Jo + Jazz - Jo Stafford

Jo + Jazz
Jo Stafford
Arranged and Conducted by Johnny Mandel
Featuring Ben Webster, Johnny Hodges, Ray Nance, Jimmy Bowles & Don Fagerquist
Photo: John Engstead
Columbia CS 8361
1960

Available from online vendors so I will not be posting a sample. Presented here to share the original cover art and jacket notes excerpt.

From the back cover: This album, the most casual hearing will quickly confirm, is something very special. It marks a departure unique in Jo Stafford's recording career, though completely in keeping with everything her name stands for in music.

While Jo is generally acknowledged to be one of the classic singers in the popular field, her acceptance in terms of the printed word has not always matched the enthusiasm accorded to some of her peers. Critics tend to draw an arbitrary line between so-called "pop music" singers and jazz vocalists, though anyone who saw Jo trading choruses with Ella Fitzgerald on a TV spectacular last year will agree that there are more elements uniting them than dividing them.

Three factors give this program its remarkable character. First, it was decided to surround Jo with several outstanding instrumental soloists, whose reputation in their field is comparable with Jo's in hers. Second, tunes were selected that have built a long and honorable reputation in both popular music and jazz. Third, all these components had to be tied together by an arranger with ideas sympathetic to Jo and the soloists.

Johnny Mandel was an inspired choice for this duty. Only 35, a native New Yorker now living near Los Angeles, he has worked in a multitude of jobs, ranging from TV staff writing, and a number of name band engagements as trumpeter or trombonist (including five months in Count Basie's brass section in 1953) through a series of West Coast studio assignments, of which his magnificent film score for I Want Love is the best known. Johnny has had extensive experience as a writer of background music for a variety of singers from Annie Ross to Gary Crosby and the stars on the pioneer TV Show of Shows.

Because Jo is one of the most distinguished alumnae of the Tommy Dorsey band, and because several men long identified with the Duke Ellington orchestra took part in these sessions, inevitably half the material chosen had a Dorsey or Ellington association. But the songs, which are from 13 to 34 years old, were selected mainly on the basis of their suitability for the musical wedding achieved on these sides. – Leonard Feather

Just Squeeze Me
For You
Midnight Sun
You'd Be So Nice TO Come Home To
The Folks Who Live On The Hill
I Didn't Know About You
What Can I Say After I Say I'm Sorry
Dream Of You
Imagination
S'posin'
Day Dream
I've Got The World On A String