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| Grady Tate |
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Grady Tate garnered two Grammy nominations for Best Male Vocalist over the decades that he tended part time to his true passion of singing. The first came in 1969 for “Windmills Of My Mind,” the theme song from the film The Thomas Crown Affair, the second, in 1986, for “She’s Out of My Life.”
Over four decades Tate has waxed a dozen albums as a singer, collected stacks of glowing reviews, and built a devoted following with his classic warm and mellow baritone, impeccable timing, and profound grasp of lyrics. One fan was filmmaker, photographer, and composer Gordon Parks who penned the now-standard “Don’t Misunderstand” specifically for Tate.
And yet to most jazz lovers, Tate is better known as one of the swingingest and most recorded drummers in jazz history, the engine that drove everything from Jimmy Smith and Wes Montgomery’s classic small groups to big bands like the Duke Ellington and Count Basie Orchestras. In the studios, Tate gave the groove to over 5,000 albums as house drummer for producers like Quincy Jones and Creed Taylor, backing a range of artists from Stan Getz to Aretha Franklin. He spent six years in the Tonight Show band and created the most sympathetic settings imaginable behind vocal giants including Tony Bennett, Ella Fitzgerald, and Sarah Vaughan.
It’s an embarrassment of riches—and a serious distraction--for one man to have two such talents. And so for many years Tate simply sang when he could. “I would have loved to stop playing drums and continue with vocals, but I was working all the time. The bread was good, the environment was good and the music was good.”
Finally, it was another vocalist--Peggy Lee--with whom Tate was working in the 1980s, who encouraged him to really pursue his singing. “Peggy loved it. She would give me fifteen minutes out of her show to do two or three tunes.” But it has only been in recent years that Tate has taken the time away from his drums to concentrate on a career as a vocalist—to unanimous praise.
Legendary jazz critic Nat Hentoff, in a review written for the Village Voice, described Tate as “the best singer to emerge from the ranks of instrumentalists since Nat Cole,” and The All Music Guide pronounced his delivery, “a major singing style just waiting to be widely recognized.” Downbeat awarded four stars to his latest release, 2007’s From The Heart, proclaiming him an “exceptional singer” and describing the album as proof that Tate “could have built a career behind the microphone even if he never had sat behind a drum kit.”
For Tate the payoff is in the emotional power of words and melody.
“Singing is a joy,” he said.
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