What an interesting experience it is to put together a website! I guess if you’re twenty and just starting you have to scramble to make it seem like you have any business having a site at all! But for me….categorizing everything I’ve done! Singing, recording, performing, writing commercials, shows, choral compositions, lyrics! And look at the titles…A Jazz Nativity, A Spark of Faith, Sing, For the Lord Has Risen, Readings and Music of Creation…. Of course there are lots of other songs like “I’m Gonna Lay My Heart on the Line,” or “To Make Them Like Me” from my children’s show “The Great Grey Ghost of Old Spook Lane” but some over-riding theme does start to emerge. How did this happen? Well, take a look at my roots.

That’s the Rev. Aldert Smedes, originally the assistant rector of Christ Church on 71 st Street (right around the corner from me here in New York) and then the founder of St. Mary’s School for Girls in Raleigh, NC. His son Bennett, followed him as head of the school. His daughter, Helen, was my grandmother, and she was an accomplished violinist.

On my father’s side, from a line of rather stern looking Presbyterian clergymen, my grandfather married Elsie Walton. I hope that music on the piano is a rag! But how about that co-incidence! Here’s MY picture form my last CD taken several years before a cousin sent me her’s. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree! The announcement of their marriage refers to her as the “well known and favorite Easton vocalist!” It was quite a romantic story. She went to Europe to “have her voice cultivated” and he followed her and married her in London.

So, I guess that explains this mixture of spirituality and music.

When my grandmother, Elsie, married Mr. Dinsmore she became Elsie Dinsmore…the same name as the little girl in a turn-of the–century book series. And my sister was named for her and became a very great artist, Elsie Dinsmore Popkin. Take a look at her site elsiedinsmorepopkin.com. Her work in pastel is breathtaking. Elsie and I sang together … just Christmas carols…When ever I heard a melody, I just sang harmony. So that’s who I am. And here’s where I’ve been.

I went to Oberlin College where as a freshman I was chosen to sing with the big band, had my own weekly radio show, “Dinnie Dinsmore Sings” and, when we started a jazz club and brought in Dave Brubeck for a concert at Finney Chapel (the conservatory wouldn’t let a jazz pianist use any of their pianos) I sang on that concert. The college radio station recorded that historic concert, one of the first college jazz concerts, and the album became the classic “Brubeck at Oberlin”.

Last year Oberlin invited Dave back to receive an honorary doctorate and perform an anniversary concert and I sang on that one too…this time with Dave

When I came to New York because I played piano, I never had to wait on tables! I played six nights a week, six hours a night 9 to 3 or 10 to 4. New York night life was alive! I played opposite Bobby Short on what I have now learned was his first major New York gig…three weeks at the Beverly Hotel on Lexington Ave. I remember madly writing down lyrics through every set! I played in the front room of the Pin Up when Mable Mercer appeared in the back. One night someone said to me “Little girl, you ought to go hear that lady” I did. I didn’t get it. Thank heaven she was still around when I was old enough to get it!

I did TV shows…when they were live! A couple of days of rehearsal…costumes, makeup, hair, then, 5,4,3,2,1 – you’re on the air! “Dream along with me….”

And I started doing demos for song writers Carol King, Burt Bacharach, Neil Diamond, Barry Mann and Cynthia Wile

It was from one of those demos that I got a call from Joe Reisman at Roulette Records and got to record “Born To Be Blue.” A great arranger, Kermit Levinsky called the greatest musicians…Doc Severensen, Milt Hinton, Barry Galbraith…a full string section….and the album has become a classic and is being re-released on Bluenote.

BillBoard Review | People Magazine Review | Go to the store

 

NOEL NOEL reviews Christmas 1960 Anne Phillips, a very young and profound person, has solved our perennial gripe about Christmas music in recorded form. She has lifted this music out of the schlemiel schmaltz and has exalted it with the ultimate in planning and arrangement. She also fired the knave who bangs gongs, triangles and glockenspiels. It can be a superb acquisition. Listening with Carl Weiland Sound and Fury Though this album contains the most familiar Christmas carols, the extremely gifted arranging pen of Anne Phillips has transformed them into completely refreshed melodies. Her handling is thoroughly unorthodox in present disc terms but of the highest artistic order. They command attention as vital performances. Billboard One of the outstanding albums of the Christmas season will be this offering by the Anne Phillips Choir. Singing a cappella, they grace a collection of traditional favorites, at the same time achieving an unexpectedly modern effect with their unusual harmonies. The simplicity and warmth of the music brings the religious spirit back into the season that is so often forgotten. KERRadio Report

The next year I wrote an unusual choral Christmas Album, NOEL NOEL” which has also been re-released on the Conawago label.

Play Samples from "Noel Noel" | Go to the store

I started doing loads of record dates, began contracting the vocal groups as well as singing.

 

 

It was a great era…singing backup in the sixties…all live with the full orchestra and the artist all together! 10 to 1 at Bell Sound with Leslie Gore , 2 to 5 at Columbia 30 th Street with Mahalia Jackson or Bobby Vinton or Jerome Hines, 7 to 10 at RCA 24 th Street with Connie Francis. Working with New York’s greatest musicians, finest arrangers like Claus Ogerman, Alan Lorber, Charlie Colello, Jim Wisner, Gary Sherman, Teacho Wilshire, Luci DeJesus and producers like Bob Crewe and, yes, even Phil Spector.

The jingle world was closed to most of us studio singers …a tight circle of singers did all the work. But because I had done so much work with the new young songwriters I could sing ... and write ... the sound of what was called the “youth market!” It took a long time to persuade any of the advertising agencies that this was the future of the jingle sound. I finally recorded rock versions of Sid Ramin’s “Come Alive, You’re in the Pepsi Generation” then the won the competition for the new campaign “Taste That Beats The Others Cold, Pepsi Pours it On” Besides the “standard version” with my group, I arranged and produced spots with The Four Tops, Linda Ronstadt, Martha and the Vandellas, The Hondells, Wilson Picket, Gary Pucket and the Union Gap, Jacke DeShannon, the Turtles and John Hartford.

Click here to hear a medley of them. 

Two of them were also TV spots, shot live in the studio and produced by Bill Tannen and Jack Covington.   See "Taste That Beats the Others Cold" with The Four Tops with The Turtles  The spectacular TV spots using the standard version with my group, Queen Anne's Lace (Jerry Keller, Jerry Duane, Trade Martin, Gene Maharry, Gene Steck and myself)  were produced by a youg producer at BBDO, Jerry Bruckheimer.  Click here to see "Rope Swing" That opened the door to commercials in what is now looked upon “The Golden Age of Advertising”. The Sheraton telephone number 800-325-3535, Campbells Soup, American Gas Association, Kent Cigarettes. Click here to hear the commercials

 

I became a National Trustee of NARAS, the Recording Academy and was the New York Representative on the advisory committee to the Grammy show for several years. 

Through all of this I had a family … no one called us superwomen then!

And I was always writing…a children’s show, The Great Grey Ghost of Old Spook Lane.

A Spark of Faith, first performed as a benefit for St. Paul’s Epsicopal Church in Montvale, NJ…with New York’s finest singers and musicians, reh.

And featuring such soloists as Ann Duquesney (who later won a Tony for “Bring in the Noise”} dancers Loretta Abbott and Al Perryman form the Alvin Ailey Company, and 16 year old Dameris Carbaugh, now one of the country’s foremost Christian singers.

The show traveled with a company of four and is now available for rental with pre-recorded instrumental tracks.

 

 

 

“Sing for the Lord Has Risen” is an Easter Mass premiered at St. Patrick’s Cathedral,

“Readings and Music of Creation” was commissioned by St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Minneapolis

I wrote the music for a play with music, “Panhandle” …I needed an actor who could also play harmonica so I selected W. Bruce Willis, non-equity. I saw him roller-blading on 6 th Ave a few weeks after the showcase closed. “Hey, guess what, I got a movie out of that!” I guess he got a career out of that!

And there have been many interesting special projects like the Easter Seal Campaign song one year with Betsy Palmer.

I have also produced many concerts and CDs. “To Ben and Johnny, With Love” a tribute to Ben Webster and Johnny Hodges funded by the NEA for my husband tenor saxophonist Bob Kindred and his CDs “That Kindred Spirit” and “Hidden Treasures”.

Jazz at Gretna a summer concert series at the Pennsylvania Chatauqua. Of course the first person I booked for that was Dave Brubeck. Many great concerts followed his with Gerry Mulligan, George Shearing, Marian McPartland, Jackie Cain and Roy Kral, Eddie Daniels, Helen Merrill and others.

I was asked to write the Jazz Nativity in 1985. It was first performed at St. Peter’s Lutheran Church at CitiCorp with Clark Terry, Dave Brubeck, Honi Coles and other greats. Producing it with my husband, Bob Kindred, who also wrote the music for the title song, we moved from there to St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Cjurch on Park Ave. and to other venues like the Stephen Wise Synagogue, and the Lambs Theater. It has since been published by G. Schirmer and has been performed in many cities. www.jazznativity.com

An outgrowth of the Jazz Nativity and our Jazz Nativity Children’s Project which enabled inner-city children to experience the show, has been our Children’s Jazz Choirs. The choirs introduce kids to the Great American Song through jazz. This has become more and more important as song itself is disappearing from their lives ... I find they start to sing and the just slide into talking ... and they don't know the difference.

Another concern of mine is the environment. Many years ago I wrote a song entitled "What Are We Doing To Our World?"  Then it was about "Far out to sea, floating islands of debris"  Its become much more critical. I think the chorus of the song, sung by a child, would make a wonderful theme for an environmental awareness campaign. 

I have recorded two new CDs “Gonna Lay My Heart on the Line” on which I sing songs I have written words and music And, just released, “Ballet Time” on which I recorded each track with an old friend: Dave Brubeck, Marion McPartland, Roger Kellaway, Dave Frishberg, Bob Dorough and others.

I am also performing with the great singer Julius LaRosa and with a new young exciting jazz singer and piano player Matt Perri who was a student of mine when I taught vocal jazz at NYU.

And in the works is “Damn Everything But The Circus,” a six character musical, book by Stephanie Braxton, music and lyrics by Anne Phillips.