Classic album: At Mister Kelly's

Call yourself a jazz singer? Aspire to this and if you get half way there you are well on your way. Sarah Vaughan and her trio At Mister Kelly's (EmArcy) is still a revelation. I have heard this album many times over the years and cherish it. But it …

Published: 28 Feb 2020. Updated: 4 years.

Call yourself a jazz singer? Aspire to this and if you get half way there you are well on your way.

Sarah Vaughan and her trio At Mister Kelly's (EmArcy) is still a revelation. I have heard this album many times over the years and cherish it. But it is still a jaw dropper and listening again today it is as if for the first time. Why? Well you can still imagine yourself there given how atmospheric and real and unclinical it is. The songs enter your very pores.

The album dates from August 1957. ''Sassy'' aka ''the Divine'' Sarah Vaughan, still a potent influence on such singers today as the still scandalously too-underknown Deelee Dubé, as recorded live with lyric sheets at Mister Kelly’s jazz club in Chicago.

Redolent of the intimacy of jazz complete with a range of marvellous songs that would flatter any singer even today, an amazing voice, one of the few to impress the bebop generation who in the main generally did not call much for jazz vocals, and incredible piano accompaniment from Jimmy Jones, with the great future Out To Lunch and Astral Weeks bassist Richard Davis and bebop great Roy Haynes on drums to hand.

The songs are:

September in the Rain (Al Dubin, Harry Warren)

Willow Weep for Me (Ann Ronell)

Just One of Those Things (Cole Porter)

Be Anything (But Be Mine) (Irving Gordon)

Thou Swell (Lorenz Hart, Richard Rodgers)

Stairway to the Stars (Matty Malneck, Mitchell Parish, Frank Signorelli)

Honeysuckle Rose (Andy Razaf, Fats Waller)

Just a Gigolo (Julius Brammer, Irving Caesar, Leonello Casucci)

How High the Moon (Nancy Hamilton, Morgan Lewis)

Dream (Johnny Mercer)

I'm Gonna Sit Right Down (And Write Myself a Letter) (Fred E. Ahlert, Joe Young)

It's Got to Be Love (Rodgers and Hart)

Alone (Nacio Herb Brown, Arthur Freed)

If This Isn't Love (Yip Harburg, Burton Lane)

Embraceable You (George Gershwin, Ira Gershwin)

Lucky in Love (Lew Brown, Buddy DeSylva, Ray Henderson)

Dancing in the Dark (Howard Dietz, Arthur Schwartz)

Poor Butterfly (John Golden, Raymond Hubbell)

Sometimes I'm Happy (Irving Caesar, Vincent Youmans)

I Cover the Waterfront (Johnny Green, Edward Heyman)

Make listening time! Reflect on the paucity of truly great jazz singers today while you are at. Ponder too on whether a Mister Kelly's in terms of a comparable congenial jazz spot properly capable of hosting in terms of the spirit of the place such a sound exists anywhere. Perhaps you'll have to journey to the Keystone Korner in Baltimore in search of that Holy Grail if what I'm hearing on the grapevine is true.

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Delfeayo Marsalis and the Uptown Jazz Orchestra, Jazz Party, Troubadour Jass Records

At last: the Delfeayo Marsalis record that we have all been dreaming of. Breathing new life into trad New Orleans jazz all over again Jazz Party has a great joie de vivre to it. Perfect for Mardi Gras the album personnel includes a likeable Tonya …

Published: 28 Feb 2020. Updated: 4 years.

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At last: the Delfeayo Marsalis record that we have all been dreaming of.

Breathing new life into trad New Orleans jazz all over again Jazz Party has a great joie de vivre to it.

Perfect for Mardi Gras the album personnel includes a likeable Tonya Boyd-Cannon on the title track and on stand-out 'Blackbird Special' the Dirty Dozen’s Roger Lewis.

Marsalis, often the underdog in the Marsalis dynastic firmament, himself is nimble and communicative throughout and shows why he is a trombone great.

A reminder why many of us like jazz in the first place. What a surprise. There was me thinking the early styles were more of a museum piece. There is a core to a century of the music after all and that core is evidenced in few places anywhere nowadays but is certainly here in all its tightly arranged exuberance and easily rustled up wild air of celebration. It takes a certain genius to tease it all out and make us listen up. Great finally to hear trad sounds delivered in such an unstuffy and unstodgy way factors that often ruin the style or make it tourist music or an historical curiosity. Memo to big bro Wynton: Del's in his prime. Sazeracs all round. SG