc Myers in an interview conducted in 2008, "I just assumed that reading music would be important if I eventually decided to become a singer and that it would help my phrasing and breath control."

Connor first sang publicly in 1945, at graduation time in Jefferson City Junior College. The song was Amor. "I had nothing to lose," she said to a Downbeat interviewer in 1952, "I did it for kicks and the audience liked it. That did it. I decided to become a singer."

In 1946 and 1947, Connor divided her days between bills-paying jobs, primarily as a stenographer, and singing gigs with an University of Columbus band. A dance-oriented outfit, this band was led by a college teacher named Paul Cherches, and consisted entirely of college students -- with the sole exception of Connor, who was not enrolled in school at the time. They routinely played in venues near the university's campus, located about 30 miles away from her Jefferson City hometown. When the band members graduated and disbanded, a twenty-year-old Connor moved back to her birthplace, Kansas City.

In Kansas City, Connor's schedule again combined clerical work on weekdays with singing gigs on weekends. She served as vocalist for another college ensemble. Comprised chiefly of students enrolled at the University of Missouri, that small combo is said to have included a nineteen-year-old Bob Brookmeyer, later to become a well-known trombonist and composer. (Or so claim various reports. In 2006, when Connor was asked to confirm that she had worked with Brookmeyer, she replied: "[s]omebody made it up. I met him, but I never sang in his band.")

In 1948, the budding vocalist decided to try her luck in New York City. Connor had received the "vague promise" of a singing job from an agent. No such job materialized when the singer came to the city. By her own account, she nearly starved during her first seven weeks in the metropolis. (Other sources have stated that she found a job, working as stenographer once more.) After those first hard weeks, her stay in The Big Apple paid off. She met a manager who was in turn acquainted with Claude Thornhill's road manager (the latter identified as Joe Green in various sources), and who told Connor that there was an opening in The Claude Thornhill Orchestra. Connor successfully auditioned, thereby beginning on her road toward national and international recognition.

For a far more detailed account of Chris Connor's work with Thornhill and other various ensembles during her big band period, see lenghty note at the bottom of this page.

The Claude Thornhill Orchestra (ldr), Claude Thornhill (con, p), Danny Polo, Jerry Therkeld (cl, as), Drew Moore, Mario Rollo (ts), Bill Bushey (bar), John Carisi, John Napton, Gene Roland (t), Leon Cox, Allan Langstaff (tb), Addison Collins, Arthur Sussman (frh), Barry Galbraith (g), Joe Shulman (b), William Exiner (d), Chris Connor, The Snowflakes (v)

Songs & Dating

Chris Connor is heard in this session as a member of The Snowflakes, Claude Thornhill's choral group. The group jointly sings the vocal on "I Don't Know Why," without any soloing from the members. In "There Is A Small Hotel," Connor is heard both as part of the group and, briefly, solo.

At present time, Chris Connor does not recall ever going to the recording studio with Thornhill. If her recollection is correct (if no studio dates in which she sang with Thornhill ever took place), a conciliatory explanation would be that this session's performances were taken from a radio broadcast, and transcribed by RCA Records for their commercial release. (A corollary to this explanation would be the identification of January 6, 1949 as the date on which master numbers were assigned by RCA, not the date in which the performances actually happened.)

(In an 2006 interview conducted over the phone, and published in Japanese, Chris Connor reportedly said that her first recording with Thornhill had been with his "exclusive choir" in January of 1949, and that the title of the recording was "Snowflakes." I presume that Connor offered this information not because she recollected the session per se, but rather because she had recently given a listening to one of the above-listed issues. Given the apparent misidentification of the song as "Snowflakes" (actually the group's name), something might have been lost in translation.

Collectors should take note that these are not the only extant Snowflakes versions of "I Don't Know Why" and "There's A Small Hotel." Years earlier, on July 24, 1942, a (Connor-less) edition of the choir had recorded both songs.

Still further, The Snowflakes recorded the two songs one more time, six months after this 1949 session. Those July 1949 versions were made not for RCA, but for Thesaurus, a radio transcription service. The respective versions from the two 1949 dates feature the same arrangement, and, in the case of "There's a Small Hotel," the same part for solo vocal. Nevertheless, the unidentified solo singer in the July session does not sound at all like Chris Connor (who might have left Thornhil's fold long earlier than July). Musically, various instrumental variations between the respective recordings are also audible.


Issues

1. The 1948 Transcription Performances (Hep CD 17, released in 1994)
2. The Song Is You (Hep LP 17, released in 1980)

These two Claude Thornhill Orchestra issues from the British label Hep contain performances of "There's A Small Hotel" and "I Don't Know Why," both sung by The Snowflakes. However, (and as suggested also by the title of the CD), the versions issued by Hep are the Thesaurus transcriptions, which bear no aural traces of Connor's involvement. In other words, neither Hep issue contains the January 6, 1949 versions on which Connor participated.

(Note of marginal interest: those Thesaurus transcriptions are dated July 1949 in Charles Garrod's discography of Claude Thornhill. Hep gives them a different, collective 1948 dating. Presumably, Hep made what strikes me as an unlikely assumption -- i. e. , that the transcriptions were recorded while the 1948 musicians' recording ban was in effect, or as soon as it was lifted, in mid-December of 1948. I am more inclined to believe that no such recording of transcriptions took place during the ban, and that Garrod was correct when he gave a 1949 dating to these transcriptions. In any case, this subject matter will be of relevance to this discography only if Connor's presence in the transcriptions can ever be ascertained. As of June 2006, there is no indication whatsoever that she participated in them.)


Personnel

All details about personnel are taken from Ajazz LP 274, including the identity of the arrangers.

Jerry Wald and His Orchestra (ldr), Jerry Wald (con, cl), Herb Geller, Sam Zittman (as), Buddy Arnold (ts), George Berg, Eddie Caine (bar), Al Derisi, Al Porcino, Dick Sherman, Al Stewart (t), Jack Hitchcock, Sonny Russo (tb), Billy Bauer (g), Eddie Safranski (b), Jack Kelly (p), Don Lamond (d), Chris Connor (v)

Songs & Performance

Chris Connor sings lyrics on "You're The Cream In My Coffee," "Pennies From Heaven," and "Raisins And Almonds." On both "Cherokee" and "Terremoto," she wordlessly vocalizes the melody (very briefly towards the end of "Cherokee," and also very briefly at the beginning of "Terremoto").


Location

Wald and his orchestra are known to have played at New York's Roseland from February 22, 1952 to some time around March 21, 1952. According to a Down Beat Magazine article (dated June 4, 1952), Wald was forming a new orchestra around this time. The article also states that "[h]is new record, under a new Decca deal, is due out momentarily. Wald's first wax pact with a big band, years ago, was with the same label."

The Claude Thornhill Orchestra (ldr), Dave Figg, Cliff Hoff (cl, ts), Med Flory, Gene Quill (cl, as), Dick Zabach (cl, bar), Rusty Dedrick, Sonny Rich, Nick Travis (t), Milt Gold, Obie Massingill (tb), Al Antonucci (frh), Bill Crow (b), Claude Thornhill (p), Winston Welch (d), Chris Connor (v)

Personnel

The personnel for this 10/52 session should be deemed tentative. It has been taken from a contemporaneous listing (October 23, 1952), a radio remote, listed in Garrod's discography of Claude Thornhill. Garrod does not list this session.


Masters And Issues

With the exception of the issues themselves, these performances are not mentioned anywhere in the sources at my reach. They might come from live dates; faint applause is heard at the end of them. If such is the case, presumably AFRS pressed them to v-disc, but I have yet to corroborate the existence of such v-discs.

All four titles were also performed by Thornhill and Connor on this very month (October, 1952) at The Statler Hotel, in New York. Remotes of those performances were heard over the radio. Unfortunately, no remotes are known to have been preserved. Still, it seems likely that both v-discs and remotes come from the same live performances. (For a list of the songs heard on those radio remotes, see long note at the end of this page, specifically the sub-section about Thornhill.)

There is a chronological problem, however, with the LP's and the CD's identification of these performances as coming from V-disc sources. V-discs were officially produced from 1943 through the end of the decade; the Armed Services officially shut down their victory-disc operation in 1949. Meanwhile, the performances in question are definitely from 1952. (Among other details that point to that year, there is the presence of "Wish You Were Here," the title song of the musical that made its debut in 1952. The song was popular in the year's music charts, with versions by a variety of artists peaking between July and September.)

Therefore, the alleged origination of this session's performances on v-discs is suspicious. A post-1949 reinstatement of the v-disc program would have to be assumed, yet none of the sources I consulted alludes to any such re-opening.

A likelier possibility is that these songs were heard on 1952 radio shows. If so, Thornhill and company might have performed the songs specifically for use by the Armed Forces radio. Or, alternatively, the Armed Forces could have taken them from radio remotes broadcast over commercial radio stations.


Acknowledgment

All my comments about Garrod's discography of Claude Thornhill have been possible thanks to data kindly sent to me by Dave Loveless and Jason Perry.

The Stan Kenton Orchestra (ldr), Lee Gillette (pdr), Vinnie Dean, Lee Konitz (as), Bill Holman, Richie Kamuca (ts), Bob Gioga (bar), Conte Candoli, Walter "Pete" Candoli, Marion "Buddy" Childers, Don Dennis, Maynard Ferguson, Ruben McFall (t), Bob Burgess, Keith Moon, Frank Rosolino, Bill Russo (tb), George Roberts (bt), Sal Salvador (g), Donald "Don" Bagley (b), Stan Kenton (p), Stan Levey (d), Harry DeAlmeida (tam), Chris Connor (v), The Stan Kenton Orchestra (bkv)

Dating

The masters numbered 11115 and 11116 were recorded between 8:45 p.m. and 11:45 p.m. Master number 11120 was recorded (along with master number 11119, an instrumental) between 12:45 a.m. and 5:15 p.m.


Songs

1. "And The Bull Walked Around, Olé"
The novelty "And The Bull Walked Around, Olé!" became a vocal hit for The Stan Kenton Orchestra. (Billboard's Joel Whitburn [gu]es[s]timates that the single peaked at number 30.)

The song's exact official title is in question. The Kenton score (at North Texas University, Denton, Texas) calls it simply "The Bull Walked Around." Most issues, including the original Capitol single, name it "And The Bull Walked Around, Olay!" The word "olay" is obviously a misspelling of the Spanish interjection "olé," employed by bullfighters in the arena. In this discography, I have decided to use the correct spelling, instead of copying the misspelling found elsewhere.


Musicians

1. Harry DeAlmeida
2. Background Vocals
De Almeida's tambourine only on "And The Bull Walked Around, Olé!" Ditto for the background vocals by the orchestra's musicians.


Arrangements

Connor inherited arrangements whose vocal parts had been originally conceived for the three vocalists that had preceded her in The Stan Kenton Orchestra: Jerri Winters ("Don't Worry 'Bout Me," "All About Ronnie"), Helen Carr ("Everything Happens To Me;" she also sang "Don't Worry 'Bout Me"), and Kay Brown ("Taking A Chance On Love," "Jeepers Creepers;" she too sang "Don't Worry 'Bout Me").

The Stan Kenton Orchestra (ldr), Vinnie Dean, Lee Konitz (as), Bill Holman, Richie Kamuca (ts), Hank Levy (bar), Conte Candoli, Marion "Buddy" Childers, Don Dennis, Ernie Royal, Don Smith (t), Bob Burgess, Keith Moon, Frank Rosolino, Tom Shepard (tb), George Roberts (bt), Sal Salvador (g), Glen Roberts (b), Stan Kenton (p), Stan Levey (d), Chris Connor (v)

At The Recording Session

In her interview for the music blog jazzwax.com , Chris Connor told the following to Marc Myers: "During an April recording date, our second studio session, Joe Greene, the songwriter, was there. He had written this song he wanted me to sing. I had never heard the song before. The band rehearsed me for about an hour. Then Stan told me the band was going to record it. I thought I was going to die. I didn't know how I was going to get through that song. But I did, and "All About Ronnie" turned out pretty good.

On the evening of this day, Connor and the rest of The Stan Kenton Orchestra are also listed as making a concert appearance; see page for Concert, Radio & Television Dates, March 27 to April 9, 1953.

Songs And Masters

1. "All About Ronnie"
For the master take of "All About Ronnie" that Capitol originally issued on 78 and 45, see session below, dated May 25, 1953.

2. "Nobody Knows The Trouble I've Seen"
According to Michael Sparke and Peter Venudor in their discography Stan Kenton: The Studio Sessions, this performance of "Nobody Knows The Trouble I've Seen" exists only in a Capitol reference acetate; a master tape has not been found. Sparke & Venudor supply the song's above-listed timing in their book.

3. "Baia"
In the label of Capitol 2511, "Baia" is credited as an instrumental, not as a vocal. The reason for the omission of a vocal credit is probably that Chris Connor is heard only scatting or humming the melody, and very briefly. The single's flip side ("All About Ronnie") credits not only Stan Kenton And His Orchestra but also "Chris Connors."

4. "I Get A Kick Out Of You"
According to some sources, including Capitol LP 20244 (The Fabulous Alumni Of Stan Kenton), an April 8, 1953 performance of "I Get A Kick Out Of You" is listed as rejected in Capitol's files. Nevertheless, after inspection of both the Capitol Recording Sheet for the session and Kenton's Capitol Artist Performance Record, no such performance has been found listed. (Master 11355, identified in some sources as the one containing the hypothetical version of "I Get A Kick Out Of You" is actually listed in Capitol's files as part of a June 25, 1953 session by Tommy Collins.)

The Stan Kenton Orchestra (ldr), Vinnie Dean, Lee Konitz (as), Bill Holman, Richie Kamuca (ts), Bob Gioga (bar), Conte Candoli, Walter "Pete" Candoli, Marion "Buddy" Childers, Don Dennis, Ernie Royal, Don Smith (t), Bob Burgess, Keith Moon, Frank Rosolino, Tom Shepard (tb), George Roberts (bt), Sal Salvador (g), Donald "Don" Bagley (b), Stan Kenton (p), Stan Levey (d), Harry DeAlmeida (tam), Chris Connor, The Stan Kenton Orchestra (v)

Songs

1. "All About Ronnie"
became a radio, non-charting hit, and remains the number most often associated with Chris Connor. For another studio version with The Stan Kenton Orchestra, see previous session, dated April 8, 1953. (An even earlier studio version had been attempted by Kenton with one of his former female vocalists, Jerri Winters. Recorded on March 20, 1952, that version -- Winters' last recording with Kenton -- was left unissued at the time.) See also page for Concert, Radio & Television Dates, under the year 1953 and under the date September 13, 1959. For later studio versions (without Kenton), see sessions dated August 9-11, 1954 and September 6, 1959, among others.

Asked in 1995 what were her favorite songs, Connor singled out All About Ronnie and Lush Life. "To tell you the truth," she said, "I still enjoy All About Ronnie after forty years because it has great changes and great lyrics."

Overview

The lengthy notes found below are divided in three main parts:

I. Chris Connor With The Claude Thornhill Orchestra (First, Second, Third Period)
II. Chris Connor With The Jerry Wald Orchestra
III. Chris Connor With The Stan Kenton Orchestra

Chris Connor made her first appearances on record as part of The Claude Thornhill Orchestra. According to her own estimation, she spent about 6 months singing with the band's choral group, The Snowflakes, in 1949. Between 1950 and 1952, Connor again sang with The Claude Thornhill Orchestra, this time as the ensemble's solo vocalist.

Connor worked with three other big bands. After her first stint with Thornhill, there were three months as Herb Fields' canary. Those months do not seem to have produced any recording activity. Her equally short stint as Jerry Wald's vocalist did produce one recording date. (See session dated March 31, 1952, as well as comments in sub-section below.)

In February of 1953, Connor joined The Stan Kenton Orchestra, a decision that gave her greater visibility across the nation. After six months with Kenton, she left the band, and from then onwards worked as a solo act.



I. Chris Connor With Claude Thornhill's Orchestra

A. First Thornhill Period: The Snowflakes

The earliest editions of Thornhill's choral group did not involve Chris Connor. They were pre-war II ensembles, initially known just as The Quintet, then later as The Pair of Pairs. The group was renamed The Snowflakes some time around late 1941, when Thornhill had a hit with "Snowfall," the song that would soon become the orchestra's self-identifying theme.

Under the name The Snowflakes, the choral goup participated in Thornhill's studio session of July 24, 1942 -- i. e. , shortly before the impending Petrillo ban on musicians' work for record labels. I have found no evidence of additional recording activity by The Snowflakes until 1949.

The group seems to have been revived or re-assembled some time in (late) 1948 or (extremely early) 1949, possibly under the tutelage of arranger, guitarist, pianist and vocalist Joe Derise, who had just joined Thornhill's band. During 1948, Thornhill is not known to have made any studio recordings -- a result of an American Federation of Musicians' ban, which lasted almost the entire year, until mid-December.)

In 1949, The Snowflakes consisted of at least four, perhaps five singers. The identity of the fifth member, if there was one, remains unclear. Charles Garrod's discography of Claude Thornhill names four members, present during Thornhill's January 6, 1949 session: Nancy Clayton, Joe Derise, Jim Preston, and Hugh Baker. Chris Connor is not listed. For her part, Connor remembers singing with Joe Derise (also known as Derisi), Jimmy Preston, and a female member (presumably Nancy Clayton). This confusion over the total number of members may derive from Derise's dual role, as both a Snowflakes vocalist and a Thornhill orchestra instrumentalist. Also likely to contribute to confusion: the additional presence of two solo vocalists, one male and the other female, neither one a member of The Snowflakes.

In his book V-Discs: A History And Discography, Richard S. Sears does list five members for the January 6, 1949 session in which Connor definitely participated. Better yet, Sears includes Connor, although otherwise the member's names are different from those given by Garrod. Besides Connor, Sears lists, A. Brown, J. Eich, M.L. Eyre, and J. Orr.

For the year of 1949, the group participated in at least five RCA studio sessions, including the aforementioned one, as well as transcription sessions for the Thesaurus radio service.

The last known Snowflakes recordings are from 1950, which was also the year in which Derise left Thornhill's orchestra.

Unfortunately, Connor's presence or absence in most of the group's 1949 and 1950 records cannot be confidently ascertained. For starters, most of these vocals are credited to The Snowflakes as a group, with no mention of members' names. When names are mentioned, they are usually those of the boy or girl singer for whom The Snowflakes sing background vocals. (That is to say, the boy or girl singer in Thornhill's band.)

In trying to identify Connor's presence, careful listening of vocals credited to the choral group has proven of little use as well. Because the singing is done mostly in unison, individual voices are hard to distinguish or identify.

Moreover, the exact time span spent by Connor as a member of The Snowflakes remains unclear. In the 1950's, the singer casually told the press that she had spent about six months as one of The Snowflakes. An echo of that statement can also be read in the liner notes for the CD Warm Cool: The Atlantic Years (1999), a project co-produced by Connor herself.

At present time, when more than 50 years have elapsed, specifics such as the exact amount of time spent with the group are understandably hard to ascertain for Connor -- as would be for everybody else.

Still further, Connor does not recall having ever gone to the studio with The Snowflakes, and has therefore expressed doubt that even the January 6, 1949 session actually happened. (For a possibility that could explain the existence of those "recordings" even if no studio session took place, see notes under session dated January 6, 1949.)

For all of the above-mentioned reasons, only one session by The Snowflakes was included in this discography. On that January 5, 1949 session, Connor's presence is clearly audible -- not so in any others.

As for the other Snowflakes sessions in which Connor could have participated, those are listed herein. I have restricted the list to the first half of 1949, roughly the time span which Connor remembers as her staying period with the group. (Note: During the year 1949, Thonrhill first held recording sessions on January 4 and January 5, but The Snowflakes were not involved in those.)

January 6, 1949
--I Don't Know Why
--There's A Small Hotel
(These were the second and third masters recorded during this session. As for the first master, D9VB0033, it was also a vocal, titled "If I Forget You." However, it is sung by boy singer Art Brown, with no participation from The Snowflakes. "If I Forget You" had also been recorded two days earlier, with vocal credited to Buddy Hughes only, in a version that remains unissued. In passing, it should also be noted that various discographies wrongly credit The Snowflakes with a vocal recorded during the January 5 session. Instead of a vocal, the title in question is actually an instrumental, titled "Lullaby Of The Rain.")

January 9, 1949; RCA session
--Wind In My Sails (accompanying vocalist Buddy Hughes)

April 27, 1949; RCA session
--Moonlight And Roses

June 9, 1949; RCA session
--On The 5:45 (accompanying vocalists Nancy Clayton and Russ McIntyre)

July, 1949; Thesaurus sessions
-- Moonlight Bay (accompanyingJoe Derise)
-- Side By Side (accompanying Joe Derise)
-- Iowa Indian Fight Song (accompanying Joe Derise)
-- Johnson Rag (accompanying Joe Derise)
-- Moonlight and Roses
-- There's A Small Hotel
-- I Don't Know Why
-- Look For The Silver Lining
-- On The 5:45

As previosuly mentioned, any involvement of Connor in these vocals Connor is difficult to ascertain or corroborate. After repeated listening, I'm inclined to believe that she is not part of the vocals that were recorded on June and July. I remain less certain about the two earlier, January and April vocals. If and when proof is foud that Connor participated in any of the above-mentioned 1949 masters, I will create sessions for them.

During the second half of 1949 (when Connor might have not been with the group any longer), The Snowflakes recorded vocals in October and November.



B. Second Thornhill Period: Singer On The Road

Various sources indicate that Chris Connor sang with Thornhill's band over two time periods: the first as a member of The Snowflakes (1949) and the second as Thornhill's featured female vocalist. No recording activity is known to have taken place during her second period, tellingly described by the singer herself as "one-and-a-half years of one-niters."

This period appears to have begun some time in 1950, and to have ended around December 31, 1951, when the orchestra "disbanded in order to rest and vacation," with no knowledge of "when it will be reformed" (Down Beat Magazine, February 8, 1952). Connor herself circumscribed this second period to 1950-1951. (She did so in a 1954 interview, which is further discussed below.)



C. Third Thornhill Period: Singer At The Statler Hotel

The above-found October 1952 Thornhill session serves notice that, although not mentioned in most sources, Connor sang with Thornhill's band for yet a third time.

As previously mentioned, a February, 1952 Down Beat Magazine article reports that Thornhill's orchestra had disbanded, effective January 1st. In 1954, Connor herself told the press that, around 1951, the orchestra disbanded for nine months. If her recollection is accurate, then the band must have been revived in September or October, 1952.

According to Down Beat Magazine, Thornhill's orchestra was indeed active by that time, and Chris Connor was acting at the band's solo singer. The magazine's November 19, 1952 issue states that Thornhill had been playing in New York, at The Statler's Hotel's Cafe Rouge, starting on October 20. Still further, a later article (December 12, 1952) begins by stating that Thornhill had been "in town for the last couple of weeks at the Cafe Rouge of the Hotel Statler." (Incidentally, the article closes with a description of Chris Connor as a "first-rate singer" and "quite a handsome wench, but more important, is evolving on the bandstand an excellent Anita O'Day-ish style which is enhanced with some range.")

In Garrod's discography of The Claude Thornhill Orchestra, Connor is also listed as part of the personnel that participated in a studio session on December, 1952. Unfortunately, Garrod does not identify the session's songs, and I have not come across any other source that does. (For those reasons, that mysterious 12/52 session is not included in this discography.)

Garrod's discography also lists various remotes, dated 10/52, and broadcast from The Statler Hotel, in which Chris Connor is mentioned as vocalist:

October 21,1952
Temptation
Come Rain Or Come Shine (vocal: Chris Connor)
Too Marvelous For Words (vocal: Chris Connor)
Polka Dots And Moonbeams
Sorta Kinda
Wish You Were Here
Snowfall

October 23, 1952
Oh Lady Be Good
Come Rain Or Come Shine (vocal: Chris Connor)
Too Marvelous For Words (vocal: Chris Connor)
Who Are We To Say?
Anchors Aweigh
Poor Little Rich Girl
Polka Dots And Moonbeams

October 24, 1952
Anthropology aGE
Come Rain Or Come Shine (vocal: Chris Connor)
Too Marvelous For Words (vocal: Chris Connor)
September Song

October 31, 1952
Temptation
Who Are We To Say?
Too Marvelous For Words
Sophisticated Lady

(To my knowledge, not one of these radio broadcasts has ever been commercially released. Nor have I found, so far, any indication that they are currently extant.)

In short, the collected data indicates that Connor came back to work for Thornhill for a third time. With Thornhill, she spent at least three months (from October to December, and possibly January) before becoming Stan Kenton's vocalist in early 1953.


II. Chris Connor With The Jerry Wald Orchestra

In yet another article and interview published by Down Beat Magazine, the unidentified reporter states that Connor had spent six months with The Claude Thornhill Orchestra, followed by three months with Herbie Fields, plus a spell singing solo in New Jersey and New York. (The article dates from September 8, 1954.) Then, Connor herself adds, "back with Thornhill for one and a half years of one-niters [...] Claude disbanded nine months himself, and I got an offer from Jerry Wald."

At least one recording session resulted from this period of work with Wald (see March 31, 1952).

Though seemingly a brief period, the exact amount of time that Connor spent as Wald's canary is unknown. It was apparently less than six months, because the vocalist seems to have been back with The Claude Thornhill Orchestra by October of 1952 (and was officially recording with The Stan Kenton Orchestra on February of 1953).

It is safe to assume that the time span was longer than a month. In the aforementioned 1954 interview, Connor herself says that a month elapsed from the moment she joined Wald's orchestra to the occasion during which June Christy first heard her over the radio, singing live with Wald, on a radio remote from The Roosevelt Hotel in New Orleans. Connor adds that she "got to sing with Kenton six months later," thereby suggesting that she spent all or, more likely, some portion of those six months with Wald.

(Details given above, in part I of this note, show that Connor actually went from Wald not to Kenton, but to Thornhill, and thereafter to Kenton. Presumably, Christy's recommendation of Connor to Kenton did not result in an immediate hiring, for reasons that can only be speculated. -- e.g., Kenton probably had another canary under hire when Christy suggested Connor for his consideration, and Connor may have had to first fulfill compromises with Wald and/or Thornhill.)

Incidentally, the singer was billed as "Chris Connors" on at least one Jerry Wald issue (Decca 9-28203, a forty-five single). She would be billed in the same manner at the start of her period with Stan Kenton (see, in the Concert, Radio & Television Dates page, session dated February 19, 1953), and in Kenton's original Capitol issues.


III. Chris Connor With The Stan Kenton Orchestra

A. Hiring: Why, How, Where And When

According to Chris Connor's own comments to the press, June Christy was the person who recommended Connor to Stan Kenton. Christy had been working as Kenton's canary on and off since the mid-40's, but by 1952 she had chosen to concentrate on solo work, with later, occasional appearances as Kenton's guest vocalist.

Since June Christy's vocals had resulted in a string of commercial hits for Kenton's band, Christy and Kenton probably felt that a similar-sounding singer would be an ideal replacement. When she heard Chris Connor on the radio -- singing with The Jerry Wald Orchestra -- Christy thought that Connor sounded like her, and would thus be a worthy candidate for an audition with Kenton. She then proceeded to mention Connor's name to the bandleader. Such is the version of events told by all three principals in the story, including Kenton: "June told us about a girl by the name of Chris Connors and I figured if anyone knew what we wanted it would be June. I got hold of a record Chris had made and agreed this was it - and it was."

However, Chris Connor was not June Christy's immediate successor. After Christy had formally stopped recording with the band in late 1951, three female vocalists would work with Kenton: Jerri Winters (from March to mid-June 1952), Helen Carr (apparently for a very short period in June, 1952) and Kay Brown (from August 1952 to January 5, 1953). Brown's departure is acknowledged in the following notice, from a February 11, 1953 article published by Downbeat magazine: "Kay Brown, former movie starlet and the wife of Kenton trumpeter Maynard Ferguson, left the band shortly before Kenton opened at the Palladium here. Kay said she felt she was 'not advancing her career by singing with the band'." Brown's departure seems to have been given on very short notice, and must have posed a problem. (She had been mentioned in all advance publicity for Kenton's January concerts at the Palladium.)

June Christy returned for at least one Palladium concert. Nevertheless, Christy could not remain with Kenton because, as the aforementioned Downbeat article states, "she was booked for a tour of Korea with the Larry Finley unit leaving here in mid January." Christy had thus returned strictly as a guest vocalist at the Palladium, and her appearance(s) happened weeks before Connor joined the band.


B. Period Spent With The Stan Kenton Orchestra: February-June, 1953

Chris Connor probably joined the Orchestra in early February, 1953. She was hired over other candidates who had auditioned for the position (including Sylvia Syms, another then-emerging singer who would also go on to have a solo recording career). Connor remembers that she was in Ohio, working with Claude Thornhill's band, when Stan Kenton's manager (George Morte) called her, to ask if (and when) she wanted to join Kenton. Connor's awed reply: "Yeah, yesterday I can." She went back to Los Angeles and, a week after Morte's phone call, joined Kenton.

Various sources (e. g. , the essay in the booklet of Mosaic CD Box Set MD4-136) state that Chris Connor officially joined The Stan Kenton Orchestra on January 16, 1953. The basis for this statement may be a Kenton aircheck dated January 16, and featuring vocals credited to Connor in some sources. The credit is an error; the singer heard is June Christy instead, and this is her guest appearance at the Palladium.

As for the accuracy of early February as Connor's joining period, three arguments support this dating:

1- The singer herself has said that her first time singing with the band was on Kenton's February 11 session. She particularly remembers how awe-struck she felt, while watching the band play "A Trumpet" (an instrumental which was this session's earliest master, recorded between 4:45 p.m. and 7:45 p.m.).

2- A local musician remembers seeing the singer in the San Francisco Bay Area shortly after the band's last concert at the Hollywood Palladium, which had taken place on February 1, 1953.

3- In his introduction of the singer during a concert at Cornell University (April 15, 1953), Kenton indicates that by then Connor had been with the band for 8 or 9 weeks.

Press accounts state that Chris Connor spent ten months with the Kenton band. Those accounts seem to over-extend her time with the orchestra. The sessions included herein suggest that she only spent five months with the band, from February to June of the year 1953. Even so, Connor's months with The Stan Kenton Orchestra constitute her best-known and most significant period as a big band vocalist.

The singer's last concert date as an official Kenton member is generally believed to have taken place on June 30, 1953, in Ontario, Canada. The reason for the singer's departure seems to have been exhaustion, stemming from the grueling life on the road that was par for the course among successful big bands. Shortly thereafter, during Kenton's European Tour (leaving the United States on August 20 and returning on September 25), June Christy was back with the Stan Kenton Orchestra once more, though only temporarily, as guest vocalist for the tour. Until the arrival in 1955 of Kenton's new wife, singer Ann Richards, The Stan Kenton Orchestra would not record again with a regular female vocalist.

In an article published by The Atlanta Constitution on February 29, 1980, Connor talked about Kenton, who had died on August 25, 1979: "The last time I saw Stan, he was talking about recording an album on his label with me, Anita and June as a trio and now, I'm really sorry that we never got to do it."


Acknowledgment

Special thanks to Dave Loveless for significantly contributing and guiding me through the search for information about The Snowflakes.

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