Sarah Vaughan @ 100, part 3: In the Land of Hi-Fi
Divine: The Jazz Albums, 1954-1959, continued.
In The Land of Hi-Fi (1955)
Don’t let the title fool you! This is not a recording technology demonstration album, but the first of Sarah Vaughan’s first of many great big band albums. It was arranged and conducted by the legendary Ernie Wilkins, who, at that moment, was just establishing his bonafides as one of the all-time great writers for both big bands and singers. I happen to have a particular love for “It Shouldn’t Happen to a Dream,” a lesser-known Ellington work with a fine lyric by Don George, and what might be the first vocal version of the jazz standard “Cherokee” with a less-than-fine lyric by composer Ray Noble. In any case, hi-fi or not, this is a great set.
In 1955, Mercury celebrated new developments in technology, particularly the 12-inch LP and improved recording quality, with a series of albums by at least four different artists, including Vaughan, Patti Page, Dinah Washington and Cannonball Adderley, titled In The Land of Hi-Fi. Each of these is among the more excellent releases of the era. Vaughan’s In The Land of Hi-Fi is audaciously swinging, one of the great albums of a great career, and constitutes her most important meeting with the remarkable orchestrater Ernie Wilkins, as well as with alto saxophonist Cannonball Adderley; visiting from his own Hi-Fi album, he solos satisfyingly on, among other tracks, the jazz standards “How High The Moon” and “Cherokee,” the latter in a rare vocal version.
Wilkins, who made pop music history that same year with his arrangement for Count Basie and Joe Williams’s hit “Every Day I Have the Blues,” herewith leads an all-star band that he makes sound a lot bigger than 11 pieces. Vaughan is obviously thoroughly jazzed by their presence: it’s hard to think of a session, even in this exceptional era, where Vaughan sounds more joyous and more deeply in touch with the inner rapture of her own voice.
In The Land of Hi-Fi consists of 10 standards, nearly all of which are delivered excitingly up-tempo. The closest thing to a traditional ballad is the Sinatra-Dorsey hit “I’ll Never Smile Again”; there are also two new songs, one of which, “Don’t Be On The Outside,” proves its worth in this heady company.
Many singers expressed reluctance to sing Judy Garland’s signature, “Over The Rainbow,” yet Vaughan charges into it with reckless abandon. “Soon” and “Maybe” are two more Gershwin classics, and “Why Can’t I” is a Rodgers & Hart ballad (from Jumbo) to which not enough singers pay attention. Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane’s “An Occasional Man” is a new tune, from the film The Girl Rush, that would become a leitmotiv for worldly wise supper club divas, and Vaughan sings it with the attendant humor that it requires. “It Shouldn’t Happen to a Dream” is derived from the Duke Ellington/Johnny Hodges axis with a knowing lyric by Don George. “Don’t Be On The Outside” is a successful but unassuming novelty by the blues-centric team who later wrote the Basie standard “All Right, Okay, You Win.” “Oh My,” conversely, never quite finds its footing.
LUCKY STRIKE EXTRAS!
“Over the Rainbow” would become something of a career perennial for Vaughan; she sang it consistently over the years, up until the end of her life. There’s a truly great performance from 1956 with Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey and their Orchestra, in which she plays piano - we’re showing that at the Film Forum. Below please find a 1958 version from Amsterdam, as well as a really exceptional version from 1976 at Montreux, in which “Sassy” summons up no less that the great Illinois Jacquet to join her. (Alas, this is the only number he plays on. This latter clip is on YouTube, but here’s a much-upgraded copy of it.)
Vaughan is virtually the only major singer to tackle Ray Noble’s tale of a “brave Indian warrior” (although Karryn Allyson gave us a memorable version in 1996) - I wonder why? (Even Keely Smith didn’t sing it on her Cherokeely Swings album. I hope to include it on a forthcoming Sing! Sing! Sing! episode that I am planning, to be titled “Native American Love Songs.”)
Sarah obviously learned “I’ll Never Smile Again” from Tommy Dorsey and Frank Sinatra, who would ultimately become one of her strongest boosters. Appearing at the London Palladium in 1958, she ended her mini-set on the BBC-TV variety series Palladium Sunday with “Smile Again.” The link below goes directly to that last number, but the whole segment (which also includes “If This Isn't Love,” “Poor Butterfly,” and “They All Laughed”) is very much worth watching.
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!
Sing! Sing! Sing! : My tagline is, “Celebrating the great jazz - and jazz-adjacent - singers, as well as the composers, lyricists, arrangers, soloists, and sidemen, who help to make them great.”
A production of KSDS heard Saturdays at 10:00 AM Pacific; 1:00PM Eastern.
To listen to KSDS via the internet (current and recent shows are available for streaming.) click here.
The whole series is also listenable on Podbean.com, click here.
Part 1 is still listenable on Podbean; Part 2 is coming this Saturday March 30.
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