Volume 1: Sweet Beginnings

Mildred Bailey | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (June 21, 1995)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Old Masters
• ASIN: B000005DZA
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #242,836 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. What Kind 'O Man Is You?

2. I Like To Do Things For You

3. He's Not Worth The Tears

4. Travlin' All Alone

5. Blues In My Heart

6. You Call It Madness

7. When It's Sleepy Time Down South

8. Wrap Your Troubles In Dreams

9. When It's Sleepy Time Down South

10. Can't You See?

11. My Goodbye To You

12. Too Late

13. Georgia On My Mind

14. Concentratin' On You

15. Home

16. Lies

17. 'Leven Pounds Of Heaven

18. All Of Me

19. Dear Old Mother Dixie

20. Hot Cha Medley #1

See all 21 tracks on this disc

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fun at the start, an artist's beginning, Joy =Mildred=Joy, February 14, 2005

By 

Tony Thomas (SUNNY ISLES BEACH, FL USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Volume 1: Sweet Beginnings (Audio CD)

Mildred Bailey was not just the first real female Jazz band singer. She was one of the earliest real jazz singers and she continued to have a jazz based strain to her singing throughout her career unlike some singers with her success who might have gone more pop. She was fun. She was fun. She was fun. She jived, she joked, she played. You are going to smile when you hear Mildred and know she is really serious when she is serious. She could bring out the jazz in the most wooden of accompaniest, but usually she had great musicians, white, black or otherwise playing behind her, because Mildred is fun.

In an age before television, Bailey continued to have fans white and Black who did not know she was white. This remains true even recently when I have loaned tapes of Mildred to other African Americans without any liner notes or anything and had them ask why they had never heard of this great Black singer.

However, I do find it distressing that Mildred Bailey seems to be so forgotten. She was the first prominent female band singer in Jazz. She was and is fun to listen to and a great voice. Mildred was actually able to swing and swing hard even with Paul Whiteman. She produced masterpieces using some of the same small groups as Billie Holday for HER Columbia recordings, although Bailey semed to prefer Herschal Evans to Lester Young. Bailey was also pretty out front for the time as a white female singer performing with an all black combo--"Mildred Baily and Her Oxford Browns." Mildred was simply magnificent in the small combos her husband Red Novro organized, She had a sense of humor about her performances and a bit of salaciousness that you won't find in Billie's recordings.

I don't think it was just out of sentimentality, but in tribute to her artistry, that Sinatra and Bing Crosby (who owed his career to Bailey's bringing him in contact with Whiteman)spent thousands of dollars helping her out in the last years of her life when health problems and the end of her career led her to very hard times.

Mildred was a great singer, a great jazz pioneer, and a lot of fun. How does anyone get along without the joy her music has brought to my life. There have been times when my life was worse than it is now when I was depressed and just thinking about one of Mildred's tracks on this CD started to turn my life around!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Chronological early recordings of this sensational vocalist, October 9, 2008

By 

Hap (Santa Fe, NM) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Volume 1: Sweet Beginnings (Audio CD)

This terrific set of music chronologically covers her earliest recordings from Oct 1929 to Mar 1932 in one beautifully restored CD. The only recording missing is, oddly, found on Vol 2 of this series and that is the medley from the George White Scandals from Nov 1931. I discovered her recordings a scant four years ago and she is now, along with Lee Wiley, my favorite white jazz singer from this era. Although her voice is not at all extraordinary, her emotions, delivery and respect for the material she sings places her into a very rare strata of singer who is easily as potent with pop tunes as she is with jazz material. She easily commanded full attention whether singing in front of a full orchestra or with a small jazz group. Her version of "Lies" which is found on this recording is an exceptional example of her deceptively simple and clean approach to a song. The T.O.M. label has done it yet again with their restoration and thoroughness. I cannot say enough about their many reissues and their approach to audio restoration, simply spectacular. These recordings have never sounded better.

0 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Yes awesomeness is evident, December 19, 2008

By 

G. McIntyre "gam67" (the USA for now, but the Camargue in my heart...) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Volume 1: Sweet Beginnings (Audio CD)

...but contrary to what these 2 previous reviewers keep writing like doctrine is that Mildred Bailey wasn't completely white. A friend of mine a long time ago introduced me to her music, and when I saw her pix she looked my aunts in Jamaica. I thought 'cool...' then he started talking about her being able to hold her own amidst all the black jazz artists of that era, and I kept thinking huh? well why wouldn't she? she's black- fair-skinned, mixed I'm sure but this is a black woman... where's the confusion? In fact WHO CARES?? This is an excellent recording, and frankly if it makes the listener think of Mildred & her talents being more special that she's white, more power to them... ha