“You’re swinging this, right?” 

Brandon said every few songs as we rehearsed for the Burbank Public Library show this Thursday. “I am?” I had no idea I was playing some of my songs with a swing feel, and it is one of life’s many jokes that I should unwittingly swing after a musical adolescence dealing with a complex about my ability to swing. 

My first memory of the concept of swing is at the Reno Jazz Festival when a clinician coached our high school vocal jazz ensemble to swing by using a gesture in which we flicked mittened fingers every other beat while singing ᴬ buzᶻᵃʳᵈ took ᵗʰᵉ monᵏᵉʸ for ᵃ ride ᶦⁿ the ᵃᶦʳ.

American swing remained a mysterious facet of music until I entered a college jazz combo as a piano player, where it became inaccessible when the instructor made clear on a weekly basis his disdain for our inability to swing and generally play up to his standards. I accepted it as a personal shortcoming, a deficiency I carried even as a vocalist into a graduate program.

One of the big assignments in the jazz performance master’s program was to transcribe a chromatic solo, and I chose Coltrane’s “My Favorite Things” from Newport in 1963. We each had to sing the transcription with the original track in front of the class and our teacher Phil Markowitz. Phil was not prone to gratuitous words, and after my performance, he commented that I swung like crazy and didn't need to worry about my sense of swing. His feedback was a salve for a wound sustained from jazz education. 

Having taught my own students since, I marvel at the teachers I’ve had the good fortune of learning from, knowing now how much talent, skill, and care it takes. 

Ms. Patricia Bass Blodgett ❤ 1944–2025

Among the very best is Ms. B, who taught vocal jazz and gospel choir for decades at the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts. I found out recently—to great regret—that she passed away last fall. I would think of her when I’d drive the stretch of Huntington Drive from South Pasadena to Alhambra and imagined we would reconnect one of these days. Ms. B was timeless and invincible, and I didn’t know that she had aged into her eighties and fallen sick.

Surrounded by talented teens who passed an audition to get into LACHSA, I was deeply insecure about my singing ability, for good reason, but Ms. B saw something in me when nobody else did—not myself, not my mom, not anyone. She believed I would have something unique to offer, the developing chops to make my mark as a singer, and the focus needed to pursue music. I understand now that she was able to spot a seed of potential and guide students to bloom into the fullness of their promise, as only extraordinary teachers can. 

Ms. B held her students to the highest standards and sent her vocal jazz ensemble to the Monterey Jazz Festival year after year to compete in the high school division. I was crushed when she wouldn’t let us go my senior year because she saw that we weren’t jelling as an ensemble and would not place first. She did not settle for second best. 

She let us know when we didn’t sound like a gospel choir and more like an “inspirational choir.” She had me re-tape an audition in heels and was pragmatic about the realities of the music industry. I was introduced to colorism hearing her talk about including darker-skinned Black students in the diverse gospel choir requested to back up an alumnus on TV.

Between outside gigs and school concerts, I spent a lot of time with Ms. B, and she often gave me rides home after rehearsal, since we lived in the same neighborhood. I loved our voice lessons, which she stopped charging for, where she would demonstrate how she wanted me to sing with her rich, soaring voice that could have sung opera if trained in that way. 

Born in Buffalo, New York, Ms. B was a singer in The 5th Dimension and toured around the world before going into teaching. She would warn me not to get too comfortable in my life. She did not want me to end up essentially choosing creature comforts over a performing career, as she felt she had done. 

But Ms. B was an undeniable star, magnetic in her presence and shining far and wide through her influence on generations of LA singers. You have likely seen her former students take the stage somewhere around the globe, from the Montreal Jazz Festival and SNL to La Scala and Tiny Desk. Whatever genres we may have branched out into, Ms. B made sure that no student of hers would be square—the worst insult she could lob at us.

Ms. B was front and center at my first show after college at Catalina Jazz Club, and I recalled while driving by a church building where I was baptized that Ms. B was there for that too. While I was back living in LA, we had a falling out due to something moronic I told her. I always regretted it and wanted to make amends, but I figured she held a grudge against me. Not so, as she soon extended an olive branch, calling the landline at my parents’ house before I left for New York. She’d heard I got into Manhattan School of Music and wished me well. But I lacked the emotional intelligence to properly respond and didn’t know how to get back to my teacher as the years went on. 

I wanted to tell her how much she meant to me but felt that I had disappointed her and may not be welcome. I wanted her to be proud of me but felt I hadn’t accomplished enough to resurface in her life after gravely offending her. I wanted to apologize. I’m so sorry I missed the chance to give her rides to doctor’s appointments in her last few years and thank her for the times she went to bat for me. 

Digging up high school photos, I found surprisingly few of Ms. B—just one group photo from an event and grainy shots of her on stage with her ensembles. In the concert photos, she looks lovingly and proudly at me. 

I’m deeply indebted to Ms. B for all that she taught me about life and music. Giving freely of her knowledge and expertise, Ms. B occasionally expressed worry that her students would take her ideas and what she had taught them, and she would be forgotten. She inspired so many students, many of whom stayed in touch over decades, and we will remember her. 

Thank you, Ms. B. We love you.

🔊 Listening to the gospel choir sing Richard Smallwood’s Total Praise, our closing song at every concert