Sarah Vaughan @ 100 part 2: Images / Swingin’ Easy
Divine: The Jazz Albums, 1954-1959, continued. (The 1954 & 1957 Trio Sessions)
The 1957 Swingin’ Easy was always one of everybody’s favorite albums - we’ve all played it a zillion times, easily. However, I didn’t realize until I worked on the Divine package in 2012 that Swingin’ Easy was actually a 12-inch expansion of an earlier 10-inch LP titled Images.
(For Mercury Records producer Bob Shad, Swingin’ Easy must have been a chance to correct a prior mistake - the title and cover of the 1954 album Images are kind of deceptive; it looks much more like an introspective ballad album than a jazz trio set. Overall, Swingin’ Easy, the cover photo of which shows Sarah lounging in a butterfly chair - the kind you see in contemporaneous movies with scenes in Beatnik coffee houses - is a much more accurate representation of the music therein.)
Swingin’ Easy features two of Vaughan’s great accompanists: John Malachi, who famously dubbed Sarah “Sassy,” on the April 2, 1954 sessions, and Jimmy Jones, who worked with Sarah all through the 1950s and early ‘60s, on the February 14, 1957 session. Richard Davis and Roy Haynes play on both - and on “Shulie A Bop,” she introduces the drummer as “Little Roy Hayne”; for all my entire career, whenever I have had occasion to write about that legendary percussionist, I have had to fight back the temptation to refer to him as “Little Roy Haynes.”
When Vaughan joined Mercury Records, the other major African- American vocalist under pact to the relatively young, Chicago-based corporation was the more R&B-oriented Dinah Washington; Vaughan and Washington were the two major singers at the company who recorded pop albums and singles for the larger Mercury label while at the same time doing jazz-oriented sessions for the ingenious producer Bobby Shad on the label’s jazz imprint, EmArcy Records. As with Nat “King” Cole’s early LPs for Capitol, the idea was that the album format was for what producers then perceived as a loftier level of music: classic songs and adult, jazz-leaning backgrounds. Not only was the LP medium new; the trio of piano, bass, and drums was a relatively new format that had gradually become the standard rhythm section in the modern jazz era.
Vaughan’s first album for Mercury was originally released in 1954 as a ten-inch, eight-song LP titled Images; three years later, when the 12-inch became the accepted LP format, four tracks were added and the record was retitled Swingin’ Easy. (The 1957 title was likely inspired by Frank Sinatra’s album Swing Easy, which was recorded in the same week, in April 1954, as Vaughan’s original Images sessions.) Though taped in a New York studio, the trio recordings capture the same easy swingin’ “Sassy” that you were likely to hear in one of the nightclubs in the mid-fifties; in fact, she cut all eight tunes for the original ten-inch release on a single date in April, which indicates that these were all songs that she had sung often in shows. The album included two ballads, “ Lover Man” and “ Body And Soul,” which she had first recorded at the start of her career and were long a part of her repertoire.“ Shulie A Bop ” was the kind of wordless, blues-based feature that Fitzgerald had been recording for years; Vaughan introduces the rhythm section by name—starting with pianist John Malachi and bassist Joe Benjamin—and is particularly percussive when announcing drummer Roy Haynes. The drummer gives the lyrics a colorful bump in the first line of “ Polka Dots And Moonbeams.”
The other four 1954 titles were all from the swing era: “They Can’t Take That Away From Me” is a bright bouncer that whets our appetite for Vaughan’s epic double-LP Gershwin project of 1957; “Prelude To A Kiss” is one of Ellington’s most plaintive ballads, with lyrics by the “Unforgettable” Irving Gordon; and “ If I Knew Then” is by a somewhat less acclaimed dance bandleader, the Midwestern favorite Dick Jurgens. “You Hit The Spot ” is a gem, opening slow and stately with a rarely sung verse, and then launching excitingly into tempo.
Three years later, when producer Shad decided to record another five songs for the 12-inch LP, Sarah’s pianist and bassist were Jimmy Jones and Richard Davis. Haynes remained on drums, punctuating “Pennies From Heaven” in his own distinct way. The standout tune is “Words Can’t Describe,” an outstanding, little-known ballad, not notably recorded again until almost 50 years later by Freddy Cole. “I Cried For You” was a Vaughan favorite that she had recorded for Columbia and sung live with the accompaniment of both Lester Young and Charlie Parker. “All Of Me” is an opportunity for another protracted scat episode, largely with just bass and snare drums, and “Linger Awhile,” which had already been used as the title for a Vaughan album on Columbia, is a shortie that sounds like something Vaughan would have used as a chaser in the clubs; it stayed in the Mercury vault before being released in 1986.
LUCKY STRIKE EXTRAS! (BONUS VIDEOS)
Here’s proof how much people loved the Swingin’ Easy album: it’s 1969; Sarah Vaughan is performing in Copenhagen. She had a bit of stagecraft wherein she would ask the audience for requests - sometimes she made a gag out of it, and sometimes she would sincerely try to fill a spontaneous request. Here, someone chimes in asking for “Shulie-A-Bop” and she decides to do it. However, her current trio (John Veith, piano; Gus Mancuso, bass; Ed Pucci, drums) isn’t familiar with the tune, so she explains, “It’s really the blues - we just stuck that name on there.” (The description for this clip is en Espanole, but it’s Copenhagen 1969).
Here’s another “Shulie-a-Bop” from the same tour - this must be slightly later. Sarah is in the same gown, but this time she doesn’t have to explain what the song is to the Trio. Note that the caption identifies the song title as “If I Had a Bell” - obviously, incorrect! (Maybe it’s a mashup of “If I Were a Bell” and “If I Had a Hammer.” Oh, those krazy krauts! Anyhow, this clip doesn’t seem to be on YouTube anywhere, so here it is, from the Fabulous Friedwald Files.)
“Body and Soul” was one of Sarah’s perennials: it was the song with which she won the Apollo Theater amateur night in 1942, thus propelling her to immortality, and she recorded it many times over nearly 50 years - both live and in studio. We’re including a great version from the same 1969 Copenhagen concert at the Film Forum, but here’s another terrific performance, with her great trio of the mid-1970s with Carl Schroeder, piano; John Gianelli, bass; and Jimmy Cobb, drums.
Lastly, “Polka Dots and Moonbeams” was probably her favorite song by the great Jimmy Van Heusen. (Surprisingly, she only sang “Here’s that Rainy Day” on a live London concert later issued on an obscure CD - however, we have a great TV performance in a duet with Tony Bennett that we’ll share in the near future.) At the Film Forum, we’re including an excellent version of “Polka Dots” from the Antibes Jazz Festival in 1963 (with the Kirk Stuart Trio), but here’s another swell performance from the same 1969 Berlin concert - this time they got the title right!
Very Special thanks to the fabulous Ms. Elizabeth Zimmer, for expert proofreading of this page, and scanning for typos, mistakes, and other assorted boo-boos!
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Love when she plays piano and sings too. Inspired! I get the chills. I love that Body and Soul clip....What a treasure!