I’m a massive fan of Carol Ralph, an Australian singer from New Castle (just north of Sydney). I’ve seen her live quite a few times, and she has a gorgeous stage presence – really inviting, warm and engaging. It’s hard to find her CD ‘Swinging Jazz Portrait’, though you can buy it through the Victorian Jazz Archives, and you could probably get it at one of the Australian Jazz Club events. If you can find it, buy it. I DJ from it regularly, years after I first bought it. The recordings feature some of Australia’s biggest names in jazz (including Bob Sedergreen I think), and there’s some totally brilliant lindy hop and blues dancing music in there.
Carol doesn’t have much of a web presence (argh!), but you can get some details via Jazz in Australia.
Hey there,
The lovely Carol is my mother. And I also love that CD of hers. I wonder if she still has a stack of them somewhere?! I’ll ask her… by the way she was born in Newcastle but is actually from Sydney :)