Customer Reviews

At the Waldorf Astoria / At the Sands

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is one of the Lena Horne recordings that make me wish I WAS Lena Horne. I don't usually enjoy live recordings but this album is perfect. She is very crisp and clear through the whole album. The audience creates a very curious atmosphere on the album- there are a few instances where the audience is laughing at Lena and something she is gesturing... but I think just the audio alone makes the listener outside of the joke.
In this album she is sassy and quirky- and I think these tracks give a little more insight into Lena's personality than the other non live recordings I have. Vocally she is very rich and obviously in her prime- she sings many standards but of course the one and only Lena Makes them her own! This is the number one Lena Album in my collection!

I couldn't wait 'til this CD arrived in the mail. I'm a hardcore Lena fan and I have owned the Lena at the Waldorf LP since I was a teen. What still gets me is how fresh it all still sounds. And those arrangements! Every student of popular singing (or singing period) should own this compilation. Her phrasing, intonation, her sense of time, her immaculate diction and just the way she puts over the song as a whole. I would venture to say that more singers than we realize are influenced (perhaps unconsciously) by Miss Horne. Just listen to the attitude and attack in the some of the 60's recordings of Streisand or recordings of Diahann Carroll, Johnny Mathis,Nancy Wilson,etc. I say all this to say, if you don't own this, you should!

No one planned a club act the way Lena Horne and Lennie Hayton could. Unusual songs, little-heard songs, everything literate and sharp and meaningful and clever, arranged perfectly and delivered with supreme intelligence, heart and musical skill. Lena Horne is gorgeous, Lena Horne is a remarkable singer, Lena Horne is an entertainer without peer but above all she is an artist. And these two remarkable and thrilling albums proved it, as if it needs to be proved. The Waldorf album encouraged scores of other singers to open their shows with "Today I Love Everybody" and "Let Me Love You" and steal as much as they could from Lena, knowing she knew exactly what she was doing. Famous at the time for being sexy, aloof and simmeringly angry, Lena comes across today in the same exact recordings as warm, accessible and a great hostess. What a difference time makes! We just saw different things in her then than we see now, I guess. For anyone interested in the art of popular singing at its zenith, this is the C.D. to get. Forty years have not diminished this music's freshness and inventiveness nor the star power of this remarkable entertainer.

AT LAST THE PERFORMANCE OF MISS HORNE AT THE WALDORF & THE SANDS ON CD. THIS ONE IS DEFINITELY WORTH HAVING! NOT ENOUGH WORDS TO SAY WHAT A GREAT TALENT SHE IS AND AN AMERICAN TREASURE. SHE IS SIMPLY THE VERY BEST AND THESE PERFORMANCES PROVE IT.

This excellent CD has all of the tracks from two of Lena Horne's live record albums entitled Lena Horne at The Waldorf Astoria and Lena at The Sands. These live recordings highlight Lena's exquisite voice and her excellent rapport with her adoring audiences. Indeed, Lena never skips a beat, singing with all her heart and soul on each and every tune. The sound quality is excellent on the tracks from Lena's performance at The Waldorf Astoria but it is not quite as good on the tracks from Lena's show at The Sands; but the electricity that was captured from both performances is so powerful that this becomes a minor quibble.

We get a total of just under eighty minutes of Lena's terrific singing on this album; and every number shines brighter than silver and gold combined when Lena Horne sings it! There's not a dud in the bunch; but of course I have my favorites. Out of the tracks from Lena's show at The Waldorf Astoria, I love the opening song, "Today I Love Everybody." Lena chose a strong, upbeat opening song and she handles complex tempo and key changes like the pro she was and always will remain! "Let Me Love You" has an elegant piano arrangement to accompany Lena as she sings this so sweetly while "Come Runnin'" gets the royal treatment from Lena--and how's about that brass?

There's a dynamic Cole Porter medley; but Lena's medley of "Mood Indigo" and "I'm Beginning to See the Light" impresses me even more. "Honeysuckle Rose" never sounded better than when Lena Horne sang it; and this live recording is no exception! "Day In-Day Out" gets a somewhat Latin sounding arrangement that all holds its own very well; and "New Fangled Tango" is actually very funny! Lena closes with "From This Moment On" much to the delight of her audience!

We then have the tracks from Lena's show at The Sands. "Maybe" opens the show very well and the orchestra plays with a distinctly mid-twentieth century Vegas feel. Lena's voice is as clear as a bell and that's grand. Listen for her to outdo even herself as she performs "The Man I Love" with a striking musical accompaniment; and Lena makes magic come true with her outstanding interpretation of some songs by Jule Styne. The Jule Styne medley of "A Ride on a Rainbow/Never Never Land/I Said No/Some People" stuns me with its natural beauty and when Lena Horne sings it all with panache I love it!

"You Don't Have To Know the Language" evokes quite a thrill; and that Rodgers and Hammerstein medley charms me completely. The album closes with Lena singing "Don't Commit the Crime" which has Lena squarely in the spotlight--right where she belongs! The humorous lyrics add a certain extra punch to the concert that is nothing less than wonderful.

Lena Horne was invariably so very special; and although she has now passed away she will live on forever through her recordings and movie performances. This is a must-have for fans of the great Lena Horne; and even newcomers to Lena's artistry would do well to add this to their collections.

Two classic albums from a legend. They are musts for any lover of Lena, or the Sinatra-standard song type of performer. Superb.

"I Said No" on the Jule Styne Medley is worth the price of admission all by itself, and there is so much more. I'm just blown away by Lena "At the Sands." Total genius. This is an absolute MUST HAVE.

I am happy to finally see Lena Horne's only live albums from the RCA years on cd. But as fabulous as these albums are I was hoping they would be reissued seperately with 20 bit technology. The sound here isn't bad, but could be better like the remastering on her original "Stormy Weather" album. I personally like Lena at the Sands slightly better. Nonetheless, thats why I give it 4 stars not 5. Well 5 for Lena 4 for the package.

When the smoke clears, it would appear that Lena Horne's primary legacy was her cabaret act, which "At the Waldorf Astoria" made available to millions of record buyers in the early years of the vinyl LP (RCA proclaimed it the largest-selling recording by a female vocalist that the company had ever released). The recording captures that curious mix of anger, danger, explosiveness, tenacity, risk, excitement that were all part of the Horne persona in her night club acts. What she may have lacked in natural gifts--the range of an Ella or Sarah, the utterly unforced yet compelling musical rhetoric of a Lady Day or Peggy Lee--she makes up for with formidable acting skills. In fact, so persuasive is she that it's difficult to know whether the dynamo we experience on this recording is a carefully crafted persona or the real deal, the authentic Horne self.

Certainly, it had to be a mixture of the two. Sinatra writer Will Friedwald recently commented that the first thing that struck him upon meeting her in person was her small stature compared to the image he had of her from the recordings and stage. All the more evidence that she had learned how to "play big"--whether in physical stature or vocal power. And where did she learn the skills of magnification and amplification? Certainly, she'd gotten a lot of her show business instincts from her mother, a performer, and her "apparent" recklessness on stage might be seen as a vestige inherited from her father, a gambler. And her last husband Lennie Hayton provided the kinds of musical arrangements that took full advantage of her theatrical strong points--and just in time for the birth of the long-playing record. But more than anyone, it was Billy Strayhorn who had the sense of style and, above all, presentation that, over their four-decade relationship, he managed to pass on to his best learner and "A" student. Not least of all, he taught her to complement her cabaret projection with the musicality associated with the best jazz artists.

There's still an elusive inscrutability about Lena that suggests that this gorgeous apparition Ed Sullivan customarily introduced as "the first Negro star" may also have been the last of the great divas in American entertainment. I could quickly refute Ed with names like Ella, Billie, and Ethel Waters. But the latter, who introduced "Stormy Weather" with an emotional wallop that assured it would be around long enough to serve as Lena's signature song, generates a single paragraph on the allmusic website whereas Lena receives no fewer than 16 small-print pages! Coincidentally, the keenly intelligent and equally "edgy" cabaret star, Eartha Kitt (her facial sculpture Orson Welles thought so highly enough he cast her as Helen of Troy in a Broadway production)--died not long before Lena. And she, too, was a "survivor"--agile of mind and body up to the end. But Eartha (like Lena a frequent political lightning rod) was perceived by the public, perhaps unfairly, as less of a three-dimensional person than a "type," lacking the depth, complexity, and sincerity of Lena Horne (we always knew Lena "meant it," even if when the "it" wasn't entirely clear. The appearance may belie the reality, but when it comes to legends--whether fait accompli or in-the-making--appearances count a lot--in fact, sometimes for everything. If not, then I'm wrong in suggesting that the term "Great American Diva" simply doesn't work with Eartha like it does with Lena.

I received the CD promptly but it wasn't exactly as I expected. I had hoped it would be more like 'torch' music instead of the jazzy, big-band sound. We sent the CD to my father-in-law and he is enjoying it. He's 79. Thanks