Customer Reviews

The Lady Sings Jazz & Blues: Stolen Moments

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

 

 

Diana Ross has, in the course of her four-decades-long career, tackled nearly every possible musical genre: pop, soul, rock, disco, country, Broadway; she's even performed with operatic superstars Placido Domingo and Jose Carreras. Of course, she very famously delved into the world of jazz and blues with her Oscar-nominated turn as Billie Holiday in the 1972 biopic, "Lady Sings the Blues."

To commemorate the twentieth anniversary year of that historic film, Ross assembled a stellar group of jazz greats, past and present, to accompany her in a one-night-only concert at The Ritz jazz nightclub in New York. The results are immensely pleasing.

Ross is certainly not an improvisational jazz artist a la Betty Carter, nor is she as deeply invested in a song as was Billie Holiday; but she clearly has a love and appreciation for the material at hand, as well as her famously flexible, delicately beautiful voice--which is supple enough to bend to most any demands.

Not too surprisingly, Ross fares best with the torch songs and ballads on this set. Her sense of swing is a bit simplistic, rendering such tunes as "What a Little Moonlight Can Do" and "Mean to Me" as cute, and little more. Of the uptempo numbers, a sweetly swinging "There's a Small Hotel" and a surprisingly personal "T'ain't Nobody's Bizness if I Do" fare the best.

"Lover Man," "Don't Explain," "The Man I Love" and "Little Girl Blue" are exemplary performances, particularly the latter--with Ross sounding as gorgeously pure and clear as on her 1973 studio recording for the "Touch Me in the Morning" LP. "Good Morning Heartache" and "God Bless the Child" are also given sensitive treatments, with Ross' vocalese comparing favorably to her own "Lady Sings the Blues" soundtrack recordings.

The unquestioned highlights, however, are a knockout rendition of "You've Changed," which will break your heart, and an absolutely spine-tingling "Strange Fruit." Anyone who has ever dismissed Ross as a lightweight pop artist is directed immediately to this chilling, stunning performance.

The sound is uniformly crisp, clear and wonderfully mastered. The crack jazz talent backing Ross has ample room to show off their chops, and they accompany the star very well and very respectfully. Ross, who has been criticized for being perhaps a very self-absorbed performer, is clearly delighted to be sharing the stage with these men. One particularly happy reunion is that of Ross with her former musical director, Gil Askey, who helmed such important milestones in her career as "The Supremes Sing Rodgers & Hart" (1967), "Lady Sings the Blues" (1972) and accompanied the lady onstage through her legendary, Tony-winning "Evening with Diana Ross" tour (1976).

At around the same time as this concert, Ross apparently recorded a studio album of Harold Arlen standards (the DVD edition includes what may be a preview, in the form of Arlen's "Let's Fall in Love"--the one song in the set that Ross had never recorded or performed in any other setting before). It remains locked in the vaults. With the inspired performances of much of the material here, the mouth waters at the thought of Ross torching her way through "The Man That Got Away," "Come Rain or Come Shine," et al. Motown, are you listening?

Let me start by saying that I have never been a Diana Ross fan. In her days with the Supremes she often sang flat, and her 1972 "Lady Sings the Blues" film was a disaster in attempting jazz style. Yet in this 1992 live recording, she almost makes up for that earlier faux pas completely. To quote Jim Ignatowski from "Taxi," she "musta took lessons!" Her voice here rides the beat in a beautiful, relaxed, velveteen manner; her phrasing is flawless and her back-up band equally relaxed and in the groove (though trumpeter Jon Faddis seems bent on showing off his chops, not following her moods very well). Most of the all-star jazz musicians who back her, including Roy Hargrove and Urbie Green, sound fabulous, the layout and pacing of the concert is superb, and Ross delivers what I feel is the performance of her lifetime. Granted, she still sounds a little shallow singing "Strange Fruit" next to Billie, but what the heck. Long before this set is over you will be caught up in the mood of the evening and swaying along with her relaxed, on-the-mark singing. This is one for the ages.

I waited until 2002 to pick this up because I guessed Ms. Ross was jealous of Natalie Cole's Grammy winning jazz performanc. (I have the remastered version) However, I could tell Ms. Ross really enjoyed doing this live performance and I give it 5 stars because the technical recording is stellar. Otherwise Ross brings a delightfully dainty mood to these selected Billy Holliday tunes. Curiously the CD follows Holliday history. The arrangements are oddly melodic as if they took on Ross'light approach to each song. It took a lot of nerve to push up on "Strange Fruit" with little to no initial acompaniment, but she pulls it off with grace and magnificence; and, I agree Ross is not Billie (who is???) but she is definitely the Boss. This musical project was very well done with Roy Hargrove et al in her band blazing away. I think the arranger, Gil Askey, and the engineers deserve much credit because this is a splendid effort. You may not like Diana Ross but denying her talent as a singer (this was really beautiful) and, and, and as a producer will no longer sit with me without an argument. Being an avant garde jazz fan that last line sounds strange, even to me!!!

"Diana Ross is a fine singer. All you have to do is listen to her Billie Holiday stuff! It's marvellous!" (Marvin Gaye).
With time - two decades after the film - these songs have matured wonderfully in Diana's voice and touching reading. The concept is like good wine - it just gets better with time.
She is still the greatest and most prominent performer of Holiday's songs and the Lady Sings the Blues segment remains an emotionally and artistic highlight in any concert she does. However, this is a rare chance to hear all the songs performed and recorded exclusively in a one-night-only concert at The Reds nightclub in New York City. The songs are really comfortable in N.Y. and they are certainly comfortable with Miss Ross and her great band. This is a fine and very wholesome CD - highly recommanded to any fan of Diana Ross and Jazz/Blues/Standards.

Diana Ross captivates her audience with this sound track; it`s almost like sitting in the blues club live

This is an excellent show by Diana Ross. The arrangements are great and she does a great job of helping us remember these Billie Holiday classics. However, no one should ever confuse the two with each other. Billie Holiday was (and still is) the best jazz singer I've ever heard and other than Madeleine Peyroux, I've never heard anyone come close to her style. If you don't compare Ms Ross' performance to Billie Holiday then this is a great jazz performance.

I rated the recent Ross release "Blue" five stars, on the strength of the deeply felt, dead-on Billie Holiday-haunted readings of songs like "But Beautiful" and "Easy Living." Some of the same qualities are in evidence on this recording, which suffers from some programming miscalculations and production problems or mis-judgments. Using "Fine and Mellow" as a flag-waver, first as an opener, then as a finale reprise, is just plain, well, ridiculous. Billie Holiday sang few 12-bar blues songs, and "Fine and Mellow" was always delivered effortlessly, intimately, and "naturally"--like the flowering of a gardenia. Whoever selected the song for its present position in the program and moreover encouraged Diana to adopt a "blues-belting" form of elocution ("Gimme a Pigfoot" is another example) must have been born yesterday.

The former R&B diva reveals her strengths on the ballads, all of them, with the exception of the two R&H tunes, right out of Lady Day's prime-time repertoire. Moreover, not only is she accompanied by the A Team, but she generously recognizes the contribution of each soloist--Roy Hargrove, Ralph Moore, Urbie Green, Jon Faddis.

I ordered this CD on the strength of "Blue," but it appears not to be a remastered edition. If the latest edition somehow managed to give more "presence" to Diana's voice (she sounds like she's singing in Madison Square Garden to a listener in the nose-bleed seats), and if some of the audience noise was reduced or eliminated (especially when the outbursts seem to bear no relation to what is heard and are intrusive on a song's meaning), then this disk rates 4 stars.

Lesson: Order with care (mine was even a brand new, sealed copy), and don't order this one ahead of "Blue."

One last quibble: Where in the world did the title "Stolen Moments" come from? To any knowledgeable listener it's the title of Oliver Nelson's classic jazz standard. But since the song doesn't appear on the program, the title (one of three on the album cover) appears to be another fumble by a clueless team with too many players on the field.