OUT OF SIGHT BUT NOT OUT OF MIND

As an avid collector of jazz music from bygone days, this fellow has compiled a fairly massive CD library. Included among the performing greats are many of the leading female singers from past eras.

Listening to such ladies warble at their best offers no end of pleasure on long afternoons. Unfortunately, though, certain of their favored numbers also appear today as video productions on Youtube and elsewhere. Here is where our satisfaction level often takes a nose dive upon seeing some of them in their upper bracket years. We actually find it preferable, when watching a few of our chanteuse heroines in the much too much flesh, to click “minimize”, so as to hear well while seeing no evil.

Whereas one may recall such lasses as Sarah Vaughan, Rosemary Clooney, Keely Smith, Carmen McRae, et al nicely tailored and in slim, trim form not that many years back, the latter-day filmed output often reveals the degree to which French fries and pasta have added enough extra poundage to envision them instead for potential linebacker duty with the Dallas Cowboys.

The presence of gray or red-tinted hair replacing the once well-coiffeured jet black or cool blonde locks doesn’t upset us. Nancy Wilson, Lena Horne, and Maxine Sullivan, for example, at least retained their relatively graceful figures at advanced ages. We can readily excuse Ella Fitzgerald, who nearly always carried a bit too much bulk, but dressed appropriately nevertheless, in contrast to the elder Vaughans and Clooneys, attempting vainly to disguise obesity with what resembled maternity clothing.

No matter the age, virtually any lady in possession of inspiring vocal qualities ought to be entitled to carry on her trade without regard to accumulated years. However, our humble request to those who offer videotaped elderly and overly padded female singers is that they be presented in audio form only. Our esthetic goal is to savor the marvelous tones, without having to observe the extent to which relative obesity took hold.