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Donna Tucker
Hatteberg's People
Reporter: Larry Hatteberg
November 16, 2003--Donna Tucker is a well-kept Wichita musical secret. This woman of Jazz makes her mark in other parts of the world, yet in Wichita remains low-key.
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“Is the place full? Yeah, it’s pretty full.”
At Cabaret Old town recently, they were waiting for this woman…Donna Tucker.
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(Singing---♫♫ “Be a friend to a friend who is crying. How will I know, what will I say, tell me when I get there…..”♫♫
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She is an internationally renowned jazz artist known in Japan, Dallas, and other venues—but here, where she lives– she’s nearly invisible.
“I guess I was probably testing the water to see if Wichita would be receptive to what I do.”
“Ladies and gentlemen….Donna Tucker.”
(Singing) “Come on and cry me a river, cry me a river, I’ve cried a river over you.”
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“I want people to come to my performance and feel that they are in my living room.”
“You drove me, nearly drove me out of my mind.”
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Overseas in Japan, she plays four months at a time at the Tokyo Westin Hotel, her office there, comes with a view.
“The Japanese love American Jazz. They are a very, very, wonderful audience.”
For twenty years, she lived in Dallas; there, she has a great following at Arthur’s Jazz Club and on TV.
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“This is kinda like getting to play ‘dress-up’ every time you go to work.”
“There’s really not anything in this business that I don’t enjoy doing.”
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Then, 15 years ago, a bad thing happened.
“I was robbed and injured in my home in Dallas. My husband found me handcuffed to a bed pillar in our bedroom and it was a long time of recovery—emotionally.”
So, because of that and the fact that this Oberlin native missed Kansas, Donna came back.
“There is something about Midwestern people that you don’t find in other places of the world. When you go home…you really go home.”
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(Singing) “Well, I might take a train, might take a plane, but if I’m gonna walk I’m going to get there just the same---going to Kansas City, Kansas City here I come…. |
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For the past decade, she has worked Japan, but lived in Wichita quietly producing concerts for others---while she remained in the background.
“Pitch on ‘Day by Day’ in F sharp.”
Now with one Wichita concert under her belt, and working with the New Savoy band, it just might be time for Donna Tucker to get back into the spotlight.
“Your golden sun will shine – for me.”
“My music is who I am. I have often said in fact in the last few years, that I’m going to get out of this business, that I’m not going to do this anymore. But people look at me and say…. ‘But it is who you are’.”
Donna may be planning another concert sometime in January in Wichita. We hope that happens.
Donna
Tucker (Mp3) Music Samples
♫"San
Francisco"♫ (762kb)
♫"When
I Get There"♫ (1.73 mb) |
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