A large audience attended a performance by The Jazz Legacy Project, featuring the music of the late, great Johnny Mercer, last Thursday at Festival Hall in Greensboro.
Jazz Legacy musicians Justin Varnes, drummer/narrator; Kevin Smith bassist; Louis Heriveaux, pianist; John Sandfort, saxophonist; and Nicole Chillemi on vocals, brought to life the music and life of one of Georgia’s own.
Born in Savannah in 1909, Mercer became a legendary composer/songwriter for Broadway and Hollywood and a beloved vocalist. His first big break came in 1930 after a song he had written made it to Broadway and he got a job as a singer with the Paul Whiteman Band. He then was introduced to Hoagy Carmichael and they had a hit together in 1933 with “Lazybones.”
Mercer’s genius as a lyricist was quickly discovered and his career took off with several hit songs penned over four decades from the 1930s through the ‘60s.
After moving to Hollywood in 1933, Mercer sang with Jack Teagarden and Bing Crosby. In 1938-‘39, while Mercer was singing with the Benny Goodman Band, his popularity earned him his own radio show, Johnny Mercer’s Music Shop.
In 1942, with songwriter and film producer Buddy De Sylva and businessman Glen Wallichs, Mercer helped found Capital Records, which by 1946 accounted for about 17 percent of all record sales nationwide.
Mercer also won four Oscars for his music. First for “On The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe,” sung by Judy Garland in The Harvey Girls, followed by “In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening,” sung by Bing Crosby and Jane Wyman in the 1951 film Here Comes the Groom. His third Academy Award win came in 1961 for “Moon River,” with music by Henry Mancini, in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and in 1962 Mercer won a fourth Oscar for the title song “Days of Wine and Roses,” again with Mancini writing the music.
Mercer also was the founding president of the Songwriters Hall of Fame and began the Oscar brand for a Songwriters Hall of Fame archive and museum.
He passed away in June 1976. The Jazz Legacy Project will finish off its 2023 season at Festival Hall on Oct. 19, with “The Piano is a Drum,” featuring the life and music of Thelonious Monk. For more information visit online at festivalhallga.com.