Better Than Anything

Irene Kral | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (November 16, 2004)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Fresh Sounds Spain
• ASIN: B000089APP
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #222,134 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Better Than Anything

2. The Touch of Your Lips

3. The Meaning of the Blues

4. Rock Me to Sleep

5. No More

6. Passing By

7. It's a Wonderful World

8. This Is Always

9. Just Friends

10. Guess I'll Hang My Tears Out to Dry

11. Nobody Else But Me

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Better than anything, August 16, 2007

By 

Jazzcat "stef" (Genoa, Italy Italy) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Better Than Anything (Audio CD)

Ok, I'll try to explain. I have just bought this album and I think it is absolutly fabulous. As a die hard Sarah Vaughan and Anita O'Day fan, I couldn't imagine another singer would hit me in this way at first listen. Irene's voice rings like a perfect bell, it is clean as an April sky, it's diamond hard and pure like crystal waters, her tempo absolutly fantastic, her swing contagious, her interpretation impeccable, her vibrato super, her jazz sophistication immacculate. Why can't someone be in love with Irene Kral I can't imagine. She's fabulous (cold? who said cold?!?!?!)! This album with the Junior Mance Trio by the way (Mance, plus Bob Cranshaw bass and Mickey Roker drums), I can imagine it could be easily one of the best sessions in her career. It's from 1963. The program is extremely lovely and the trio support Irene perfectly well, but the impressive thing to me that I didn't know her, is just, her. Irene, her voice, her way to sing is sublime ... sublime. No less. I didn't know her and now I can't do nothing but being sad for have known her just now. I have to have more from her. I'm in love.

(Immediatly after this review I have bought everything that is available from her here on Amazon... no more words are required I guess ...)

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Smart Songbird as well, February 24, 2006

By 

Carlos from Rio "Carlos from Rio" (Rio de Janeiro, RJ Brazil) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Better Than Anything (Audio CD)

What makes such a Lady singer so dear to her followers?!

She is smart: She seems to put every note carefully in its place.

Good taste: You'll get no bad orange in a dozen.She knows her place.

Great background: She'll always be along with the best musicians in the place. Junior Mance Trio was the gifted piano-bass-drums for this session.

That's Irene Kral!

And this package contains the Bob Dorough classic "Better Than Anything", his intelligent and delicious lyrics and music.

Also the powerful "The Meaning of The Blues" and Ray Noble's "The Touch of Your Lips" and a sensational uptempo "Nobody Else But Me" to close the program.

3 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A bit over-rated, December 15, 2006

By 

Thomas Bumbera (Maplewood, NJ USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Better Than Anything (Audio CD)

While many sing the praises of Ms. Kral, I find her singing to be somewhat cold and lacking in feeling for a lyric. Everybody to their own taste.. when it comes to under-rated female singers of the 50s-60s, she can't compare with the vocal warmth and musical taste of, say, Sue Raney... to me, Kral is closer to (the also over-rated) Beverley Kenney (chirpy in that dated 50s style that passed for "cool"). Let the Japanese collectors pay fortunes for vinyl copies of this one, and satisfy your curiosity with a reasonably-priced (if not used) CD copy of this effort.