The American Cinematheque is honored to welcome musician Corky Hale to the Aero for a rare 35mm screening of Lady Sings The Blues, about the life of Billie Holiday.
Jazz vocalist/instrumentalist Corky Hale was born in a small Midwestern farm town and started taking piano lessons at age three. Her music career started just a few years later when, on a family vacation in Florida, bandleader Horace Heidt heard her picking out tunes on a hotel lobby piano and decided to feature Hale in his show. She soon began studying piano at the Chicago Conservatory, and later the harp. While in college, Corky was hired as a harpist for Liberace and spent three years accompanying him on his TV show and on tour.
While Hale’s early successes focused on the harp, the
piano has been her primary instrument, and by the mid-1950s her keyboard work
began drawing more attention. With her performances at the Cocoanut Grove heard
throughout the country on weekly remote broadcasts, Corky was booked to sing
and play piano with Jerry Gray’s band in Las Vegas when there was a last-minute
addition to the engagement – Billie Holiday.
Looking over at the platinum blonde Hale, a skeptical
Holiday asked who the piano player was. But by the end of the rehearsal
session, Billie said to Corky, "You is my little girl." After Las
Vegas, she hired Corky to play with her at Los Angeles Jazz City and to
accompany her to the Philippines, but Corky was wary of Billie's husband at the
time – who was hardly the gentleman portrayed in Lady Sings the Blues - and
reluctantly turned down the gig. Before going their separate ways, Holiday and
Hale did perform together on television in New York (The Tonight Show) and
Los Angeles (KABC-TV’s “Stars Of Jazz” program).
Corky Hale’s career includes many such magical pairings.
She has performed at The White House with Tony Bennett, soloed with Barbra
Streisand in Central Park and at the Hollywood Bowl, and performed with Björk
(on her MTV Special in London) and George Michael (at London’s Royal Albert
Hall and Washington, D.C.’s RFK Stadium). And this multi-talented musician
shows no signs of slowing down.