Jane Voss & Hoyle Osborne
I Want to Be Bad: The Flapper and Her Song
I Want to Be Bad: The Flapper and Her Song
Singer Jane Voss and pianist Hoyle Osborne give vivid, historically authentic readings of the songs of the women of the 1920s, the New Women – popularly known as “flappers.” These fascinating and witty songs are remarkable artifacts of one of the greatest cultural shifts in American history, when women were establishing new roles for themselves and challenging conventions about costume, behavior, employment, sexuality, and expression. Quotations from journalists, poets, and the singers themselves complement the songs.
The program is available on a subsidized basis to qualified educational institutions and organizations. Contact the New Mexico Humanities Council for details.
“Jane and Hoyle bring back the fading world of flappers and the Jazz Age with stunning focus, charm and expertise. Delightful repartee, historical anecdotes and (of course) musicianship whisk the audience back to the wicked twenties — a time of short skirts, bobbed hair, casual sex, drinking, jazz music, and bad behavior. I Want To Be Bad is a cracker of a show – my students loved it and I consider it essential viewing.”
— Tim Crofton, theatre director, United World College, Montezuma, NM
“Their affinity with the music and spirit of the ’20’s is totally contagious!”
— Deborah Blanche, Chautauqua actress
The Performers —
Jane Voss & Hoyle Osborne
Jane Voss & Hoyle Osborne have been “singing America’s history” for more than 30 years. Jane Voss was a performer-presenter at the Smithsonian’s Festival of American Folklife in the Bicentennial year, 1976. Voss & Osborne have been featured artists at many North American folk festivals, as well as at ragtime and jazz festivals. They have given countless concerts across the country and have been featured on several National Public Radio broadcasts.
Their concert-lecture 1912: A Musical Snapshot of America in the Year New Mexico Became a State was developed and presented with assistance from the New Mexico Endowment for the Humanities in 1987, the Diamond Jubilee of statehood. They have presented programs illuminating America’s cultural history through popular music and folk songs at museums, colleges, and schools.
In addition, Voss & Osborne are contemporary creative artists. Jane Voss writes songs deeply rooted in folk traditions, several of which are performed by and have been recorded by other singers. Her song “Keep in Mind (That I Love You)” has taken on a life of its own. Never a hit in the usual sense, it has nonetheless traveled so far and wide, being passed from one singer to another, that some of the people who know the song are unaware that it was written by a contemporary composer, and is not an anonymous folksong.
Hoyle Osborne composes piano pieces in the ragtime tradition. Twice his compositions have been honored as outstanding new ragtime by the Scott Joplin International Ragtime Foundation. He has also composed, arranged, and/or produced historically-based scores for theatrical productions in New Mexico and New York, and for multi-media presentations in museums and at Mesa Verde National Park. He studied folklore, American Studies, and ethnomusicology at the University of Pennsylvania, and studied music at Sonoma State University.
Voss & Osborne bring to I Want to Be Bad their expertise with jazz, blues, and popular song styles of the 1920s. Jane Voss’s singing comes right out of those styles, and she manages to evoke the spirit of the original singers while giving her own personal touch to every song. Hoyle Osborne has similarly absorbed the techniques of master pianists of the 1920s like James P. Johnson, Jelly Roll Morton, and George Gershwin. Through close study of the original recordings, which often contain details and subtleties not included in the sheet music, Voss & Osborne create richly-textured performances full of life and historical authenticity.
More information about
I Want to Be Bad: The Flapper and Her Song
Information about Jane & Hoyle’s other Chautauqua program:
All In, Down and Out:
The Great Depression in Song and Story
Information about Jane & Hoyle’s other Chautauqua program:
All In, Down and Out:
The Great Depression in Song and Story
Available in 2009 through the Chautauqua Program of the New Mexico Humanities Council.
Bibliography / discography posted at Amazon.
More information about
I Want to Be Bad:
The Flapper and Her Song
Bibliography / discography posted at Amazon.
More information about
I Want to Be Bad:
The Flapper and Her Song
“They deserve accreditation as historical landmarks, not because they are that old but because they are preserving popular music styles that have for the most part been allowed to sink into the sands of time.”
– San Francisco Examiner
