Adele Girard
| Adele Girard | |
|---|---|
Girard and Joe Marsala
|
|
| Background information | |
| Born |
June 25, 1913 Holyoke, Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Died | September 7, 1993 Denver, Colorado |
| Genres | Jazz, dixieland, swing |
| Occupation(s) | Musician |
| Instruments | Harp |
Adele Girard Marsala (June 25, 1913 – September 7, 1993 in Denver, Colorado) was a jazz harpist associated with dixieland and swing music. She is the first woman to bring the concert harp to prominence in jazz, with only Casper Reardon predating her. As a musician she is known by her birth name "Adele Girard", but she became "Adele Girard Marsala" after marrying clarinetist Joe Marsala.
Adele Girard's father, Leon, was a superb violinist who conducted and played in the pit band for silent movies at the Bijou Theater in Holyoke, MA. Additionally he conducted the Holyoke City Band and the Springfield Broadcast Symphony. Adele's mother, Eleisa Noel Girard was a talented pianist who had studied opera and was offered a scholarship to La Scala in Italy, though she had to turn it down because she was unable to afford the trip. She taught both her children, Adele and son Don, how to play piano. The four-year-old Adele accompanied her uncles as they sang First World War songs, K-K-K-Katie and Over There. "I played very simply," said Adele, "but I played all the right notes." At age fourteen, Adele was introduced to and initially taught the harp by Alice Mikus, who played occasionally with Leon Girard in the Broadcast Symphony.
Girard's big break came in 1933, when she was hired as a singer/pianist with the Harry Sosnik orchestra in Chicago. Sosnik provided a harp for her when he discovered from her mother that she could play the instrument. She went on to play with the Dick Stabile orchestra in NYC and in 1936, the Three Ts, the Teagarden brothers and Frank Trumbauer at the Hickory House in New York City on 52nd Street. When the Ts went on the road, Adele worried that she would not be able to continue payments on her first harp. She asked the proprietor of the Hickory House to keep her on. He introduced her to Joe Marsala and she was hired to play in the Marsala band in 1937. "If it hadn't been for Joe I would have been a big nobody," said Adele who later married Marsala, "he gave me and many other musicians our first chance." Drummers Buddy Rich and Shelly Manne, guitarist Charlie Byrd, pianist Gene DiNovi, trumpeter Neal Hefti, were some of those Marsala introduced. Adele could hold her own with these jazz greats; she composed, arranged and played an outstanding Boogie-Woogie for the classical harp(see Adele Girard, YouTube). She had perfect pitch and could improvise any tune on the spot. Among her fans were James Bond author Ian Fleming and movie star Harpo Marx, who wanted her to give him lessons. "Jazz isn't something you can teach," Adele told Marx, "you have to feel jazz." Indeed, that was the way she had learned, simply by sitting in with the band and using her improvisational skills. The Marsalas remained as the core of the very successful house band at the Hickory House for 10 years.
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