Have this in the CD player when you get home from that 3rd date and you'll only have yourself to blame if you don't get laid. For a mostly andante collection of jazz tunes, it's remarkably upbeat in terms of mood.
The recording was made live at some club and has that trademark authentic live jazz crowd chatter. It sounds like there's maybe not even 20 people in the room although I dare say there were a lot more. At the very start the announcer advises the audience that the session is being recorded and that Ms Vaughan will use a lyric sheet. I think that's cute. It's a throwback to a simpler time when people were more easily impressed. Mind you, they were also more easily offended, more easily conned and more easily a lot of things. I just like the tone he sets.
Then on the 2nd track - Willow Weep For Me - having said she's using a lyric sheet, she messes the words up anyway and instead of shutting the hell up and letting the band cover it, she carries on singing in an extemporaneous commentary on the blunder and draws loud laughter from the crowd. The atmosphere is well established now and I just felt comfortable. Do you think if that recording were made today the producers would have included that track as is?
I think jazz should be played a certain slap dash, hap hazard irreverence. The music is serious enough.
She lampoons Ella Fitzgerald later on as she forgets the words again. An irony lost on me at the time but I've since read one of her early breaks was to open for Ella Fitzgerald at the Apollo (that's Harlem not Hammersmith :0)
Altogether a fine album for both listening and mood setting. Oh and keep an eye out for the piano player on this one, jazz dorks. Man's got chops.
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