Wynton Marsalis, Doris Day, Reverse Racism – and All That Jazz

As a young show tunes twink, the closest I got to jazz was Ella Fitzgerald’s great Cole Porter Songbook, recorded in 1956 for the fledgling Verve label. I played the LPs so much I wore them out, and eventually OD’d on the Songbook (I still can’t listen to it.) Ella and Louis, her album of standards with Louis Armstrong (recorded the same year), soon became my new favorite.

Later, I was surprised to discover the remarkable, seductive voice of Doris Day, who was admittedly influenced by Fitzgerald and sang with the big bands way before she ever met Rock Hudson. These two diverse ladies rank among the most important pop vocalists of the 20th century.

But just the way, as a boy, I had trouble believing that movie goddess Lena Horne was black, Fitzgerald sounded almost too “white” to me as well; certainly as white as...

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