Customer Reviews

Sarah: Dedicated to You

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

IS THIS THE BEST FINAL ALBUM EVER RELEASED BY A 70 YEAR OLD JAZZ ARTIST OR WHAT? Ms. Carmen Mcrae in her tibute to buddy, Sarah Vaughan, knew what she was doing by having Shirley Horn back her her on piano. Together they gave us an unbeatable cd. It's very ironic a singer who was sometimes thought to have an "inferior" voice could sound this great at 70 years old! BUT SHE DID! Carmen's song selection really elevated this to great jazz art. Carmen didn't dare imitate Sarah's vast singing style. But, this tribute may have surpassed the orginal versions. Too many comapared Carmen to Billie, even Carmen. This is trajic because Carmen was so much better. She was more versatile. Mcrae could be trajic & fun. Billie made even Irving Berlin a downer. Actually Carmen Mcrae & Sarah Vaughan should have been the jazz front runners & Billie & Ella runners up. I just adore the opening track, POOR BUTTERFLY, with none of that overly produced orchestral effect just the great dramatist alone, Carmen Mcrae, doing what she did best, weaving a tale. Shirl, as Carmen called her in BLACK COFFEE joined in on the main body of POOR BUTTERFLY. It surpassed Sarah, no easy task. Their BLACK COFFEE was one of the great recordings of all time, a true refreshment! It's nice & leisurely. Horn's solo in the middle enchances that arrangement so, elevating it from 5 to 6 stars! Carmen's voice, both lyrical & dramactic, made this critic picture what it was like to be alone in her room smoking & drinking BLACK COFFEE! Being that every song was done in C.M.'s own style, would we all have known that it was a Vaughan tribute if not told? So many of these songs are done by all the jazz singers. I WILL SAY GOODBYE, of which I didn't know about until I got the 1st cd version, is a song to which I had to learn the lyrics. It's all about a overly obliging soon-to-be ex-lover. That song & LAMP IS LOW wasn't on the cassette or lp & WHY NOT? Just becasuse they weren't famous is no reason for such superaltive songs not to be on all versions! If you own the 1st cd edition of this, you must buy this Bluebird version. It has 4 bonus tracks necessary to give a more complete picture of Mcrae's admiration for Vaughan. SARAH, 1 of the 2 title songs & the only bonus track that was a repeat, was done a bit differently the 2nd time. Those of you who own one of the the orginal versions, sell it or give it away, & get this vast improvement on a masterpeice. All types of musical tastes have adored this underappreciated jazz songtress once I turned them on to her.

The friendship between Sarah and Carmen is stuff of legend. So is this album. Not only is it a tribute to Sass but it is a swan song for Carmen as this was her last recording. From beginning to end the songs are chosen and arranged wonderfully by Carmen and Shirley Horn and her trio. The acapella intro of Poor Butterfly is superb and Carmen begins her tricks from the start bending phrase and playing with intonation something she shared in common with Sarah. Black Coffee, Send in the Clowns, and especially I Will Say Goodbye and It's Magic are wonderful interpretations from a mind that values pharsing and giving lyrics character. There is nothing transparent about this album it is all depth as was Carmen. A personal favorite and a jewel in Carmen's crown as one of the queens of Jazz!

This is a great album, not only do you get the fantastic interpretation's of Carmen but you get Shirley Horn's piano playing, a double treat. The standouts on this are, "The lamp is low" & "it's magic". You won't find it done any better by two of the best in the business.

When you listen to Ms. Mcrae, you feel the song. She sets the tone for you. She is such an amazing musician. Everything she works on has such precision ; although you don't realize it because of her wonderful subtlety. She is triumphant in her tribute to Ms. Sarah Vaughn.

When you listen to Ms. Mcrae, you feel the song. She sets the tone for you. She is such an amazing musician. Everything she works on has such precision ; although you don't realize it because of her wonderful subtlety. She is triumphant in her tribute to Ms. Sarah Vaughn.

I had this gem on cassette tape around 18 years ago and lost it amid having kids, moving, new jobs, the works. I recently downloaded it here and went right back to the moment I first heart Carmen sing these songs. I agree with all previous accolades written here , but MY favorite is her version of "Wonder Why". When I hear this, I start snapping my fingers and try to imagine what it was like to hear this great vocalist back in the day while she hung out with the likes of those she fetes in 'Sarah". Lady Day, Dinah, Bessie and ultimately 'Sassy" all singing in Paradise together. Who will lead? Carmen would follow them all too soon and I curse the day cigarettes entered their lives. this great singer along with SO many others left us too soon all for the smoke. But "wonder why" is so up tempo, I imagine that even in her seventh decade, Carmen still knew how to get down.
About 25 or even 30 yrs ago Carmen did a TV collaboration with Al Jarreau. I think it was on PBS but I was young and may have the date wrong. All I knew was watching them sing together, I witnessed something magical and Al's deference to Carmen was genuinely obvious. God Bless her and Sarah. A great album featuring music the likes of which won't be heard anytime soon.

This represents Carmen McRae's homage to her friend, Sarah Vaughan, who had recently died. She recorded this when she was already 70 years old. But her voice still had some magic left in it at that. Of her friend (whom she called "Sass"), she observes in the liner notes that "We met many years ago and hung out a lot. She was a dear friend. I am honored to have the opportunity to pay homage to such a great lady."

There are many classics on this CD. McRae is backed most ably by The Shirley Horne Trio, which provides strong support for her song styling. As some reviewers have noted, some of the songs are taken very slowly. For instance, "Tenderly" is sung at a very slow pace, but the interpretation works with the singer's talents. Some illustrations of her craft on this CD:

"I've got the world on a string." Her rich voice does justice to this song. Key lines:

"Life is a beautiful thing,
Long as I hold the string.
I'd be a silly so and so
If I should ever let go."

She sings this awfully well for one her age, and the instrumental backing is superb.

"Misty" is another well sung work. The band's backing is understated and effective. Vaughan's rich voice works the song nicely. I love some of the lines, such as--

"I'm as helpless as a kitten up a tree
And I feel like I'm clinging to a cloud.
I can't understand.
I get misty just holding your hand."

A final example is her up tempo version of "The best is yet to come." This version is infectious, as always backed nicely by the Trio.

As an homage to Sarah Vaughan, this works very well. As, in essence, her farewell from singing, this is also an interesting piece for the historical record. All in all, a classy CD by a classy singer.

Truthfully, I had low expectations of Carmen's final recording date. Her smoking and emphysema had led to considerable unevenness in her recording sessions during the 1980's, as increasingly she went to lower keys ("Misty" takes her down to C below middle C) and to emphasizing the drama of a song's lyric at the expense of melodic line. Moreover, in choosing to do a tribute to, of all singers, not a Billie Holiday but the virtuoso Divine One, Carmen would seem to be courting overachievement.

Never underestimate a superb, all-around, wise and savvy musician such as this. Carmen's note choices and pitch-perfect tones enable her to transform the songs associated with Sarah into moving tributes, and there are moments when her soprano register even recalls the warm vibrato and slightly honeyed quality of her early vocalizing.

But of equal importance to the success of this project is the piano trio of Shirley Horn, doing for Carmen here what it does for Shirley on "Here's to Life" and all of her own stunning recordings. When Carmen's notes don't sustain or her melodic lines connect, Horn's piano is there to provide the continuity or sustenuto. She's simply an extraordinary accompanist--from the placement of those upper-register octaves to the way she "breaks" her chords from the top down. Horn has few peers when it comes to ballads, and this is a ballad album, though there are moments when the light, 4/4 ball-bearing swing of the rhythm section levitates the musical proceedings to supremely satisfying effect.

Clearly, Carmen was inspired by Horn's presence on this project. At the same time, this is a McCrae recording best recommended for someone already familiar with her earlier work. To hear Carmen at her very best--as a supreme interpreter of the American Songbook, whether bringing new life to old torch songs or swinging harder than virtually any other singer--go to her work from the late fifties and early sixties. The voice is lighter and higher while retaining the expressive edge that made her such a potent interpreter of a song's lyric. Still in print but largely ignored are two of her superior recordings with her trio, both from 1963: "Live at Sugar Hill" and "Song Time." As for her recordings from the mid to late 1980's, there's one largely overlooked gem: "Any Old Time" (her reading of this tune written by Artie Shaw for Lady Day is itself worth the price of a CD full of many such scintillating moments).

In "Sarah," a hauntingly beautiful song written as a tribute to Sarah Vaughan, Carmen McRae sings these words about her friend, who had died just months before, in 1990. It was the seventy-year-old McRae's last album, and one of her most intimate. Throughout the CD, McRae seems totally in touch with Vaughan's style and music, but she remains herself, paying homage to Vaughan by interpreting the music her own way, rather than by imitating. The remarkable Shirley Horn, as piano-accompanist, and the rest of her trio (Charles Ables on bass and Steve Williams on drums) provide simple arrangements, totally in sync with McRae but not overpowering her, leaving room for her stylistic variations.

"Poor Butterfly" is a standout, its a capella introduction conveying an intimacy which enhances the narrative line. Sung unusually slowly, the song emphasizes McRae's range (and Vaughan's), and Horn's piano riffs show off McRae's simple variations nicely. "I've Got the World on a String" allows Horn to do some great jazz interpretation of her own, while the swinging "The Best is Yet to Come" gives Ables and Williams a chance to shine on bass and drums.

"Black Coffee," one of the most brilliant songs on the album, is six minutes of moody, bluesy rhythm, ending in a quiet scat, while "I Will Say Goodbye," a less familiar song, sounds confidential, filled with interesting changes from major to minor and back. "The Lamp is Low," one of my favorites, is faster than many others, with great drums and piano solos, and "I'll Be Seeing You," another favorite, lets it all out at the end.

This tribute album is wonderfully poignant, but many songs are unusually slow. "Tenderly" sounds almost funereal, a mood emphasized by McRae's low register. The fact that it is more than five minutes long (and follows the long and slow "Send in the Clowns," and the stunning, but slow, "Black Coffee," which lasts six minutes) made me wish that some of the livelier songs from later in the CD had been inserted here to vary the tempo.

McRae is stellar, however, and no one who hears this album will doubt the sincerity of her tribute. As she concludes the track "Sarah," and sings about the day when she herself will join Sarah "up there," her characteristic wit takes over, and she adds, "Just remind her that I sing lead." n Mary Whipple