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By Al Julian
A stunning tour-de-force in the recent life and performing career of vocalist Mae Arnette occurred in the closing weeks of the summer. An event that has been long overdue, top billing. And of all places at the top room in the city: The plush Merry-Go-Round room located in Back Bay's stately Copley Plaza Hotel.
For the past twenty or so years, Mae Arnette has been the firmest of all female singing voices on the precarious greater Boston Jazz scene. In the process she has been able to establish a distinct and direct communication with her many devoted listeners. Now after this two-week engagement at the city's most prestigious nightspot, her magical performing qualities have finally been acknowledged. She now can truly be called Boston's First Lady of song.
This peak in Ms. Arnette's career has been a long time in the making. She has paid her dues many times over, building her performing credentials over the years on a chain of lesser gigs in the smaller clubs and under some very trying conditions. Mae has been an able fill-in, bailing out many of the local promoters on a number of occasions when their name artists were unable to go on. She acknowledges the fact that this Merry-Go-Round date has been her most important gig in recent years.
What made this wedding of Arnette and the Copley's plush parlor so successful was the way they complemented each other. Ms. Arnette has been one of the few entertainers who has been absolutely perfect with a tasteful blend of talent, style and grace. She most certainly added a touch of subtle class to the room that is Boston's closest resemblance to New York Cafe Society.
Love, warmth and sheer pleasure are the foremost qualities present in Mae Arnette and her vocal sounds. Her reading of meaningful lyrics is tasteful as well as intelligent and can be heard and felt in crisp shading tones of lightness on uptempo tunes, and in her gentle treatment of ballads. Many of the world's finest composers and lyricists are represented in her well-rounded repertoire. On this most significant engagement she was backed by a trio of fine young local musicians: David Stewart on piano, Rich Reid on bass, and Akira Tana on drums. The interplay between Mae and her musicians was a thing of joy. They seemed to borrow from each other, picking on one another's vibrations to create a sensitive, melodic groove.
Ms. Arnette has a distinctive way with the music of Michel LeGrand, using three of the French composer's hauntingly beautiful tunes in her first set. She demonstrated an inner sense of swing and the resourcefulness of her melodic imagination on YOU MAKE ME FEEL SO YOUNG, JUST IN TIME and BYE BYE BLACK BIRD, then reflected a kaleidoscope of moods and her ability to personalize ballads on SOME ONE WHO CARES and LOVER MAN. Aside from being one of the best natural talents to grace the Merry-Go-Round, she has been one of its most sophisticated dressers. She changed gowns for each set, but not in a two-by-four room backstage as she has become accustomed to over the years. With this gig came a classy corner suite overlooking Copley Square.
Mae Arnette was born in New York and raised in a musical and religious atmosphere. Her father was a drummer and her mother a dancer in her younger days. She is now a minister and has been for some 30 years. Mae has been involved with music and show business just about as far back as she can remember. Largely self-trained, she got most of her formal training from her high school music teacher, most of which was in opera voice. This in itself explains her impressive technique. The rest is just God given talent. When Mae arrived in Boston in 1952, she replaced Ida James as vocalist with the Sabby Lewis band. Since then she has worked in many jazz rooms around New England and with many fine jazz men.
She recently has been the subject of a TV documentary and has produced and directed a musical tribute to the Wiz, given by her voice students. She is instructor at the Community Service Department of the New England Conservatory of Music.
Mae Arnette is an exceptionally talented and handsome black woman, in the tradition of her very graceful idol Josephine Baker. Her unhurried personality is a great advertisement for live jazz, and the intense warmth of her delivery is totally natural. You can feel the impact of her personality and the emotional content of her singing as it is poured into music. THANKS to Clinton Creasy, the gracious manager, for bringing Mae into his classy room. My hope is that Mr. Creasy is able to have Ms. Arnette back on the Merry-Go-Round soon, and that some company will see fit to record this extremely talented vocalist.
This article originally appeared in Nightfall magazine, January 1977.