Sarah Vaughan @ 100, Part 4: With Clifford Brown
Divine: The Jazz Albums, 1954-1959, continued.
Sarah Vaughan (recorded 1954, released in 1955)
Another classic album that we all grew up with - although no one ever referred to it by its actual title, Sarah Vaughan. Said actual title was a curious decision on the part of producer Bob Shad in that there had already been at least a half dozen proper Sarah Vaughan LPs on Columbia and EmArcy. (However, there hadn’t yet been one on Mercury - the larger, pop incarnation of EmArcy Records. Her first Mercury LP would be a compilation singles of pop-ish singles titled In A Romantic Mood in 1958. ) Everybody calls this one the “Sarah Vaughan - Clifford Brown album.” And that’s even though it’s really Sarah’s show, Brownie is a sideman not much more prominently than the other horn players, tenor saxophonist Paul Quinichette (then, like Brown, a star of the EmArcy jazz line) and future jazz crossover headliner flautist Herbie Mann. (Coincidentally, Mann would be a special guest with Vaughan on a television concert circa 1983, although, disappointingly, they would not perform together on that occasion.) Despite the generic title, this is one of the few Vaughan albums that’s become iconic - like Ella in Berlin - to the point where I have heard contemporary singers recreate it from the first track to the last. (For those interested, I wrote a much longer appraisal of this classic album in my 2017 book, The Great Jazz and Pop Vocal Albums, edited by the late Robert Gottlieb.).
(Immediately below - the complete album, on a YouTube playlist.)
Vaughan’s first 12-inch LP release is a subtle and restrained affair.The mood seems to be taken from Moods, a Mercury album cut one month earlier starring tenor saxophonist Paul Quinichette and featuring flautist Herbie Mann, both of whom are featured here. The backgrounds are dominated by the combination of Quinichette’s mellow, Lester Young-inspired tenor with Mann’s tropical-sounding flute, if a sound so laid-back can be described as “dominant.” The album is most famous, however, for the presence of the third horn, the immortal trumpeter Clifford Brown, but even with his powerful soloing, as on “You’re Not The Kind,” the tropical-Latin mood is omnipresent: “April In Paris” is more like July in Havana.
Quinichette, often dubbed “The Vice Pres,” was a bona fide Mercury recording star and the most famous guest musician at the time. Mann would go on to become one of the most popular of all jazz instrumentalists, and Brown was a legend well before his tragically early death in 1956 at age 25. Brownie fans weren’t disappointed: the trumpeter solos frequently and brilliantly, especially on the slightly faster numbers like “It’s Crazy” from the Nat “King” Cole book. “Embraceable You,” another Gershwin tune, is just Vaughan and her new rhythm section, and, without the horns, it sounds like an extra track from Swingin’ Easy. “Lullaby Of Birdland” may be the most famous track from the dates; in recent years, Vaughan’s arrangement of this has been widely reprised by contemporary jazz singers, particularly Dianne Reeves.
Sarah Vaughan was not intended strictly as a jazz set, but also as an album of romantic exotica. Some of the tracks are luxuriously slow, especially “September Song” and “I’m Glad There Is You,” which is determined to use the extra playing time afforded by the new LP format, allowing Vaughan to build to a suitable romantic mood—you can tell, in the verse of the latter, that Sarah is anything but “a cynical so-and-so.” “Jim” is one of Vaughan’s great torch songs, and evidence that she could break your heart with a lyric; there’s no doubt that these words are coming straight from the heart of a woman who has lived and suffered: there were no shortages of “Jim”s in her life.
LUCKY STRIKE EXTRAS: videos!
She sang Will Hudson’s “You’re Not the Kind” as one of her 1951 (color) Snader Telescriptions:
In the 1980s, she included “Embraceable You” as part of a Gershwin medley, and it’s here, in this 1986 performance from a Japanese club - which I would love to find in higher resolution:
Here’s a live “I’m Glad There is You” from the Montreux Jazz Festival, with George Gaffney (piano), from 1983. (She seems to have been thinking about this album a lot in the last decade of her life - there’s also another version of this song from the Antibes Jazz Festival in 1987.)
Lastly, in 1984, she famously revived “September Song” with Wynton Marsalis - in a deliberate nod to the 1954 album - in her concert with John Williams and the New York Pops. (Again, I wish I had this in better quality. The “Send in the Clowns” at the end of this segment is possibly her best ever.)
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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Today at the Film Forum - two shows! Details here!
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That’s Wynton Marsalis, Sarah Vaughn, John William’s and the Boston Pops…. The YouTube is correct.