It is a known fact that the life of a jazz musician in the first half of the 20th Century was not fertile soil for marriage. So how unusual was it when two jazz musicians were married to each other and worked each other into their separate careers? For about a decade, vibraphonist Red Norvo and singer Mildred Bailey managed to do exactly that. It is an old cliche that people in love make beautiful music together, but a rare thing when they make actual great music that they shared with the rest of us.

Marriages between movie and television personalities have always been fairly common, but marriages between working musicians have been less so. We looked at one notable exception a few years ago, that of singer Peggy Lee and her guitarist husband Dave Barbour. Today we get to look at another musical couple, Mildred Bailey and Red Norvo. Both of these performers (Mildred in particular) should be better remembered than they are. Unfortunately, this is something that happens all too frequently with the passage of time.

I struggled with how to present the stories of these two artists. Both Bailey and Norvo deserve to be featured on her/his own, but I found their decade or so of work together to be both musically charming and such an unusual story that it deserves a look restricted to just these parts of their careers. There is plenty of material for a deeper look at the broader career of each, so hopefully I can come back to them at some point in the future.

Another compelling reason to feature their work together is that during the course of their decade-long marriage (1933-42), they were often known among their contemporaries as “Mr. & Mrs. Swing.” I should note for younger readers that to swing in the 1930’s was an entirely different thing than the kind of wife-swapping adventures that later came to use the term. Swinging in the 1930’s was all about the rhythm of jazz that differed from the bouncy 1-2 beat of the 20’s. A swing beat was smooth and, while light and understated, was propulsive in a way still makes you tap your foot. We shall demonstrate, but after some brief introductions.

Mildred Bailey has one of the most unusual backstories of any jazz musician I have come across. She was born Mildred Rinker on February 27, 1907 in Tekoa, Washington. Her father was of German origin, and her mother was a member of the Coeur d’Alene tribe of native Americans (and a devout Catholic one, at that). Both of her parents passed a love of music to Mildred, but things took a bad turn when her mother died of tuberculosis and her father re-married. That new marriage had no room for Mildred and she soon moved to Seattle to live with other relatives.

At age 17 she was singing to demonstrate sheet music at a Woolworth’s store. She married and divorced a guy named Bailey and kept the name because she liked it better than Rinker. She got a job singing with a review that took her to California, where she got experience in clubs and speakeasies and spent her off-hours listening to all the Louis Armstrong, Bessie Smith and Ethel Waters records she could. She made enough contacts that she was able to find work for her brother Al Rinker and a friend of his (named Bing Crosby) in California. Those two soon became 2/3 of Paul Whiteman’s “Rhythm Boys”, and they got Mildred hired with that band in 1929 – making her the first female singer to accompany a big jazz band. That was the year she cut her first record (which is surprisingly good) with some members of the Whiteman band, under the leadership of guitarist Eddie Lang.

It was when Bailey was singing for Whiteman that she met another band member, xylophone and marimba player Red Norvo. Born Kenneth Norville on March 31, 1908 in Beardstown Illinois, Norvo had started as a piano player, but switched to the xylophone and marimba. His first professional gig was with a Chicago all-marimba band called “The Collegians” in 1925. He played xylophone with a couple of other bands, then enrolled at the University of Missouri to study mining engineering. That didn’t last, and in the early 1930’s he got hired by Whiteman.

After a couple of attempts to get a small group off the ground in 1934-35, Norvo formed a big band patterned more-or-less on that of Benny Goodman, who had popularized swing music for white audiences. Norvo’s idea for how a big band should sound, however, was different.

Take this track from October, 1936, called “It Can Happen To You”. This is a great example of the unique sound Norvo got from his group. It was subtle and relaxed, but at the same time had a swing rhythm as strong as any of the louder and more powerful bands that were in vogue.

Red’s marimba (a little lower in range and more mellow than a xylophone) provides a great background as Mrs. Swing takes the lyrics. Then Mr. Swing takes a couple of more solos after the Mrs. finishes. And speaking of Mildred, what is it that defines “a jazz singer”? I don’t think there is a good definition, but just from listening you can hear how she rolls with that swinging rhythm and how she takes small liberties with both the beat and with the melody as she goes through the lyrics.

Those vocal jazz traits show up better in this up-tempo record from January 8, 1937. “Slumming On Park Avenue” is a lesser known Irving Berlin tune and another great matching of Red’s relaxed band and Mildred’s ability to match it with her lyric delivery. There were a few other women who could swing a lyric like Mildred in 1936-37, but they were younger and had not come out of the musical tradition of the 1920’s like she had.

And as for the band, well I will wager a fiver that you cannot listen to that record all the way through without moving some part of your body to the music. Start to finish, Norvo and the rest exhibit a rhythmic pulse that swings both easy and completely.

Here is something that sets Mr. & Mrs. Swing apart from almost everyone else of their (or any other) era. We have featured a couple of records of Norvo’s band where Bailey gets vocal credit, but there are also several records credited to “Mildred Bailey and her Orchestra”. Though it wasn’t always the case, on a good number of those records “Bailey’s” band was actually Norvo’s. Like this one, a ballad recorded March 23, 1937 called “Never In A Million Years”.

I find Bailey’s voice fascinating – there is almost a little girl’s quality to it. That sound, along with the tight vibrato and the perfect diction is a combination found in nobody else I can think of. And note that on records under Mildred’s name, there is more singing and less band – as it should be. But unlike with some singers, she leaves some room for Red to have some solo time too.

I usually like to stop at three selections in an attempt to avoid either boring you or drawing you too deeply into my latest rabbit hole. But I think that Mildred deserves equal time with Red. And also because I like this record so much. Really, I had trouble paring these selections down to four and could have easily chosen several others. Anyway, here is another of Mildred in front of Red’s band. “I Go For That” is the latest of this bunch, dating to December 8, 1938. This is another mid-tempo piece that shows just why this musical couple was called Mr. and Mrs. Swing.

Norvo broke this band up in 1939, but both he and Bailey worked regularly, both separately and together. Sadly, their marriage ended in 1942. They had been opposites in many ways, with Norvo being quiet and reserved while Bailey was loud and the life of any party. Her losing struggle to keep her weight under control, her difficult temperament and bouts of drinking are often blamed on the scars of her childhood. But as we know, these things are unknowable to all but a few who were close to them all those decades ago.

Mildred Bailey suffered from diabetes and was hospitalized multiple times in the 1940’s, and finally died December 12,1951 at only the age of only 44. It has been reported that Bing Crosby underwrote many of Bailey’s medical bills towards the end of her life, so it is clear that he felt a debt to her for her help at the start of his career. Also, she and Norvo remained friends after their divorce, and continued to perform together from time to time. (Like on this V-Disc from 1945, for those of you who have not yet been musically satisfied.) She was eventually recognized by the U.S. Postal Service as deserving her own commemorative stamp.

Red Norvo became far better known in his later years than he ever had been in the 1930’s. He switched to the vibraphone in the 40’s and played for a time with the Benny Goodman band before leading a long series of small groups until a stroke forced his retirement in the mid 1980’s. One note of trivia – you may have seen Red Norvo perform and didn’t know it. It was his quartet that backed a Dean Martin musical number (“Ain’t That A Kick In The Head”) in the 1960 Rat Pack film “Oceans Eleven” (clip here). Norvo finally died at the age of 91 on April 6, 1999.

But in the 1930’s, both Bailey and Norvo were forces to be reckoned with in the world of jazz, even though neither got the widespread fame or acceptance they each deserved. That both of these under-appreciated giants made their music together was an extra bonus for those of us who are willing to take the time to listen to them today. They are worth it!