Dorothy Donegan • World Recording Sessions 1944/45

Dorothy Donegan (1922-98) was one of the all-time greats of the jazz piano even though she never quite received the recognition that she deserved, at least not until late in life. Based in Chicago in the 1940s, her technique was so phenomenal at an early age that Art Tatum was an admirer who once said that she was “the only woman who can make me practice.” There is a great performance in the movie Sensations Of 1945 where she plays a heated duet with fellow pianist Gene Rodgers. Later on, Donegan became known for creating spontaneous medleys of unrelated songs that found her effortlessly switching between swing, stride, boogie-woogie, bebop, and classical music on a moment’s notice, sometimes while standing up and proudly showing off her legs.

Other than two songs that she recorded in 1942, Dorothy Donegan’s performances on World Recording Sessions 1944/45, which is comprised of transcriptions originally made for the radio, are her earliest recordings. The 18 songs plus four alternate takes show that she was already a marvel. On “St. Louis Blues,” Donegan goes from Art Tatumesque swing to stride and boogie-woogie, putting on quite a display in less than three minutes. Tatum is a strong influence on many of these performances.

However on “Dorothy Digs” (which is based on “I Got Rhythm”), her stride piano playing is worthy of James P. Johnson while on the similar “The Goon Walks,” the tempo is quite blazing. The brevity of these performances (none are over four minutes) keeps her from playing medleys but there are more than their share of dazzling moments. Even on a relatively tender “Embraceable You,” she throws in some runs that few other pianists other than Tatum could have played at the time. A previously unreleased version of “The Minute Waltz” is pretty hot as is a cooking “Prelude In C# Minor” that is given a treatment worthy of the top stride pianists while her playing on “Honeysuckle Rose,” “Dorothy’s Boogie Woogie,” and “After You’ve Gone” can accurately be summed up as simply miraculous.

Just on the basis of these early sessions, Dorothy Donegan ranks among the very best.

Dorothy Donegan • World Recording Sessions 1944/45
Solo Art SACD-177
www.jazzology.com

Scott Yanow

Since 1975 Scott Yanow has been a regular reviewer of albums in many jazz styles. He has written for many jazz and arts magazines, including JazzTimes, Jazziz, Down Beat, Cadence, CODA, and the Los Angeles Jazz Scene, and was the jazz editor for Record Review. He has written an in-depth biography on Dizzy Gillespie for AllMusic.com. He has authored 11 books on jazz, over 900 liner notes for CDs and over 20,000 reviews of jazz recordings. Yanow was a contributor to and co-editor of the third edition of the All Music Guide to Jazz. He continues to write for Downbeat, Jazziz, the Los Angeles Jazz Scene, the Jazz Rag, the New York City Jazz Record and other publications.