Jackie Stoudemire - Flying high // 1982

Jackie Stoudemire - Flying high // 1982 by Tonton Decibel lll

Gene Redd , Nathaniel Yisrael & Jackie story : Like the other youth Yisrael recruited, Stoudemire grew up in Harlem, not far from the temple, and attended the High School of Music & Art with Annette Denvil. By 1982 standards, Jackie was patently hip, hanging with schoolmates Dana Dane and Slick Rick’s Kangol Crew. In Jeremiah’s eyes, she combined the perfect trait set: mature talent and work ethic with youth and impressionability. Within a few months, she was in-studio with Redd and Yisrael, where she would spend the lion’s share of 1982. Jeremiah was putting significant dollars into the recordings, using dozens of musicians for every session (purportedly Barry White’s Love Unlimited Orchestra), sometimes spending weeks perfecting the backing tracks. He upgraded studios, recording primarily at Right Track and Power Station, neither of them known for their affordability. The raw sound of Arnie Love’s Mayfair session just a year before became a distant memory. Ten songs were recorded over the course of the year, including a remake of Love’s “Invisible Wind,” with crisper strings and a simpler arrangement. Jackie’s voice was cool and sure, not a hint of her age coming through the mix. The real nugget was “Guilty,” one of the last songs Gene Redd would ever pen and some of the finest production work in a career that spanned four decades. Stoudemire was totally immersed in Jeremiah Yisrael’s life, even picking up shifts at T&T for walking-around money. Naturally, Jeremiah insisted that she join the temple. She attended a service, but it clearly wasn’t her scene. The sect forced subservience on women through dress and required them to walk three paces behind the men—concepts alien to a child of 70s New York City. At the time, Jackie’s choice was no problem for Jeremiah. They logged eight to ten hour days in the studio, culminating at the beginning of 1983 when her 12” was given a limited issue on the Tap label, along with the Missy Dee & the Melody Crew 12” (relegated to the Universal label, to separate it from the more polished material). Again, lack of distribution and promotion killed the pressing, but Jackie still felt good about it. For a woman of any age, it was an accomplished piece of work. The end for Tap began with tragedy: Gene Redd passed unexpectedly early in 1983 from a frightening illness that as yet had barely been named: AIDS. Deeply misunderstood, the disease was half a decade away from even primitive treatments, and Redd was gone before anyone knew he was sick. Without Jeremiah’s genius-muse, there wasn’t much hope for the future of his productions. Soon after, Jeremiah severed his business relationship with Jackie Stoudemire. He arrogantly explained to her parents that she was “afraid of success,” but it wasn’t difficult to read between the lines: Their parting had everything to do with Jackie’s dismissal of the Brotherhood. Jackie graduated from high school in 1983 and went immediately to performing arts college, after which she spent years as a somewhat successful stage player. Her hit finally came in 1994 when she signed to the Eightball label and blew up the club charts with “Appreciate.”