Live at the 1971 Monterey Jazz Festival [Live]

Sarah Vaughan | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (August 21, 2007)
• Original Release Date: 2007
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Live
• Label: Monterey Jazz Fest
• ASIN: B000T9QFIS
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #149,238 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

LIVE AT THE MONTEREY JAZZ FESTIVALS is an outstanding new CD series of NEVER-BEFORE RELEASED performances by jazz icons recorded live at the world-renowned Monterey Jazz Festival; all recorded at the height of each artists' artistic powers.

These are the inaugural releases of Concord Music Group and Monterey Jazz Festival's MJF RECORDS imprint. All selections are previously unreleased and feature never-before-heard releases culled from historic live archives. Profits realized by the Monterey Jazz Festival from this series will be re-invested into its ongoing jazz education programs. Don't miss these spectacular, rare and historic recordings!

Featuring Bill Mays, Bob Magnusson, Jimmy Cobb, The Monterey Jazz Festival All-Stars
Recorded September 19, 1971

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Live Sassy-Wish I Would Have Been There, October 18, 2007

By 

cruisewhiz "cruisewhiz" (Hawaii) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Live at the 1971 Monterey Jazz Festival (Audio CD)

Part of a new series of releases recorded live at Monterey is this one from Sarah Vaughan recorded in 1971. After 36 years you wonder why it took so long to release this live concert. Introduced by Norman Granz Sassy swings with her trio then is joined by five more top jazz musicians for a jamm session wich runs almost 15 minutes. What I like about this CD is that it just sounds and feels like you are really there. No gimmicks, no augmentations. The producers have given us a present I know I will enjoy for years to come. Sarah collectors will definately want to add this one to the collection because it does offer an experience that none of Sarah Vaughan's other live performances have. Wait until you hear Sassy set up the jam asking Zoot Sims where he was going (he went to get his sax) then she hauls off to an unforgetable scat session.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sassy at her very sassiest: Mumbles multiplied., December 14, 2007

By 

Samuel Chell (Kenosha,, WI United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Live at the 1971 Monterey Jazz Festival (Audio CD)

Even though I caught Sarah live several times in the '70s, I'd trade all those occasions for the opportunity to have been in the audience at Mr. Kelly's in '58 (a sublime live session reissued this year by Verve). The Divine One simply sounded less heavenly to my ears as the sixties drew to a close--she was no less sassy, inventive, and vocally impressive, but in the falsetto soprano register she could sound, well, high. Nevertheless, on this Monterey date she offers plenty of evidence to convince even occasional skeptics like me that, when it came to the art of jazz singing, her only equal, very likely in the history of this American music, was Ella.

In fact, the present recording has much the same appeal as Ella's famous "cutting contest" on the West Coast when she transformed herself into a horn player for "C Jam Blues" and took on in succession Stan Getz, Eddie Lockjaw Davis, Sweets Edison, and Roy Eldridge (there may have been a couple of others, though Ella could have held her own against Coltrane on that occasion). On this Monterey date, Sarah shows much the same command, both as the "director" of and participant in an all-star jam on blues changes. And just as Ella's most memorable exchange was with Roy Eldridge, Sarah engages Clark Terry in a musical argument to end all arguments: she answers his trumpet work with her scatting--then goes one better by taking him on in his famous "mumbles" routine, matching him word for word (or in mumbleleez, "sound" for "sound").

There was something shy and even "girlish" about both Ella and Sarah, and one suspects that music was to a considerable extent a form of overcompensation for both of them. As competent, commanding, and confident as both were about their unassailable musicianship, even while watching them perform one could sense their insecurity about acceptance. When the crowd "showed its love," as on this occasion and the previous one with Ella, it was the audience that was overcompensated, because both singers were capable of departing from a program or song list and simply wailing their hearts out. (Would it actually were simple. I know I'll never see the likes of either of these awesomely masterful musicians again in my life-time. I'm not even so sure one can count on two per century.)

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars LIVE AND BRILLIANT, January 5, 2008

By 

Nikica Gilic - See all my reviews

This review is from: Live at the 1971 Monterey Jazz Festival (Audio CD)

It is actually amazing that this good an album never before appeared on the market, particularly when you read that this live performance was recorded at the time Sassy was not publishing all that much, although she was still at the peak of hear considerable vocal powers.

And what a night it might have been! Starting from the very first number, where she apparently receives some flowers (or something of the sort) from a fan and bursts into laughter in the middle of a strong performance, ending with an extravagant jam session, where her main partner is the one and only Clark Terry, who does his mumbling thing in a glorious duet, but the other participants of the session ("A Monterey Jam") contribut quite an impresive bunch of performances.

Incidently, this was recorded in the beginning of the decade in which many jazz singers tended to record (and publiclly perform) a lot of contemporary pop-songs in order to survive in the market; Sassy sings only one Lennon-McCartney song (and survives the experience untainted), while the other songs are quite wordy of her tallent - her scatting, slow romantic vibrato and passionate uptempo - for instance Mercer & Schertzinger's "I remember you", Monk's and Hanighen's "'Round Midnight", Gross and Lawrence's "Tenderly"...

CD-maniacs of recent generation might complain that the actual musical content of this album goes under 40 minutes (a typical vinyl span), but just listen to the quality of Sassy's performance with her trio (Bill Mays-p, Bob Magnusson-b, Jimmy Cobb-dm) and the power of the JATP fashioned "A Monterey Jam"... As Sarah says: "just start playing; I don't know what key - any key"... And the rest is history.