Customer Reviews

Linger Awhile: Live at Newport

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
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In 1999, Pablo Records released a unique album featuring eight, previously unissued tracks recorded by Sarah Vaughan at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1957, and another eight tracks, also unissued, recorded in studios between 1978 and 1982. In 1957, Vaughan was a young, 33-year-old megastar; in 1982, she was a mature jazz singer who had seen it all. Though Vaughan's voice remains a wondrous instrument at both stages of her career, the changes over the course of twenty-five years are astonishing. With the "two voices" side by side on this album, lovers of Sarah Vaughan can see for themselves how a young singer whose high range soared into the stratosphere developed into a mature, husky-voiced jazz singer famous for her lower range.

In the early songs, Vaughan sounds young, lively, and excited to be in Newport. With simple accompaniments provided by Jimmy Jones on piano, Richard Davis on bass, and Roy Haynes on drums, she has fun with standards, singing "The Masquerade is Over" as a moody, sad song, and wailing at the end, and "Black Coffee" in slow, bluesy tempo, vamping with her lovely vibrato. In "Poor Butterfly," one of her signature songs, she plays with the melody, changing keys, slowing the tempo, and paying particular attention to the narrative, and on "Linger Awhile" and "Sometimes I'm Happy," she is up and down and all over her range (missing one high note in the latter song), her voice so high she sounds more like Ella Fitzgerald than the deep-voiced Sarah Vaughan of her later career.

The remaining eight songs, from 1978 - 82, are alternate versions of songs for which other versions became the master recordings. These are in no way inferior--just different--and "I Got It Bad," recorded here originally for the "Duke Ellington Songbook," is the best version of that song I've ever heard. Here Sarah sounds as if she's been through it all, her voice huskier, smokier, and altogether bigger. She soars and dips, is jazzier, more confident, and more powerful. She holds her own against solos on trumpet, sax, and piano, which parallel her own jazz interpretations.

On "I Let a Song Go Out of My Heart," she improvises. On "I'm Just a Lucky So and So," she is ironic, giving a bluesy interpretation and wailing at the end. In "Teach Me Tonight," she is playful and sexy, and in "Just Friends," she sings scat in concert with a saxophone. A unique album, this shows Sarah's career from beginning to end--glorious any way you look at it. Mary Whipple

Well, if this is NOT essential Vaughan CD, it is still interesting both for Sassy's fans and general jazz (and jazzy) audiences... The first portion of CD is made of live 1957Newport recording (around 25 minutes) where she sounds younger than on some earlier recordings and, although very pleasurable, this set is uneven, so it is no wonder it was not released before turn of the century... Sarah's band here is Jimmy Jones (p), Richard Davis (b), Roy Haynes(dm) - again, not working together as well as one would expect of these professionals...

The rest of the CD is a bunch of alternate tracks from various albums and, ACTUALLY, some of these are better than the "original" Newport portion - for instance two tracks alternate from the early '80s album Crazy and Mixed up (Sassy sings with Joe Pass-g, Roland Hanna-p, Andy SImpkins-b, Harold Jones-dm) ...

And, of course, it's always pleasure to hear Sassy working with Basie orchestra (and there are two alternate tracks from early '80s...

So, although not one of the first Vaughan albums to buy, this is more than curiosity and there are sone very fine moments... In the context of Sassy's career I give it 4 stars, although I'd rather give it 4 and a half...

For, Sassy was great not only only when she was perfect...

Although it's not hard to see why these were passed over in favor of the master takes which sound fresher and more inspired than these alternates, it's still great.