Roseanna Vitro

Singer

Atender touch of Texarkana embellishes every jazz vocal from the lips of Arkansas native Roseanna Vitro. A popular bop and swing stylist, she is known for her renditions of sultry ballads as well as for her scat singing. Renowned for her versatility, she easily commands audience attention when belting out a rousing roof-raiser of a song. Mentored as an aspiring singer by Arnett Cobb, Vitro toured with Lionel Hampton in the 1980s, and in 1986 she was invited by radio and television personality Steve Allen to record a collection of his songs. Her 1997 tribute album to Ray Charles earned critical acclaim, as did her Bill Evans collection in 2001. She is a member of the Arkansas Jazz Hall of Fame and a jazz ambassador for the Kennedy Center.

The Gospel Years

Born Roseanna Elizabeth Vitro on February 28, 1951 (1954 by some sources), in Hot Springs, Arkansas, she was raised in rural poverty, one of three daughters born to John and Ruby (Hooker) Vitro. Her father, a nightclub proprietor and gambler by profession, possessed a unique persona that reflected the colorful mix of Italian and American culture to which he was born. His musical taste veered to opera, and he was known to entertain his family by playing and singing opera classics. Vitro's mother, in contrast, worked in restaurants and hotels and was a member of the gospel-singing Hooker clan. Vitro, who learned the innuendoes of rhythm & blues from her maternal relatives, was singing gospel songs at age four.

When Vitro was in the second grade, her parents' marriage began to crumble. After spending one year with her paternal grandmother in Mamaroneck, New York, she returned to Hot Springs, where her parents divorced when she was in the third grade. After the divorce, the Vitro women moved to Texarkana, Arkansas, where they lived among the Hooker family. Finding solace in music, Vitro learned blues and hoedown tunes like "Jambalaya" from her family, and these became entrenched in her repertoire at an early age. By the time she entered her teens she was singing live on the radio in Nashville, Arkansas.

As a student at Arkansas High School, Vitro was a member of multiple all-state chorales. Also during her teens, her musical horizons expanded to include show music, madrigal, and rock and roll. After high school graduation in 1969, Vitro made the bus trip to Houston, Texas, in search of a career as a pop singer. Initially she supported herself by working as a geophysical draftsperson at Ray Geophysical and Teledyne, but in time she made contact with Ray Sullenger, a vocal instructor and musician with the Paul Whiteman Orchestra. Bassist Tom Clarkson, a mutual friend and colleague, introduced the two in 1973, and it was Sullenger who sparked Vitro's interest in jazz. With Sullenger nurturing her talent, she spent the duration of the 1970s performing live on the University of Houston's KUHF-FM jazz radio station. She also led her own ensemble, Roseanna with Strings and Things, which performed regularly at the Green Room in downtown Houston until the closure of that club in 1978.

New York City Jazz Singer

In the late 1970s Vitro was invited by tenor sax legend Arnett Cobb to appear at New York City's Village Vanguard. In 1980 she moved permanently to New York City, and her career began to flourish. As a musical novice under Cobb's mentoring eye, she shared the stage with established performers including Oscar Peterson, Bill Evans, Buddy Rich, Mulgrew Miller, and Randy Brecker. Among her early professional endeavors, she performed with Lionel Hampton, joining him on tour. She studied piano with Sid Bernstein and worked with Fred Hersch and Kenny Werner. She enrolled in classical voice studies with Gabore Carelli at the Manhattan School of Music, and also spent six years with Anne Marie Moss in perfecting her jazz technique.

Vitro's debut recording, Listen Here, was issued on the small Texas Rose label in January of 1985. Among the notables backing Vitro on this disc were pianist Kenny Baron, drummer Ben Riley and bassist Buster Williams. Cobb contributed tenor saxophone and Scott Hardy was heard on guitar. Vitro's next album, The Time of My Life: The Songs of Steve Allen, was recorded in July of 1986. Conceived by Allen, who taped the album independently, the recording was later picked up and released on the Sea Breeze label in 1999. Vitro then recorded and released A Quiet Place with Hersch and Eddie Daniels in October of 1987.

Kenny Werner, Joe Lovano, George Coleman, and more than a dozen others joined Vitro on Reaching for the Moon, released by Chase Music in 1991. Concord Jazz issued Softly, also featuring Hersch and Coleman, in January of 1994. After signing with the major label Telarc in the mid-1990s, Vitro released her acclaimed Passion Dance in January of 1996. A Ray Charles tribute, Catchin' Some Rays, followed in 1997, featuring saxophonist David "Fathead" Newman, along with Vitro's long-standing percussionist Mino Cinelu and pianist Ken Werner.

Challenge Records released Vitro's Bill Evans tribute, Conviction: Thoughts of Bill Evans, on its A-Records label in January of 2001. The album featured Eddie Gomez on bass along with Scott Lee and Bob Bowen. Drummer Adrian D'Souza backed up the ensemble, accompanied by pianists Mark Soskin, Allen Farnham, and Hersch. Tropical Postcards, featuring salsa and Brazilian beats, was completed in 2004.

For the Record …

Born Roseanna Elizabeth Vitro on February 28, 1954, in Hot Springs, AR; daughter of John and Ruby (Hooker) Vitro; married Mike Failor, early 1970s (divorced); married Paul Wickliffe III, 1983; children: Sarah Wickliffe. Education: Texarkana Junior College, early 1970s; studied piano with Sid Bernstein (University of Houston); jazz singing with Donna Jewel, 1979; opera singing with Gabore Carelli, 1979-80; theory and concept studies with Kenny Werner and Fred Hersch, 1981-82; jazz singing with Ann Marie Moss, 1980-86; and also with Dhanashree Pandit Rae, Purvi Parikh, and Uday Bhawalker (Jazz India Vocal Institute, Bombay), 1998.

Heard live on Nashville (Arkansas) radio at age 12, and on Houston Radio (KUHF-FM) and at the Green Room, Houston, TX, 1976-78; mentored by Arnett Cobb, New York City; debut album, Listen Here, 1985; signed with Telarc, mid-1990s; extensive touring and personal appearances including New York City, Washington, D.C., Chicago, and Los Angeles; numerous festival appearances throughout U.S.; made radio and television appearances; performed internationally, 1998–; director of vocal jazz studies, New Jersey City University, 1995–; resident faculty member at State University of New York, Purchase College for the Fine and Performing Arts, 1999-2002; served on faculty at Montclair State University and at New Jersey Performing Arts Center; taught symposiums and clinics at conventions and conferences, 1995-2000; "From Bebop to Bombay" clinic published in IAJE Magazine, 2000.

Awards: Inducted into Arkansas Jazz Hall of Fame, 1998.

Addresses: Management—Skyline Productions, Inc., P.O. Box 436, Martinsville, NJ 08836, phone: (732) 271-5979. Website—Roseanna Vitro Official Website: http://www.roseannavitro.com/.

World Traveler and Teacher

Vitro continued her vocal studies, next working with Barbara Maier. In 1998, at the invitation of Niranjan Jhaveri, she studied at his Jazz India Vocal Institute in Bombay, India, working with Dhanashree Pandit Rae, Purvi Parikh, and Uday Bhawalker. Her Bombay curriculum included instruction in the classical Indian technique of voice sliding, which teaches the ability to imitate the sound of a stringed instrument.

A respected professor and symposium director in her own right since the mid-1990s, Vitro is the director of vocal jazz studies at New Jersey City University, a program that she founded in 1995. There she developed a four-year curriculum spanning the history of jazz vocalists, from Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith to the contemporary stylists of the late twentieth century. Her curriculum ensures students' exposure to chord theory and lyric interpretation, to major composers, and to benchmark rhythms. The courses have included a semester of music history, and a semester of practical studies that focuses on individual performance, musical idioms, and diverse styles.

Vitro served as a resident faculty member at the State University of New York, Purchase College for the Fine and Performing Arts from 1999-2002, has served on the faculty of the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, and maintains an academic affiliation with Montclair State University in New Jersey. She presented a popular clinic, "Vocalists are From Venus, Instrumentalists from Mars," to the International Association of Jazz Educators (IAJE) at its 1995 convention, and later reprised the presentation for the Jazz Times Convention. At the IAJE Conference in Atlanta in 1996 she taught "Skill in Communication," and another of her clinics, "From Bebop to Bombay," appeared in IAJE magazine in 2000. She presented "In Tune and On Time" at the East Coast Jazz Festival, and has presented clinics at major institutions throughout the United States.

Vitro's live performances have attracted audiences worldwide. She was a significant presence in Capetown, South Africa, at the Davidoff 2000 International Jazz Festival, and in 2001 she appeared with the Maribor Philharmonic Orchestra in Maribor and in Ljublianna, Slovenia, in the former Yugoslavia. The Slovenian concerts—the highlight of her 2001 Christmas celebration—were taped live and presented as a holiday special on Slovenian State Television. Earlier that year she appeared at the Angra Jazz Festival in the Azores, and at Washington, D.C.'s Blues Alley. She returned to India in 2002, where she appeared at the Jazz Yatra Festival in Bombay.

In the United States, Vitro is well known at a variety of East Coast venues, including the Blue Note and Birdland in New York City, and she once made an appearance at that city's Town Hall with Steve Allen. She has appeared at the Green Mill in Chicago; the Jazz Bakery and the Catalina Bar in Los Angeles, and has performed with the U.S. Air Force Airmen of Note Big Band in Washington, D.C. She was on the bill for the Kennedy Center's Women in Jazz program, for Charles Earland's Jazz Cruise, and for Frank Foster's seventieth birthday concert on National Public Radio (NPR). She was heard on NPR's "Piano Jazz" and has appeared on BET on Jazz. Festival appearances include events at the Dallas Museum of Art Festival, Caravan of Dreams, Santa Barbara Jazz Festival, Newark Jazz, Telluride, Clearwater, and Houston.

Vitro's south Florida appearance in the summer of 2003 was rated "must see" by the Palm Beach Post, and in October of that year she traveled to Beirut, Lebanon, as a jazz ambassador sent by the American Embassy. She sang at the Montclair Trumpets Jazz Club in 2004 and appeared at the Citrus Jazz Festival in Fort Pierce, Florida.

Vitro, who was married briefly to Mike Failor in the early 1970s, still finds time for family life. She married Paul Wickliffe, her long-time producer, in 1983. A member of the Arkansas Jazz Heritage Foundation, Vitro was enshrined in the Arkansas Jazz Hall of Fame in June of 1998. In 2004 she was named as one of seven jazz ambassadors by the Kennedy Center to tour assorted Balkans venues, including Kosovo, Bosnia, Turkey, Albania, Bulgaria, and Macedonia.

According to Vitro's manager, Lisa Goldman, the artist is a "passionate and spirited" talent. "She can make you cry.… besides kicking some serious Texas tail when hollering the blues!"

Selected discography

Listen Here, Texas Rose, 1985.

The Time of My Life: The Songs of Steve Allen, recorded independently by Steve Allen, 1986; released by Sea Breeze, 1999.

A Quiet Place, Skyline, 1987.

Reaching for the Moon, Chase Music, 1991.

Softly, Concord Jazz, 1994.

Passion Dance, Telarc, 1996.

Catchin' Some Rays: The Music of Ray Charles, Telarc, 1997.

Conviction: Thoughts of Bill Evans, A-Records, 2001.

Tropical Postcards, A-Records, 2004.

Sources

Books

Slonimsky, Nicolas, editor, Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians, Schirmer, 2001.

Periodicals

Hartford Courant, May 8, 1996; May 10, 1996.

Palm Beach Post, September 14, 2003.

St. Petersburg Times, October 14, 1992.

Rocky Mountain News, June 15, 2001, p. 17D.

Online

"Arkansas Jazz Hall of Fame 1996: Roseanna Vitro," Arkansas Jazz Heritage Foundation, http://www.arjazz.org/artists/hof/1996/96_roseanna_vitro.html (March 18, 2004).

Additional information was obtained through an interview with Lisa Goldman on March 24, 2004.

—G. Cooksey

Steve Allen

A true Renaissance man, Steve Allen (1921-2000) accomplished more in one lifetime than most men could in ten. Author of more than 50 books, composer of thousands of songs, and a comic genius, Allen will undoubtedly be remembered best as a pioneer of the late-night television talk show.

Allen's stint as the first host of the Tonight Show, a late-night TV institution, paved the way for his well-known successors, including Jack Paar, Johnny Carson, and Jay Leno. But Allen was far more than just a witty, wise cracking television personality. For decades he captivated radio and television audiences with his unique blend of humor—sometimes sophisticated and subtle and other times bordering on the slapstick. However, this somewhat superficial comic facade masked a complex man of many parts. He was an accomplished pianist who loved jazz, a composer of note, an activist who championed many causes, an actor, and a thoughtful author. Steven Allen was a true fount of creativity, driven by a force that he admitted as bigger than he. "I don't seem to have much control over it," he told People Magazine not long before his death. "There's always a certain excitement that accompanies the creative impulse, and that energy always gets me going."

Born into Vaudeville

Born Stephen Valentine Patrick William Allen in New York City on December 21, 1921, he was the son of vaudeville comedians Billy Allen and Belle Montrose. When Allen was only 18 months old, his father died suddenly. Because she needed to continue performing to earn a living, his mother left young Allen in the care of her family—the Donohues—in Chicago while she traveled the vaudeville circuit. His boyhood was unsettled at best, and he attended 18 different schools before finally graduating from high school. Of Belle, Allen later observed that "she had an innate wit" but "was really not ideally cast for the role of mother."

Despite the turbulence of his childhood, Allen credits his years with the Donohues with ingraining in him a sense of comedy and comic timing that, in the years to come, would serve him well. The Donohues created for Allen a world of laughter, bantering and bickering constantly but never without at least a touch of humor. In 1989 he told the Boston Globe: "The reason I don't have ego problems is that I'm clear about one thing. My gifts are in the same category as the color of my eyes: genetic. It's just a roll of the dice."

After finishing high school in Chicago, Allen headed to Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, and later transferred to Arizona State Teachers College (now Arizona State University) in Tempe. Even the change in location failed to jump-start Allen's interest in formal higher education, and he dropped out of college in 1942. Alone in Arizona after leaving school, he managed to land a job as a disk jockey at Phoenix radio station KOY, where he produced his own show. Outside of work, he developed a comedy act that he showcased in local clubs. In 1943, Allen wed Dorothy Goodman, his college sweetheart, with whom he had three sons, Steve Jr., Brian, and David. The couple was divorced in 1952.

Before long, with World War II raging in Europe and the Pacific, Allen was drafted into the Army, but he was released from his military service obligation after only a few months because of his frequent asthma attacks. In his 1960 autobiography, Mark It and Strike It, Allen described himself in the early 1940s as "a pampered, sickly bean-pole, too weak for athletics and too asthmatic for the Army."

A Job in Hollywood

After his release from the Army, Allen headed west to Hollywood, where he landed a job with radio station KNX in 1948. It was at KNX that Allen developed his now-familiar routine of blending relaxed banter, tickling the ivories, discussing his mail, and spur-of-the-moment improvisations—a blend that clearly appealed to his radio audience. So popular was Allen's radio show that two years later he decided to take it to television. On Christmas Day 1950, the Steve Allen Show made its television debut. Before long, Allen was invited to join the panel of the popular television quiz show, What's My Line?

In 1953, Allen's big break came when he was asked to host a late-night talk show on NBC television. It was an untried format at a time of night—11:30 p.m. to 1 a.m.— that usually attracted few viewers, and most knowledgeable observers held out little hope for its success. But they hadn't reckoned on the magic that Allen could conjure up on very short notice. And conjure it, he did. Building on a base made up of the same blend of music, banter, and zany sketches that had so charmed his radio audiences, Allen added the allure of high-profile guest stars. The combination proved irresistible to television viewers who suddenly started pushing back their bedtimes so they wouldn't miss the Tonight Show. Not only did Allen fashion a roaring success out of a format most thought held little promise, but he laid the groundwork for some of the skits his successors would be performing on the Tonight Show years later. Johnny Carson's Carnac owes much to Allen's Question Man, first showcased on the late-night show in the mid-1950s. In 1954, Allen married Jayne Meadows, a film and television actress he had met at a dinner party. Meadows, born of missionary parents in Wu Chang, China, was the sister of Audrey Meadows, who was best known for her portrayal of Jackie Gleason's wife in the "Honeymooners" sketches. Two years later, Allen played the title role in The Benny Goodman Story, a feature motion picture.

Head to Head with Sullivan

Encouraged by the success of the Tonight Show, a success built largely on the charisma and creativity of Allen, NBC, in 1956, asked the comedian to put together a variety/ comedy show the network could air opposite the wildly popular Ed Sullivan Show on CBS Sunday nights. For a while, Allen juggled the responsibilities for both shows. By 1957, however, he left the Tonight Show to focus solely on his Sunday night Steve Allen Show. Allen's show proved to be stiff competition for Ed Sullivan, running neck and neck in the ratings for the four years it was on the air. In 1960, after winning the Peabody Award for the best comedy show, Allen decided to leave the show after seven years with NBC.

However, Allen was hardly through with television. He took his many talents to ABC, which hosted Allen's weekly comedy hour during the 1961-62 season. This was followed by a show patterned closely after his very successful Tonight Show format. That show, sponsored by Westinghouse, ran for three years, after which Allen jumped to CBS to host for three seasons that network's popular game show I've Got a Secret. Allen and his wife hosted a weekly comedy show for CBS during the summer of 1967. He followed up the summer show with a daily TV series that was syndicated by Filmways and Golden West Broadcasters and ran from 1968 through 1972.

Throughout his years in television, Allen introduced to American audiences some of the most gifted comedians in the land. Among his finds were Jonathan Winters, Don Knotts, Bill Dana, Louis Nye, Tom Poston, Foster Brooks, Gabe Dell, and Tim Conway. Many of these comics worked on Allen's next major television project, a weekly 90-minute program entitled Laughback, which featured a mixture of live comic routines and filmed highlights from past Allen shows.

In a 1989 interview with a reporter for the Boston Globe, Allen offered his views on humor: "Jokes are always about sexual frustrations, about being too fat or too skinny. We laugh at our tragedies in order to prevent our suffering … If we think about the tragedies on our planet, we could spend all day in bed crying. So we laugh to survive, to continue our lives."

Developed Comedy Specials

Allen earned a reputation as a man who could successfully juggle a vast number of projects. In addition to his long-running TV projects, he developed a number of successful comedy specials. Among these was ABC's annual spoof of the beauty pageant phenomenon. Entitled the Unofficial Miss Las Vegas Showgirl Beauty Queen Pageant, the show's premiere outing in 1974 was hailed by Johnny Carson as "the funniest show of the year."

A prolific author and songwriter, Allen turned out more than 50 books and literally thousands of songs, earning a place in the Guinness Book of World Records as the modern era's most productive composer of songs. Perhaps his best-known song is "This Could Be the Start of Something Big," which became his theme. His books ran the gamut from humor to social protest. Shortly before his death, he was putting the finishing touches on Vulgarians at the Gate, a protest against what Allen saw as excessive sex and violence on television. One of Allen's earlier books, Beloved Son, drew its theme from a painful family experience. In the mid-1970s, his son Brian joined a commune, operated by what many believed was a cult, and changed his name to Logic Israel. His son's sudden distancing of himself from his father and the rest of his family "hurt and stunned" Allen at first, but in time he came to better understand and appreciate Brian's beliefs. It was this gradual process of acceptance that he recounted in Beloved Son.

Throughout his career, Allen was outspoken on a number of sensitive issues close to his heart. A lifelong Democrat, he once considered running for Congress. In the 1960s he campaigned hard for migrant workers' rights. He held strong opinions about a variety of topics, including capital punishment, nuclear policy, and freedom of expression. Although he remained committed to the importance of freedom of speech, he was deeply offended by the growing sexual content on television, particularly from the tabloid TV shows in the late 1990s. He lashed out at those responsible for such programming, contending that they were "taking television to the garbage dump."

Remained Humble

Despite his success, Allen remained a humble man, marveling at being able to achieve all that he had. On that subject, Allen said in an interview with Associated Press: "The world has already let me do about 28 times more than I thought I was gonna be able to do at the age of 217—so, thanks, to the universe." Worried that he might not accomplish all of his goals, Allen in 1979 told People Magazine: "It kills me that someday I'll have to die. I don't see how I'll ever get it all done."

The end came for Allen on October 30, 2000. He showed up that evening at the Encino, California, home of his son Bill, bearing a Halloween cake. He clucked over the Halloween costume granddaughter Amanda, 6, was planning to wear the next night and played with his grandchildren for awhile. Later, he complained of feeling tired and asked if could rest in the guest bedroom. When son Bill went to check on him later, he discovered that his father was no longer breathing. He had died of a massive heart attack.

His death was felt keenly among Allen's friends in the entertainment business. Milton Berle told People Magazine: "We've lost a heavyweight. He was one of the most talented and kindest men we had in the industry." Jay Leno, who recalled fondly watching Allen on TV as a boy, wrote in Time: "He never played dumb. Rather, he played to his intellect. And he was as comfortable talking to the man on the street as with world leaders. The highest compliment my mom could give anyone was that he was a nice man. Steve Allen was truly a nice man." Bill Maher of ABC-TV's Politically Incorrect told People Magazine that Allen was "the Beatles of talk shows. Anybody could get his comedy, and he touched audiences in a powerful way. Everything that came after was just a variation."

Periodicals

Entertainment Weekly, November 10, 2000.

People, November 13, 2000.

Time, November 13, 2000.

Online

"Entertainer Steve Allen Dead at 78," CNN.com, http://www.cnn.com/2000/SHOWBIZ/TV/10/31/steve.allen.02/ (November 11, 2001).

"Steve Allen," http://www.uoregon.edu/~splat/Steve-Allen.html (November 11, 2001).

"Steve Allen," Friars Club of California, http://www.friarsclub-ca.org/biosteve.html (November 11, 2001). □

TONIGHT

TONIGHT. "The Tonight Show," the generic title used to describe the many iterations of NBC TV's latenight comedy-talk show, was originally developed by Sylvester "Pat" Weaver, the president of NBC in the early 1950s. Tonight! was the initial title. It ran from 1954 through 1956, hosted by Steve Allen. In its final year, Allen shared hosting duties with the comedian Ernie Kovacs. In 1957, the title was changed to Tonight! America After Dark, with Jack Lescoulie as host. Unlike Allen's show, which emphasized comic sketches and music, Tonight! America After Dark concentrated on news, interviews, and live remote broadcasts, much like the Today program. After six months, Al Collins replaced Lescoulie and a month later the format was overhauled once again. The Jack Paar Show debuted in July 1957 in a format that emphasized interviews and "desk comedy." Paar also conducted political crusades on the air, supporting Fidel Castro's revolution in Cuba, broadcasting from the Berlin Wall, and including presidential candidates John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon among his guests in 1960. When Paar left the show in March 1962, guest hosts filled in on the re-titled The Tonight Show until October of that year.

From October 1962 through May 1992, Johnny Carson established and sustained The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson as an American institution. The format of his show, an opening comic monologue—often about news events—followed by interviews, occasional comic pieces, musical performances, and chats with the audience, would be copied by nearly all of the late-night talk shows that followed. Carson retired in 1992 and NBC awarded the vacated position to Jay Leno, who had been a frequent guest host since 1987, and re-titled it The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. David Letterman, angry that he had been passed up for the job, left his NBC program and moved to CBS to compete with Leno.

Since the Jack Paar era, the program has enjoyed an important place in American culture.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Carter, Bill. The Late Shift: Letterman, Leno, and the National Battle for the Night. New York: Hyperion, 1994.

Metz, Robert. The Tonight Show. Chicago: Playboy Press, 1980.

RobertThompson

See alsoTelevision: Programming and Influence .

Vitro, Roseanna

Vitro, Roseanna, singer; b. Hot Springs, Ark., Feb. 28, 1951. She has a musical background of gospel singing, blues, rock, classical, and show music, but fell in love with jazz. Her jazz career began in Houston, Tex. in 1973, under the guidance of Ray Sullenger (vocalist and wind player from Ted Weems band) and Arnett Cobb. Cobb featured her on gigs and in his summer jazz workshops educating children from poor families (as she herself was). In Houston, she ran her own group for a few years, and had a radio program where she performed and featured other artists, including Oscar Peterson (and sat in with him). Relocating to N.Y. in 1980, she studied with Ken Werner, Fred Hersch, Anne Marie Moss, Joe Lovano, Bobby McFerrin, David Leonhart; she also studied classical voice with Cabore Carelli at the Manhattan School of Music. She started the vocal jazz program in September 1996 at Jersey City State Coll. The Down BeatCritics poll voted her Talent Deserving Wider recognition in 1994 and 1995.

Discography

Kenny Barron, Steve Allen, Marian McPartland: Listen Here (1982). Fred Hersch: Quiet Place (1988). George Coleman: Reaching for the Moon (1991); Softly (1993). Elvin Jones, Gary Bartz: Passion Dance (1995). David Fathead Newman: Catchin’ Some Rays (1997).

—Lewis Porter

to·night / təˈnīt/ • adv. on the present or approaching evening or night: are you doing anything tonight?• n. the evening or night of the present day: tonight is a night to remember.