Queen of Big Band Swing

Helen Ward | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (November 17, 1998)
• Original Release Date: November 17, 1998
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Asv Living Era
• ASIN: B00000DI0W
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #22,487 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #46 in Music > Indie Music > Jazz > Vocal Jazz
  • #54 in Music > Indie Music > Pop > Traditional & Vocal Pop

Track Listings

1. Blue Moon

2. I Was Lucky

3. Night Wind

4. The Dixieland Band

5. Restless

6. Between The Devil And The Deep Blue Sea

7. Eeny Meeny Miney Mo

8. It's Been So Long

9. Goody Goody

10. Mutiny In The Parlour

11. You Can't Pull The Wool Over My Eyes

12. The Glory Of Love

13. Tese Foolish Things

14. There's A Small Hotel

15. You Turned The Tables On Me

16. Here's Love In Your Eye

17. You Came To My Rescue

18. Smoke Dreams

19. How Am I To Know?

20. Feelin' High And Happy

See all 25 tracks on this disc

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

48 of 49 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Helen Ward - The Early Years, October 26, 2000

By 

Robert J. Mayville Jr. (Madison, WI United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Queen of Big Band Swing (Audio CD)

If you buy no other "singer collection" from the Big Band era, buy this CD. Few singers could really swing AND handle the slower numbers AND star in true pop tunes. For the true swing tunes, check out "Goody, Goody", "Feelin' High and Happy", and "The Glory of Love". For the slower numbers, "I've Got a Crush on You" and "But Not For Me" wrap around you. No matter how much you may crave a faster song, you cannot press skip when these tunes are on the changer. For a pop tune, "Don't Cry Baby" is years ahead of it's time. It foreshadows Ward's re-union with Goodman in 1953 ("I'll Never Say Never Again Again, "You're a Heaveanly Thing", and the spectacular "What a Little Moonlight Can Do").

The first 3 tracks are rarely found on Goodman collections. The non-Goodman selections provide an incentive to find her other songs with Krupa, James, Crosby and Wilson.

This CD demonstrates the maturation of arguably the finest Big Band singer: from an 18 year old on "Blue Moon" to a few years short of her prime on "Don't Cry Baby". This disc is a must for fans of Big Band vocal stylings.

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars helen Ward... The true queen of Swing..., July 5, 2000

By 

Aaron - See all my reviews

This review is from: Queen of Big Band Swing (Audio CD)

Benny Goodman was the King of Swing, and his female vocalist Helen Ward is rightfully Queen of Swing. Ward had one of the hardest swinging vocal styles, as heard on "Goody, Goody," her vocals were stong, sultry, and swingin'. Here she is heard on some Goodman dates as well as some great Jukebox oreinted dates with a small jazz combo led by Teddy Wilson, sounding similar to Billie Holiday's nominal recordings with Wilson. All of these sides weather ballads, swingers, or torch songs, Ward handles with elegance and hard driving swing. Helen Ward also was a great jazz vocalist and it is very obvious when given a chance and even when not goiven the chance to "improvise" she usually does, her phrasing, syncopation, and diction are all of a 1st class jazz canarie.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best, December 17, 2003

By 

Edward G. Lengel "lighthorse68" (Charlottesville, VA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Queen of Big Band Swing (Audio CD)

This is a fine collection of songs from one of the most underrated vocalists of the swing era. Ward had a distinctive, jazzy style; and she expressed the old standybys in ways that nobody else could. Highly recommended; but Ward's biggest fans would be better off with the complete Helen Ward on Columbia 2-CD set, which has a lot of the harder to find material.