Customer Reviews

In Hi-Fi

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

 

 

My first Sarah Vaughan CD, and for a long time my favorite CD of them all. The opening notes of "East of the Sun..." still give me goosebumps. The ultimate in torch music.

The title was heralding the newest technolgy, high fidelity, a sonic wonder that preceeded stereo, and Miss Vaughn was an early subject of this technoligical breakthrough. Recorded for Columbia spanning the years 1949 to 1952, this is a wonderful recording of Miss Vaughn's. Not recorded as an album, this a collection of recording sessions. That was the style of the day, Sinatra recorded specific albums with themes, but most of the other artists of that era just went into the studio and laid down tracks. There are 22 tracks on this re issue (original release date 55)(several of the takes are alternate versions) many of the tunes have Miles Davis as a session player and numerous other jazz notables. The majority of the selections are ballads and Sarah brings them all to life in her inimitable style. Sarah in Hi-Fi is a worthy addition to your musical library. Long Live Sarah.

The core of this magnificent cd is the sessions Sarah had with the stelar group consisting of Miles Davis on trumpet, Tony Scott on clarinet, Benny Green on trombone, Budd Johnson on tenor-sax, Jimmy Jones on piano, either Freddie Green or Mundell Lowe on guitar, Billy Taylor Jr. on bass and J C Heard on drums...

These 8 tracks (that kick off this CD)are absolutely equal to the best jazz performances in my collection, whereas other tracks ("Pinky", newly discovered track; alternate takes of the 8 gems...), with the exception of brilliant rendition of "The Nearness of You", don't add all that much to the legacy (the musicians on some of the alternate tracks sound as if they were just warming up)...
But the first 8 tracks and the track 10 make the body of work everyone should have in their jazz collections.

Caught between styles (swing, be-bop, cool), Sassy is the lead voice, equal to any instrumentalist with her lush voice, sense of rhythm and improvisational skills.

And the rest of the CD is simply OK. Swinging big band number "Ooh what'cha doin' to me2 is even funny (in a good way)....

I love this Sarah Vaughan record. Very essential to her catalog. I've loved it for years and so happy to find it on CD. But those expecting a real clean sounding remastering, this is not it. It sounds like listening to vinyl on a turntable with all the hiss and pops. I'm both disappointed and thrilled. Love hearing this music again. And totally bummed it sounds like a old dirty record.

Many cognoscenti (and me, too) believe Sarah Vaughan to be one of the very finest jazz vocalists in history. If you believe likewise, you will find this c.d. to be a very important historical document.

This is not merely a re-release of "Sarah Vaughan in Hi-Fi" on Columbia from 1949, when Ms. Vaughan was at the relatively beginning of her career. (10 inch l.p.'s from that era don't lend themselves nicely to cut-for-cut c.d. reissues) Rather, it is a compilation of 4 recording dates between 1949 and 1952, many featuring a young Miles Davis on trumpet from his "The Birth of the Cool" era.

Is this the greatest Sarah Vaughan recording ever? I would argue not. I gravitate to "Sarah Vaughan and Clifford Brown" from 1956, and the two seminal Pablo recordings from much later in Ms. Vaughan's career, "How Long Has This Been Going On?" (1978) and "Crazy and Mixed Up" (1981). The difference, really, is no instrumentalist on this recording blows me away like Clifford Brown on the eponymous recording and Joe Pass on the Pablos.

But by any objective standard, this is a 5 star c.d. Put it this way: if some neophyte modern singer put out an album like this, I would rave.

What this recording re-emphasizes to me is a point I've made before about Sarah Vaughan: Never was there a more sound-focused singer. No matter where she is in either register, the sound is always focussed, always beautiful. She is the singing version of the movie "Citizen Caine": always in perfect focus.

I.e., what this recording establishes above all is that Sarah Vaughan was a remarkable jazz singer throughout her long, distinguished career. Buy this for that reason. RC