Listening to Alice Grace singing If I Knew Then (What I Know Now) at the Globe last Sunday prompted me to seek out the Sarah Vaughan album, Swingin' Easy, from which Alice drew her inspiration.
Sassy's album had been gathering dust (hence the heading) on the shelf for decades - for which I hang my head in shame - I should have been playing it non-stop forever (exaggeration!) it has surely got to be a contender in anyone's list of all-time great jazz vocal albums. It's up there with the Ella's, the Billie's and the Dinah Washington's.
The opening Shulie A Bop was maybe the first scat vocal that knocked me out. Great as Ella's were, listening retrospectively, they now come across as contrived unlike Sarah whose vocal improvisations still sound as fresh as tomorrow.
A choice selection of tunes and, like Sinatra - perhaps even more so - she can rephrase, move the emphasis or the timing of a lyric making it near impossible to sing a long to and, if you want to do that you're in the wrong ball park - maybe you should linga-longa somewhere else...
The backing trio are jazz royalty themselves. Jimmy Jones, one of the greatest accompanists ever, feeds Sass with the most beautiful chords ever heard back then in 1954 as does Malachi in 1957 who slots in some juicy solos. Joe Benjamin, top bassman (1954), Richard Davis (1957) maybe even more so and Roy Haynes - The Greatest!
A beautiful album. My piece of vinyl is on Emarcy EJL 1273 but no doubt it's available on CD as well as on YouTube, Spotify and various other bootleggers.
Anyone care to write about their favourite album? Lance
Shulie A Bop; Lover Man; I Cried For you; Polka Dots and Moonbeams; All of Me; Words Can't Describe; Prelude to a Kiss; You Hit the Spot; Pennies From Heaven; If I Knew then; Body and Soul; They Can't Take that Away From me.
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