Yvonne De Carlo Sings

 

One For My Baby

Yvonne De Carlo Sings

Orchestra Conducted by John Towner

Masterseal Records 

1957

From the back cover: Miss De Carlo was born in Vancouver, B.C., Canada, and christened Peggy Yvonne Middleton. Her first step into the entertainment world was attending dancing class at King Edward's High School. Intensive training at the Vancouver Little Theatre launched her acting career. After a number of secondary roles in Hollywood, she got her big break winning the much sought after, provocative title role in Walter Wanger's production of "Salome – Where She Danced." From then on her lovely face wand traffic-stopping figure became internationally known.

Yvonne De Carlo studied voice with the late, great Gennaro Curci for five years. Her first ambition as a singer was the era. She made her operatic debut as a star in Strauss' "Die Fledermanus" at a jam-packed Hollywood Bowl. Both the critics and the public were tremendously impressed with the "new" Yvonne De Carlo. She was a Hit! But it is in the pop field that Yvonne De Carlo will score her greatest singing triumphs. Here is a De Carlo performance of favorites that blend a perfect combination of sophistication and mellowness. Sit back and listen. You'll do it again and again.

The End Of A Love Affair

In The Blue Of The Evening

I Got It Bad

Am I Blue

Little Girl Blue

Blue Moon

But Not For Me

Mood Indigo

One For My Baby

Ain't Doing Too B-A-D, Bad - Bobby Bryant

 

Change Is Gonna Come

Ain't Doing Too B-A-D, Bad

The Bobby Bryant Sextet

Album Production: Esmond Edwards

Album Supervision: Charles Hammond

Cover Photo: Lou Blackburn

Cover Design: Jerry Griffith

Recorded: February, 1967, at Marty's On The Hill, Los Angeles, California

Engineer: Wally Heider

Cadet Records LP 795

1967

Bobby Bryant - Trumpet

Hadley Caliman - Tenor Saxophone 

Herman Riley - Tenor Saxophone

Joe Sample - Piano 

John Duke - Bass

Carl Lott - Drums

From the back cover: Sometimes the best way to be eloquent is to be ungrammatical. Duke Ellington proved that in 1932 when he wrote It Don't Mean A Thing If It Ain't Got That Swing. By the same token, some of the smoothest jazz on the scene has the roughest edges running though it.

Bobby Bryant is the perfect embodiment of these contradictions. As urbane as he is urban (a gentleman with muscles), bobby reveals his Hattiesburg, Mississippi, roots as soon as he fronts his own hard-driving sextet. It comes out in an idiom known as "down home", a sensuous, funky, blues-based, gospel-tinged sound that makes even the most inhibited and tone-deaf react to its unabashed earthiness. (A classic example of the spontaneous reaction can the heard in the midst of Bobby's opening cadenza. One of his fans at Mart's urged him on with the remark that was destined bo became the albums' title: Ain't Doin' Too B-A-D, Bad.)

Another facet of Bobby's musical personality is found in his studio activities. He is one of Los Angeles' most sought-after trumpeters, not only for the burgeoning movie and TV soundtrack activates, but to work in the bands formed by greats such as Oliver Nelson, Gary McFarland and Charles Mingus for festivals and special club engagements. 

That's when his Chicago and Los Angeles backgrounds come to the fore. And that's when his flawless reading ability and his durable chops come in handy. Studio work is demanding in Hollywood: an eight o'clock call at Warner Bros., rehearsal for the Andy Williams show, recording sessions into the wee hours... it requires the kind of musicianship and constitution that Bobby has – and thrives on.

While the two sides of Bobby Bryant are comparative, his musical make-up does indicate a presence for the raw emotion of swinging in a club, stretching out if the mood hits him and exchanging ideas in a highly charged atmosphere of call and response – not only with his side men, but with his "congregation". Which brings to mind Della Reese's accolade, quoted in the DOWN BEAT profiled of Bobby, "This isn't a lounge... this is a Baptist church and we're having' a revival meeting."

And that's the feeling that should hit you once you start listening to these preachments. Sunny Demonstrates how intensity can build even at a provocatively slow tempo. Bobby sermon is urged on by the soulful riffs of tenor saxophonists Hadley Caliman and Herman Riley. An even slower tempo, the booming bass of John Duke, the contractual lines off the two tenors and  the occasional double-time feel by drummer Carl Lott proved a lush foundation for Bobby's big fat tone on Dale Frank's arrangement of Love Is Supreme.

The other Dale Frank chart in this collection (all the rest are by Bobby Bryant), Don't Say Goodbye, show how rock can by intelligently integrated with jazz. It also shows pianist Joe Sample at his funkiest, whether coming behind Herman Riley's gutsy solo or stating his own full-bodied thoughts.

Herman Riley is given the chance to stretch out in the Stix Hopper original, Blues For Ramona. The track cooks immediately, thanks to some tasteful walking by Johnny Dukes. Toward the end of Riley's solo, there is a wild, free-swinging Dixieland-type chorus that finds the whole front line breaking it iup. Before the number ends, Joe Sample contributes his most inspired solo.

Bobby's horn of plenty dominated the Sam Cook tune, A Change Is Gonna Come; and while the same warm, forceful tone livens up Girl Talk, this track also says a great deal about Bobby's writing. The three-way voicing, with its oversew of phrasing) note the control of dynamics on the title itself: "Talk" is almost a whisper_ one Carl Lott's "Stripper" accents on the second and fourth beats of each measure run this girl talk into a funk gabfest.

The most characteristic sound – and the most requested tuen in Bobby's book – is his own 58th Street; a unison head that seems to have been hewn from granite; the tenors' response to Bobby's exhortations; the rock-bound enticement of Carl Lott; the extended break in the release climaxed by Joe Sample's churchy pick-up phrase; and Bobby's dramatic postscript while the tenors trill... this is the stuff that keeps jazz alive. As long as you can buy records like this or hear combos like Bobby's, jazz "ain't doin' too bad." – Burt Nelson - Hollywood Citizen-News

Sunny

Love Is Supreme

Blues For Ramona

A Change Is Gonna Come

58th Street

Girl Talk

Don't Say Goodbye

Country Music Spectacular!

 

Sweet Dreams

Searching

County Music Spectacular!

The Golden Song Hits Of The Fifties!

Top Performances by Top Name Artists

Starday SLP 117

Kirby Buchanan – A Satisfied Mind
Frankie Miller – Family Man
Tommy Hill – Country Girl
James O'Gwynn – Tupelo County Jail
Jimmy Blakely – Gonna Find Me A Bluebird
Tommy Hill – There's A Big Wheel
Tommy Hill – Who Shot Sam
Benny Barnes – Conscience I'm Guilty
George Jones – Wasted Works
Jeanette Hicks – Searching
Sleepy LaBeff – I Walk The Line
Buddy Starcher – Battle of New Orleans
Eddie Noack – Invitation to the Blues
George Jones – Why Baby Why
Johnny Mathis – Geisha Girl
Tommy Hill – Mary Don't You Weep
Cowboy Copas – Black Cloud Risin'
George Jones – Sweet Dreams

Leon Payne – You Are The One
Tommy Hill – A Woman's Intuition
Eddie Noack – City Lights
Tommy Hill – The Same Old Me
Jimmy Blakely – Fraulein
Kirby Buchanan – Timbrook
Howard Crockett – Johnny Reb
George Jones – I'll Take The Chance
Tommy Hill – Under Your Spell Again
Arlie Duff – You All Come
Frankie Miller – Black Land Farmer
Hill – I've Got A New Heartache
Eddie Noack – Squaws Along the Yukon
Eddie Noack – Oh Lonesome Me
Patsy Timmons– I Can't Stop Loving You
Leon Payne – Crazy Arms
George Jones – Hold Everything
Leon Payne – Blackboard of My Heart

The End On Bongos! - Jack Burger

 

Negre Setin

The End In Bongos

Jack (Bongo) Burger

HIFI Records R 804

1957

Jack Burger - Bongos, Drums, Effects

Buddy Collette - Flute, Saxophone

Bobby Gil - Piano

Ray Blagof - Trumpet

Don Tosti - Electric Bass

Tito Rivera - Congo, Drums

Elmer Schmidt - Marimba, Piano Tumba, Llamador

From the back cover: The End On Bongos features the sharpest skin slapper of them all – Jack (Bongo) Burger!

When we asked Jack to do this album he almost leaped into our laps. So great was his enthusiasm, we had to listen to a two-hour discourse on Cuban and African rhythms, the sounds of the Orient, modern jazz, and something concerning an Aborigine tribe bouncing huge logs on a cement slab to produce music.

The talk came fast and furious, but not until the actual session did we fully appreciate the excitingly different and unusual sound of this swinging group. Comparatively little written music was used, although a few actual arrangements were. Most of the arrangements were spontaneous, from sketches. The musicians used from the date were hand-picked, and carefully selected for ingenuity in their particular field. They understood what Jack was striving for, the enthusiastically delineated the very essence of the Bongo-Cuban-Latin-Mambo feeling. The sensitivity of the group help create the mood that is so difficult to get on paper. Some of the tracks sound like an African, Cuban, Oriental bop type of Mambo, and the rest runs the gamut of Cuban music.

In this album is as complete a variety of percussive sounds as can be imagined. Among the many unusual instruments are a Japanese koto harp used in "China Night Mambo," along with gongs, temple blocks, tsunami drums, etc. Connoisseurs of the most advanced and exotic percussive subtleties will dig Jack Burger's expert use of clackers, tweeters, boings, scratchers, boomers, a going(!), and the jawbone of a donkey!

From Billboard - November 25, 1957: "Hi-Fi," in the real sense of the word, best defines the basic appeal of this set. Variety of percussion sounds, which dominate and ring true, should be strongly appealing to hi-fi addicts. All of the material is treated in Latin vein and is compelling for its authenticity, often for its danceability. Combination of appeals – to hi-fi buyer and Latin buyer – could make this an excellent seller.

Boulevard Of Broken Dreams

China Nights Mambo

Miserly

Jordu

Noche En Descalvado

Mambo Burger

A Yiddisha Mambo

Negre Setin

Conversar En La Noche

Blue Prelude

Chiu Chiu

Cool Heat - Anita O'Day

 

Hershey Bar

Cool Heat

Anita O'Day Sings Jimmy Giuggre Arrangements

Verve MGV-8312

1959

From the back cover: But its very gentleness and supple lyricism, this is a unique Anita O'Day album. Her singing is no less ardent or swinging than it customarily is; but for the first time in several years, practically a whole program has been given over to one of the most attractive but increasingly less known elements of Anita's work – her capacity to concentrate her emotion, to underplay, and to swing softly.

The most familiar image of Anita has been as one of the last of the irrepressible hot jazz singers who scats with driving abandon and who can swing a tune with the dynamism of Roy Eldridge building a final chorus. In the past couple of years, there has been added the show-biz Anita who has included several carefully tailored novelties in her act; and who has devised a visual-aural effect in night clubs and jazz festivals that resembles a Harper's Bazaar girl show has been reading both Norman Mailer and vintage Dorothy Parker.

Only traces of either of these images are contained in this album. Anita here, for one thing, is entirely musical with almost no concession to Bobby Shortism. The ballads are handles with uncommon musical taste – most notably, I think, Joe and Aileen Albany's You're A Clown which has a wryly attractive  melodic line. The scat singing re-emphasizes the fact that Anita is one of the few singers of either sex who is a master of that tricky device without making it sound as if scat singing were simply a matter of juggling skill. Her scat work here is in thorough musical context – for example, the airy verve of her treatment of Johnny Mandel's Hershey Bar, first made relatively renowned years ago by Stan Getz. The lyricism that relaxes her work in this album is not without occasional irony, as in Mack The Knife and My Heart Belongs To Daddy. Furthermore, no matter what the material and mood, Anita's celebrated beat is vividly alive in all the performances here. I was especially beguiled by the essay in triptych swinging she accomplishes in It Had To Be You with its slow, romantic opening; medium, finger-snapping middle; and Indianapolis Speedway ending.

The choice of tunes is refreshingly surprising. In addition to Hershey Bar, You'er A Clown and the underdone My Heart Belongs To Daddy, there is an aptly light-hearted treatment of the ingenious Orphan Annie. (I hope it someday occurs to a philanthropist if not a foundation to commission Lenny Bruce to write a tune about Daddy Warlocks). Hooray For Hollywood has also become a rarity in recent years, except for Doris Day. It comes from the 1937 Hollywood Hotel with the pre-private eye Dick Powell, Rosemary and Lola Lane (but alas, no Priscilla), Hugh Herbert, and even Louella Parsons, the George Crater of Hollywood columnists.

I have no way of knowing whether this album – recorded in Hollywood in April, 1959 – portends a general change of style in Anita's singing. In any case, however, it is a delightful addition to the O'Day discography and will, I expect, bear up under many playings. Miss O'Day is cooking, as they say in the less esoteric trade journals, with less of a bravura display of flame here, but the temperature is just as high, and the results, I think, add up to one of the best readings she has ever made. – Nat Hentoff

Mack The Knife

Easy Come, Easy Go

Orphan Annie

You're A Clown

Gone With The Wind

Hooray For Hollywood

It Had To Be You

Come Rain Or Come Shine

Hershey Bar

A Lover Is Blue

My Heart Belongs To Daddy

The Way You Look Tonight

Guitar... Paris - Tony Mottola

 

All Of The Sudden My Heart Sings

Guitar... Paris

Tony Mottola

Originated and Produced by Enoch Light

Associate Producers: Julie Klages and Robert Byrne

Arrangements by Tony Mottola and Lew Davis

Cover Photo & Design: George S. Whiteman

Command Quadraphonic CQD 40001

A Product of ABC Records Inc.

1971

Boulevard Of Broken Dreams

The Poor People Of Paris

All Of The Sudden My Heart Sings

La Vie En Rose

Under Paris Skies

Michele

Dominque

Gigi

C'est Si Bon

Comme Ci, Comme Ca 

Mimi

Can't We Be Friends? - Jane Powell

 

Can't We Be Friends

Can't We Be Friends

Jane Powell

Cover Photo by Phil March

Verve MGV-2023

1956

From the back cover: Can't we be friends? Yes, indeed. Jane Powell would certainly like to be friends – but only if it's a friendship based on a realistic appraisal of who she is and how old she is, today. Jane, in short, is no longer the sugary ingenue of so many years of MGM musicals. Today, Jane Powell is a grown up young woman – very much so. It is the that anyone with eyes – males, preferably  – would need virtually no convincing at all along these lines. In her mid-20s Jand stands 5 feet and her 100 pounds are distributed to form an extraordinarily pleasing outline. She is, moreover, a blonde. As the title of a recent Parade magazine article expressed it, "She's a Big Girl Now."

All of this is preamble to this album, in which Miss Powell sings in a manner at odds from anything she has ever before recorded. Here is the Jane Powell not of the movie musicals, but the Jane Powell of Las Vegas and Miami nightclubs, a bedazzling performer in a decollate gown and armed with warm sophistication. How did she get this way? To begin with, Jane Powell was born Suzanne Burce, the daughter of Paul and Eileen Burce, in Portland, Ore. Bu the time she was 7 she was singing on a children's radio show in Portland but it wasn't until the was 11 that the idea occurred to undergo instruction of any sort. Her first teacher was astonished by the quality in the young girl's voice and urged her to practice three hours every day. Soon the teacher arranged for an audition at a Portland radio station –KOIN – and not long thereafter Jane was singing on her own show as one of Portland's most popular entertainers. As a teenager Jane, with her parents, visited Los Angeles on a three-week vacation. Although Jane confessed her major interest at the time was in collecting stars' autographs,  happened to venture into a Hollywood Showcase broadcast. Janet Gaynor was mistress of ceremonies. When Jane sang an aria from "Carmen," she not only won the contest but was swamped with calls from talent agents. A week later she was tested by MGM and promptly hired on a long-term contract. Since 1944 she has starred in 17 motion pictures but only in her most recent one, RKO Radio Pictures, "The Girl Most Likely," has she found herself in a mature role –  and no longer, incidentally, under exclusive contract to MGM.

Until now, Miss Powell's recordings had been either from sound tracks of her movies or along a classical vein. It was Buddy Bergman, artist and repertoire director off Verve Records, who had the notion that Miss Powell could do so well buy popular standards. Since Miss Powell had long entertained such a suspicion herself it was a fruitful meeting of the minds. From a list of 150 songs 12 were finally selected – all of them, as you will hear, varied in mood and familiar but not too familiar. Miss Powell, substantiating her reputation as a true professional, rehearsed these songs for a month and a half before entering the recording studio. Bu then she was ready and the session, went as a result, quicker than most with Bregman conducting the full orchestra in his own arrangements.

Still, there is the inevitable question: can a soprano, one who is able to shatter a glass at 20 paces when she's of a mind, actually sing such pop standards as, say, "I Got It Bad And That Ain't Good" or "How Come You Do Me Like You Do" and remain in the popular-song idiom? The answer, of course, is yes – if the soprano has the versatility of a Jane Powell. But the album itself provides the best possible answer.

From Billboard - December 1, 1956: The movie canary has enjoyed considerable success with her current single waxing of "True Love," which should help this LO chalk up some sizable returns. The package should also do well on its own merits – particularly on the deejay circuit. It spotlights the thrush on a group of standards in her usual fine light opera style, contrasted by some equally effective piping in a swingier vein. Excellent cover portrait adds dealer display value.

My Baby  Just Cares For Me

For Every Man There's A Woman

Imagination

I Got It Bad And That Ain't Good

Ev'ry Time

Comes Love

Let's Face The Music

In Love In Vain

How Come You Do Me Like You Do

Can't We Be Friends

The Things We Did Last Summer

Upper Classmen - Jimmy Rowles

 

El Tigre

Upper Classmen

Jimmy Rowles and His Upper Classmen

Cover Photo: Robert C. Buckram

Interlude MO 515

1959

Jimmy Rowles - Piano

Barney Kessel - Guitar (courtesy of Contemporary Records)

Red Mitchell - Bass

Larry Bunker - Vibes

Pete Candoli - Trumpet

Mel Lewis - Drums

Harold Land - Tenor Sax

From Billboard - November 30, 1959: Neat but not gaudy small group jazz is the product of the septet fronted by Jimmy Rowles on piano. Nobody blows too hard and the result is a smooth-flowing, easy listening set. Barney Kessel's guitar is a big help, and there are also strong contributions from Pete Candoli (trumpet), Harold Land (tenor) and Larry Bunker (vibes), with Red Mitchell on bass and Mel Lewis on drums, included are "East Of The Sun," and a moody waltz-tempo "Lullaby Of Birdland."

Lullaby Of Birdland

Tea For Two

All For You

Body And Soul

El Tigre

Cheetas' For Two

The Cobra

East Of The Sun

The Blues

Perdido

Piano And Percussion - Marco Rizo

 

Bruca Manigua

Piano And Percussion

Marco Rizo – His Piano and Rhythm

Producer: Ralph Seijo

Photo: Bob Ritta

TICO LP 1076

A Product of Roulette Records, Inc.

1961

From Billboard - May 1, 1961: Rizo's Latin-styled piano plus such elements of percussion as maracas, claves, bongos, etc., make up a dynamic disk. The material covers a board range for in addition to distinctly Latin compositions there are such items as "Ritual Fire Dance," "Sabre Dance," etc.

Canción De Gail

Bruca Manigua

Danza Lucumi

The River (El Rio)

Sambalero

Sabre Dance

Kitten On The Keys

Tabu

Joey's Song

Hawaii

Gitanerias

Ritual Fire Dance

That Satin Doll - Carol Stevens

 

Lureleli

That Satin Doll

Carol Stevens

With Phil Moore's Music

Musical Director: Phil Moore

Recording Engineer: Tow Dowd

Cover Photo of Carol Stevens: Jerry Schatzberg

Cover Design: Marvin Israel

Supervision: Nesuhi Ertegun

Atlantic Recording Corporation 1256

1957

Personnels: On every take except Living In The Hay, In A Mellowtone and Saved It All For You, Carol Stevens is accompanied by Phil Moore or Frank Berry, piano, Berry Galbraith, guitar; Milt Hinton, bass; Osie Johnson, drums; Don Elliott, trumpet or mellophone; Romeo Warren Covington, trombone and Bernard Kaufman, bass clarinet or flute.

On Lying In The Hay, In A Mellowtone and Saved It All For You, Carol Stevens is accompanied by the same rhythm section and Nick Travis, trumpet; Eddie Bert, trombone; Herbie Mann, alto flute; Sol Schlinger, bass clarinet; Phil Bonder, English horn or clarinet and Phil Kraus, percussion.

From the back cover: "The thing that intrigued me about Carol Stevens", say Phil Moore, "was that her name was first mentioned to me by another singer. Now it's rare enough for one girl to compliment another, but when a female singer starts to rave about another female singer, you have to have a look-see-hear".

Phil admits that when Carol Stevens was brought to him, he understood instantly why even another female singer could praise her unselfishly and try to  help her. The sound of her voice makes an electrifying first impression. It ranges down to D below middle C and in its lower octave has the dark, haunting tone color of the bassoon; in the middle register it is not unlike the viola. Her voice takes on an astonishing range of hues in ascending of descending, and to a masculine ear, its vibrant sensuality is disturbing in the nth degree. The color combinations possible with a voice like Carol Stevens' in the framework of the unique ensemble assembled by Moore for this LP proved to be almost unlimited.

When Phil began to work with Carol, her professional experience had been limited almost entirely to singing with a society orchestra, yet he realized that she did not need a vocal coach. "My part was psychological", he said. "When you start with persons who have a great natural talent, the problem is not so much to reach them, but to free them from their inhibitions and help them to discover their own ways of expressing themselves best. Then it is simply a question of finding the best setting for such a talent. Of one thing I was sure", he added, "She was highly responsive to jazz rhythms and I knew she'd been completely miscast in the role of the conventional pop singer".

Carol is very striking in looks and personality. Everything about her has the stamp of a woman born to star. Her jet back hair and eyes, her enigmatic Mona Lisa smile, her expressive features, her trim figure – all produce that forceful visual effect that is summed up in the word "glamour". While all this may be of secondary importance on records, it is uncanny how much of her visual magnetism is projected on the LP.

The songs picked of this album are songs of high-voltage emotion, and run the whole gamut from under-the-lamp-post seduction to Liebesschmerz of near-tragic proportions. One side of they LP is going to provoke much comment, for in the selections on it Carol does not sing words at all; her voice is used instrumentally and with tremendous effect. Phil said of those particular songs, "A voice doesn't have to use words to communicate – especially when it's projected through a wonderful instrument called woman. Most of the real meaning that words conveyed is done by stress and inflection in spoken speech, and by what we read been the lines' in written discourse. In the wordless but vocalized songs here, the listener must participate, he must create his own image of what Carol is expressing. For the listener to participate in the creative act is a fare more satisfying experience than to have everything spelled out literally".

This device has been used before, of course. In the classical music field, Villa-Lobos' Bachianas Brasilieras No. 5 comes to mind; in jazz, there is Ellington's Transblucency. Phil's use of this idea, nevertheless, is novel, and one of the few extensive used of it in the last decade of jazz, other than what was called "bop singing" a few years ago. It I were to indicate a favorite in this group, I would pick out Everywhere, Bill Harris' great trombone classic, with Carol soloing here. It is a thing of rare beauty, and, I surmise, likely to be a joy forever.

Again, in the six songs that are fully verbalized, this album of Carol Steven's turns out to be quite a surprise package. To revive Lil Green's slink black dress number, Romance InThe Dark, was certainly  an inspired thought. The originality of Carol's treatment of the tune makes it freshly appealing. The same holds true for another standard, At Last, taken at the murderous upbeat tempo and styled against a very difficult rhythm pattern. The most impressive selection of all is undoubtedly Tender As A Rose, an original composition of Phil Moore's. At first, he conceived of this as a vocal blues without lyrics; later, however, he wrote a text for it, one that is unusual for its modern psychological approach (I guess Joe was pretty sick.) Phil's arrangement, with its curious "night sounds" is a masterpiece.

When Carol sings, a world of tormenting sensuality is evoked by means that seem to verge on black magic. Underneath it all are the solid craftsmanship and imaginative art of two purposeful musicians. They compliment the listener by appealing to his highest taste and his ability to share their most volatile poetic flights.  – Gary Kramer

In A Mellowtone

Satin Doll

Saved It All For You

Everywhere

Mood For You

Lurelei

Romance In The Dark

Lying In The Hay

I'm Playing With Fire

Tender As A Rose

Keep On Doin' What You're Doin'

At Last