18. Sarah Vaughan - At Mister Kelly's (1958)





















Track Listing

1. September In The Rain
2. Willow Weep For Me
3. Just One Of Those ThingsM
4. Be Anything But Darling Be Mine
5. Thou Swell
6. Stairway To The Stars
7. Honeysuckle Rose
8. Just A Gigolo
9. How High The Moon
10. Dream
11. I'm Gonna Sit Right Down And Write Myself A Letter
12. It's Got To Be Love
13. Alone
14. If This Isn't Love
15. Embraceable You
16. Lucky In Love
17. Dancing In The Dark
18. Poor Butterfly
19. Sometimes I'm Happy
20. I Cover The Waterfront

Review

This is the direct opposite of Billie Holiday's album reviewed two days ago. That, however, doesn't make it any worse. This is a great live recording of Sarah Vaughan. She has probably the most perfect voice ever. Not as heartfelt as Lady Day or as Swingin' as Ella's, that is true, but she has a degree of control not easy to achieve.

Sarah Vaughan was also a very, very funny lady. That comes through perfectly in this album, and the best songs in it are also the funniest ones. She fucks up frequently, forgets the lyrics etc.. but that is an excuse for extremely funny improvisations. Two great examples of this are Willow Weep for Me and How High is The Moon. Great tracks and their greatness comes out of the fact that Sarah fucks them up, on How High is the Moon she takes advantage to make an Ella Fitzgerald tribute, and it's just great.

This is probably one of the best albums reviewed here until now and is at the same level as Billie Holiday's. But this is an eminently funny and happy album, even the sad songs are sung with a cheekiness which is needs to be heard. In fact the whole album needs to be heard, if you haven't you are missing out. Unfortunately, it is not an easy album to get. It seems like the majority of Jazz lovers are very undemanding, and buy mostly compilations. I hate compilations, I can't even express how much I hate them. But go look for Sarah Vaughan, Billie Holiday or Ella Fitzgerald and all you find are stupid titles like The Best Love Songs and some other shit. Albums have an inherent cohesion (if they are good) that can never even be approached by stupid fucking compilations. This album is a good example of that, it captures the whole mood of one night at Mr. Kelly's club a great historical document.

So listen to it, now! You can get it at Itunes... Napster doesn't stream it.

Or buy it at Amazon: UK or US


Track Highlights

1. How High is the Moon
2. Willow Weep for Me
3. Poor Butterfly
4. It's Got to be Love

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

She had two nicknames: Sassy and The Divine One

Oh! The pressure of being witty in the trivia.