FRED ASTAIRE - The Astaire Story (1953-1988) 2xCD / FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

Because he was world renowned as a dancer and quite popular as a movie actor, Fred Astaire has tended to be underrated (if not completely overlooked) as a jazz singer. Although not really an improviser, Astaire's phrasing always swung and his occasional vocals on record were usually a joy. This two-CD set is something special for it features Astaire with six members of Jazz at the Philharmonic: tenor saxophonist Flip Phillips, trumpeter Charlie Shavers, pianist Oscar Peterson, guitarist Barney Kessel, bassist Ray Brown, and drummer Alvin Stoller. Astaire sings 34 swing standards (many of which he had originally introduced in movies), dances on three ad-lib numbers, and sits out on the instrumental "Jam Session"; the musicians have plenty of opportunities to stretch out. The biggest surprise to this classic deluxe box (which was originally four-LPs) is that Fred Astaire did not do similar projects more often throughout his career. Highly recommended. by Scott Yanow

Tracklist 1:

1 Isn't This a Lovely Day? 4:26

Irving Berlin

2 Puttin' on the Ritz 2:51

Irving Berlin

3 I Used to Be Color Blind 4:14

Irving Berlin

4 The Continental 3:28

Con Conrad / Herbert Magidson

5 Let's Call the Whole Thing Off 4:36

George Gershwin / Ira Gershwin

6 Change Partners 3:13

Irving Berlin

7 'S Wonderful 2:56

George Gershwin / Ira Gershwin

8 Lovely to Look At 3:26

Dorothy Fields / Jerome Kern / Jimmy McHugh

9 They All Laughed 2:55

George Gershwin / Ira Gershwin

10 Cheek to Cheek 5:39

Irving Berlin 

11 Steppin' Out with My Baby 2:22

Irving Berlin

12 The Way You Look Tonight 2:57

Dorothy Fields / Jerome Kern

13 I've Got My Eyes on You 2:57

Cole Porter

14 Dancing in the Dark 4:45

Howard Dietz / Arthur Schwartz

15 The Carioca 4:48

Edward Eliscu / Gus Kahn / Vincent Youmans

16 Nice Work If You Can Get It 2:07

George Gershwin / Ira Gershwin

17 New Sun in the Sky 2:27

Howard Dietz / Arthur Schwartz

18 I Won't Dance 3:01

Dorothy Fields / Otto Harbach / Oscar Hammerstein II / Jerome Kern / Jimmy McHugh

19 Fast Dances 2:24

Tracklist 2:

1 Top Hat, White Tie and Tails 4:00

Irving Berlin

2 No Strings (I'm Fancy Free) 2:54
Irving Berlin / Richard Rodgers
3 I Concentrate on You 2:43

Cole Porter

4 I'm Putting All My Eggs in One Basket 2:54

Irving Berlin

5 A Fine Romance 3:43

Dorothy Fields / Jerome Kern

6 Night and Day 5:22

Cole Porter

7 Fascinating Rhythm 2:41

George Gershwin / Ira Gershwin

8 I Love Louisa 2:40

Howard Dietz / Arthur Schwartz

9 Slow Dances 2:55
10 Medium Dances 2:01
11 They Can't Take That Away from Me 4:22

George Gershwin / Ira Gershwin

12 You're Easy to Dance With 3:22

Irving Berlin

13 A Needle in a Haystack 2:22

Con Conrad / Herbert Magidson

14 So Near and Yet So Far 3:18

Cole Porter

15 A Foggy Day 4:00

George Gershwin / Ira Gershwin

16 Oh, Lady Be Good 5:01

George Gershwin / Ira Gershwin

17 I'm Building Up to an Awful Letdown 3:59

Fred Astaire / Johnny Mercer

18 Not My Girl 3:37

Fred Astaire / Desmond Carter / V. Phillips

19 Jam Session 6:34

BEVERLY KENNEY - Born to Be Blue (1955-1999) RM / FLAC (image+.cue), lossless

Born to Be Blue captures Beverly Kenney at her most intimate and compelling. Created in collaboration with arrangers Hal Mooney and Charles Albertine, the music channels the emotional depth of the blues with startling clarity, employing Kenney's deep, commanding vocals to vividly poignant effect. Mooney and Albertine forgo excess and sentimentality in favor of stark simplicity, architecting taut modern jazz contexts that shift the spotlight squarely on Kenney's vocals. Her readings of familiar songs like "For All We Know" are forged from both resiliency and vulnerability, articulating an emotional depth matched by few singers of her era. [This is the 2007 Universal reissued of the LP; an import-only Japanese CD was released in 1999.] by Jason Ankeny
Tracklist:
1 Born To Be Blue 3:28

Written By – Mel Torme, Robert Wells

2 Isn't It A Pity 2:30
Written By – George Gershwin, Ira Gershwin
3 For All We Know 3:06
Written By – J.Fred Coots, Sam Lewis
4 It Only Happens When I Dance With You 2:41
Written By – Irving Berlin
5 Again 3:15
Orchestrated By – Hal Mooney
Written By – Cochran, Dorcas, Lionel Newman
6 I Walk A Little Faster 2:50
Written By – Carolyn Leigh, Cy Coleman
7 Go Away,My Love! 2:30
Orchestrated By – Hal Mooney
Written By – Jay Livingston, Ray Evans
8 Beyond The Next Hill 2:51
Orchestrated By – Hal Mooney
Written By – Bob Haymes, Bobby Woeth
9 It's A Blue World 2:18
Written By – Bob Wright, Chet Forrest
10 Vanity 2:56
Orchestrated By – Hal Mooney
Written By – Bierman, Manus, Wood
11 Somewhere Along The Way 3:02
Written By – Kurt Adams, Sammy Gallop
12 Where Can I Go Without You 2:24
Orchestrated By – Hal Mooney
Written By – Peggy Lee, Victor Young
Credits:

Orchestrated By

Charles Albertine (tracks: 1, 6, 9, 11, 13), Hal Mooney (tracks: 2-5, 7, 8, 10, 12)

Piano – Ellis Larkins

Trumpet – Charlie Shavers (tracks: 3, 4, 10)

Vocals – Beverly Kenney

BILLY HOLIDAY - 1937-1939 {CC, 592} (1991) FLAC (tracks), lossless

While this Classics disc of Billie Holiday's 1937-1939 sides beats out Columbia's Quintessential titles for sound quality, it does pale a bit as far as top-notch material goes. That said, the 24 tracks here still boast fine performances, like "Trav'lin' All Alone," "You Go to My Head," and "I Can't Get Started." And the likes of Teddy Wilson, Lester Young, Buck Clayton, and Dicky Wells provide stellar backing. So, with the knowledge that this is part of a chronological run through Holiday's catalog -- bad songs and all -- one can still enjoy the disc with its more than merely adequate store of memorable cuts. by Stephen Cook
Tracklist:
1 Trav'lin' All Alone 2:12
J.C. Johnson
2 He's Funny That Way 2:38
Neil Moret (Chas. N. Daniels) / Richard A. Whiting
3 Now They Call It Swing 2:59
N. Cloutier / Vaughn DeLeath / Lou Handman / Walter Hirsch
4 On the Sentimental Side 3:03
Johnny Burke / James V. Monaco
5 Back in Your Own Backyard 2:40
Dave Dreyer / Al Jolson / Billy Rose
6 When a Woman Loves a Man 2:24
Bernie Hanighen / Gordon Jenkins / Johnny Mercer
7 You Go to My Head 2:52
J. Fred Coots / Haven Gillespie
8 The Moon Looks Down and Laughs 2:53
Bert Kalmar / Harry Ruby / Sid Silvers
9 If I Were You 2:33
Buddy Bernier / Bob Emmerich
10 Forget If You Can 2:49
Leonard Joy / Jack Manus / Ken Upham
11 Havin' Myself a Time 2:29
Ralph Rainger / Leo Robin
12 Says My Heart 2:50
Burton Lane / Frank Loesser
13 I Wish I Had You 2:47
Bud Green / Al Stillman / Claude Thornhill
14 I'm Gonna Lock My Heart (And Throw Away the Key) 2:07
Jim Eaton / Terry Shand
15 Any Old Time 3:11
Artie Shaw
16 The Very Thought of You 2:44
Ray Noble
17 I Can't Get Started 2:46
Vernon Duke / Ira Gershwin
18 I've Got a Date With a Dream 2:42
Mack Gordon / Harry Revel
19 You Can't Be Mine (And Someone Else's Too) 2:20
J.C. Johnson / Chick Webb
20 That's All I Ask of You 2:55
Odean Pope
21 Dream of Life 2:43
Luther Henderson / Carmen McRae
22 You're Too Lovely to Last 2:47
Teddy McRae
23 Under a Blue Jungle Moon 2:55
Billie Holiday
24 Everything Happens for the Best 2:47
Billie Holiday / Tab Smith
 

BILLY HOLIDAY - 1939-1940 {CC, 601} (1991) FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

This volume of the Classics Chronological series places Billie Holiday's music in historical context to an unusual degree, as her recordings for the Columbia and Commodore labels have until now been reissued separately because of copyright and catalog ownership. The songs parceled together here were recorded at a crossroads in Holiday's career. The setting for the first -- in what would constitute great changes in her life and music -- was Barney Josephson's Café Society Downtown. Located at 2 Sheridan Square, this was Manhattan's first fully integrated nightclub. Its clientele included a number of politically progressive intellectuals and social activists. When she first appeared at the club on December 30, 1938, Billie Holiday was known as a spunky vocalist who presented lively renditions of pop and jazz standards in what was considered an unusual yet accessible style. It was in the year 1939 that Lady Day gradually began to create a subtler if at times more provocative persona. Part of this equation was profoundly political, and the singer's activism is most stunningly present in "Strange Fruit," a powerfully disturbing setting of a poem by Lewis Allen describing in careful detail the appearance of a lynching victim. The specter of a black body hanging from a poplar tree was and still is a powerful image that can and should haunt the listener long after the song has ended. The fact that Holiday chose to incorporate this piece into her live performances puts her in a much different category from her preexisting cabaret image of a cheerful young jazz vocalist. It is a fact that after she began presenting "Strange Fruit" to the public -- and singing at benefits for politically progressive causes -- Billie Holiday became an object of FBI surveillance. John Hammond, generally regarded as the man who discovered Holiday and helped develop her career, is known to have disliked "Strange Fruit" and was behind Columbia's refusal to record this controversial song. Fortunately for posterity, Billie, backed by an ensemble drawn from the house band at Café Society, was able to wax four of her all-time best records -- including "Strange Fruit" -- on April 20, 1939, for Milt Gabler's innovative Commodore label. On the other hand, even when heard without the benefit of these historical insights, the music included in this part of the chronology is simply some of the best jazz of its day, rendered by some of the greatest players on the scene. An overview of the trumpeters, for example, includes Frankie Newton, Hot Lips Page, Charlie Shavers, Buck Clayton, Roy Eldridge, and Harry "Sweets" Edison. Billie's first collaborations with a tenor sax player were with Kenneth Hollon during the early '30s. Hollon was on hand at Café Society and can be heard on the first three sessions presented here. Tab Smith sounds particularly fine on soprano sax during "Long Gone Blues." The band backing Billie on December 13, 1939, was essentially Count Basie's Orchestra with Joe Sullivan sitting in at the piano. And the most precious element of all is the presence of Lester Young. The combined personalities of Pres and Lady Day transformed every song into a collective ritual filled with magic and poetic grace. by arwulf arwulf  
Tracklist:
1 Why Did I Always Depend on You? 2:35
Paul Greenwood / Teddy McRae / R. Smith
2 Long Gone Blues 3:09
Billie Holiday feat: Billie Holiday & Her Orchestra
3 Strange Fruit 3:09
Lewis Allan
4 Yesterdays 3:21
Otto Harbach / Jerome Kern
5 Fine and Mellow 3:13
Billie Holiday feat: Billie Holiday & Her Orchestra
6 I Gotta Right to Sing the Blues 2:50
Harold Arlen / Ted Koehler
7 Some Other Spring 3:04
Arthur Herzog, Jr. / Irene Kitchings
8 Our Love Is Different 3:17
Billie Holiday / S. White
9 Them There Eyes 2:53
Maceo Pinkard / Doris Tauber / William Tracey
10 Swing, Brother, Swing 2:59
Lewis Raymond / Walter Bishop, Sr. / Clarence Williams
11 Night and Day 3:01
Cole Porter
12 The Man I Love 3:08
George Gershwin / Ira Gershwin
13 You're Just a No Account 3:01
Sammy Cahn / Saul Chaplin
14 You're a Lucky Guy 2:48
Sammy Cahn / Saul Chaplin
15 Ghost of Yesterday 2:41
Arthur Herzog, Jr. / Irene Kitchings / Wesley Wilson
16 Body and Soul 3:02
Frank Eyton / Johnny Green / Edward Heyman / Robert Sour
17 What Is This Going to Get Us? 2:43
Arthur Herzog, Jr. / Irene Kitchings
18 Falling in Love Again 2:53
Frederick Hollander / Sammy Lerner
19 I'm Pulling Through 3:13
Arthur Herzog, Jr. / Irene Kitchings / Irene Wilson
20 Tell Me More 3:11
Billie Holiday feat: Billie Holiday & Her Orchestra
21 Laughing at Life 2:57
Charles F. Kenny / Nick A. Kenny / Bob Todd / Cornell Todd
22 Time on My Hands 3:04
Harold Adamson / Mack Gordon / Vincent Youmans
 

BILLIE HOLIDAY - 1952 {CC, 1285} (2003) FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

Billie Holiday's recording career can be viewed in three distinct phases. The singer's evolution begins with the Vocalion/OKeh/Columbia years, steadily maturing throughout the Commodore, Decca, and latter-day Columbia sessions, then ripening into music of incredible poignancy as she recorded almost exclusively with Norman Granz for his Clef and Verve labels during the 1950s. The material reissued on this disc, recorded during the spring and summer of 1952, presents Lady Day in full bloom. There is within each of these songs a powerful elegance that is both meditative and intoxicating. Here are the slow love songs, more relaxed than ever before, with magical turns of phrasing that rise above the band like smoke in the air. When the tempo picks up, as in the old Busby Berkeley number "I Only Have Eyes for You," Billie's trustworthy trumpeting pal Charlie Shavers injects a bit of mustard into the mix. But most of the material here is languid and the overall effect is that of a jazz lieder recital where songs are savored rather than being spooled out in haste. While most of the recordings conform to the three or three-and-a-half-minute range that had been dictated for years by the 10" 78-rpm record, "Everything I Have Is Yours" and "Autumn in New York" approach the four-minute mark, anticipating the emergence of the LP, a development that would allow jazz musicians to stretch out like never before. And "stretching out" is exactly what these people are doing as they carefully render these 21 songs of love and heartbreak. by arwulf arwulf
Tracklist:
1 East of the Sun (And West of the Moon) 2:57
Brooks Bowman
2 Blue Moon 3:32
Lorenz Hart / Richard Rodgers
3 You Go to My Head 2:58
J. Fred Coots / Haven Gillespie
4 You Turned the Tables On Me 3:29
Louis Alter / Sidney Mitchell
5 Easy to Love 3:02
Cole Porter
6 These Foolish Things 3:35
Harry Link / Holt Marvell / Jack Strachey
7 I Only Have Eyes for You 2:54
Al Dubin / Harry Warren 
8 Solitude 3:32
Eddie DeLange / Duke Ellington / Irving Mills
9 Everything I Have Is Yours 3:46
Harold Adamson / Burton Lane
10 Love for Sale 2:58
Cole Porter
11 Moonglow 3:01
Eddie DeLange / Will Hudson / Irving Mills
12 Tenderly 3:25
Walter Gross / Jack Lawrence
13 If the Moon Turns Green 2:47
Paul Coates / Bernie Hanighen
14 Remember 2:37
Irving Berlin
15 Autumn in New York 3:53
Vernon Duke
16 My Man 2:39
Jacques Charles / Channing Pollack / Albert Willemetz / Maurice Yvain
17 Lover, Come Back to Me 3:37
Oscar Hammerstein II / Sigmund Romberg
18 Stormy Weather 3:43
Harold Arlen / Ted Koehler
19 Yesterdays 2:50
Otto Harbach / Jerome Kern
20 He's Funny That Way 3:13 
Neil Moret (Chas. N. Daniels) / Richard A. Whiting
21 I Can't Face the Music 3:13
Rube Bloom / Ted Koehler

BILLIE HOLIDAY - Stay with Me (1958-1991) FLAC (image+.cue), lossless

Featuring recordings from February 1955 and released in 1958, Stay with Me is a late entry in Billie Holiday's career. She was fading, but hadn't lost the dramatic quality in her delivery, nor her ability to project and tell a shattering story. She's backed by trumpeter Charlie Shavers, pianist Oscar Peterson, guitarist Herb Ellis, bassist Ray Brown, and drummer Ed Shaughnessy. [Some reissues add three bonus cuts.] by Ron Wynn
Tracklist:
1 I Wished on the Moon (Stay With Me) 6:50
Dorothy Parker / Ralph Rainger
2 Ain't Misbehavin' (I'm Savin' My Love for You) 4:40
Harry Brooks / Andy Razaf / Fats Waller
3 Everything Happens to Me 6:22
Tom Adair / Matt Dennis
4 Say It Isn't So (Stay With Me) 3:04
Irving Berlin
5 I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm 3:59
Irving Berlin
6 Always 3:59
Irving Berlin
7 Do Nothin' Till You Hear From Me (Stay With Me) 4:59
Duke Ellington / Bob Russell
- Bonus Tracks -
8 How Deep Is The Ocean * 2:56
9 What A Little Moonlight Can Do * 3:09
10 I Cried For You * 2:26
Créditos
Bass – Leonard Gaskin (tracks: 1-7), Ray Brown (tracks: 8-10)

Clarinet – Tony Scott (tracks: 1-7)
Drums – Cozy Cole (tracks: 1-7), Ed Shaughnessy (tracks: 8-10)
Guitar – Billy Bauer (tracks: 1-7), Herb Ellis (tracks: 8-10)
Piano – Billy Taylor (tracks: 1-7), Oscar Peterson (tracks: 8-10)
Tenor Saxophone – Budd Johnson (tracks: 1-7)
Trumpet – Charlie Shavers (tracks: all)
Vocals – Billie Holiday
Notas
Tracks 1-7 recorded Feb.14, 1955 in New York.
Tracks 8-10 recorded Apr.14, 1954 in New York.
*Additional tracks not on original LP.