Customer Reviews

Sassy Swings the Tivoli

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Sometimes some people call herself or himself a singer or a musician. They should listen to this record before. No singer past, present, future can be compared to Sarah Vaughan. She was music. Period. This album is surely one of her best, one absolutly to have from his illustrious 4 decades career. THE album from Sarah. Jazz at its absolute best. Music at its absolute best. Art at its absolute best. Sarah will always be there, with Bird, Diz, Monk, Miles, Art, Wes ... the greatest musicians who ever lived. I repeat this album is the MonnaLisa in Jazz.

Oooh God! Dont be misled by the track list! Someone has said there's no surprise in it! However ...

Take 'Sometimes I'm Happy' and listen to the extraordinary uptempo swinging re-make Ms. Vaughan made out of it. A killer, for sure!

Take 'I Feel Pretty', the great waltz from "West Side Story": Ms. Vaughan begins waltzing but just for the opening chorus. Then she turns into a sensational uptempo 4/4 winging. Wow!

Repertoire is pure American standard you can find anywhere but there is a big difference here - Sarah and her trio. Pure fire live!

Sarah Vaughan is my absolute favortie singer, no one, living or dead, compares. Not only does she have the most incredible voice and lung capacity, she is one of (if not, THE) the most creative and adventurous vocalists who ever lived. This live performance captures Sass at her best. This disk contains some of her best vocals of well known songs associated with her such as "Poor Butterfly", "Tenderly", "Misty". Warning: one taste of Sarah and you will be hooked!

This is Sarah at the peak of her voice, The best CD to own, arranged by Quincy Jones, Sarah uses her considerable vocal instrument to breathe new life into standards, just listen to Maria. Every song on this double CD is worth listening to over and over, for jazz vocalist, this is a must have!

I can't find the words to describe the late Ms. Sarah Vaughan. She was right on every note. She was extraordinary. I am so excited and so delighted and giddy and grinning and thrilling and chilling when I hear this lady sing. The band is superb, the arrangements couldn't be better. All I can say is WOW! what a record. This is one of those rare records you would buy a backup copy of just in case because it really is my best record.

LUV this Sassy live set! Recorded at the Tivoli in Copenhagen in the early 60's this is jazz singing at its best. That wonderful silky voice, her incredible range, what she can do with a song! I only wish I could have seen her live before she passed on. What a loss. Fortunately there are so many Sarah Cd's out there and this is one of her best! Discover the Divine Sarah, there was no one like her!

Why do Sarah-philes buy her orchestral-fronted crap anyhow? She's so smooth, so fluid, so damn...confident and playful in this recording. Music to which ya gotta dance in the light. Hey...nuff respect to Kirk Stuart for keepin' up with her octaval indulgences. Can't keep from smilin' when this is on...who among ya can't be this connected?? The only Sarah Vaughan CD you need to own. Tell a friend...

This is a great CD. The best Cd I've bought all year. It came right away and was in excellent condition.

You can tell your friends, spouses and neighbours - this is as good vocal jazz albuma as it gets... People often speak of Bille, Sarah and Ella as the magnificent trio of classical jazz. Although I love and respect Ella very much (her work with Satchmo, Basie, famous concerts in Berlin and Rome....), I nevertheless feel that only Sarah Vaughan joins Billie on the top of the list of female vocalists of the classical (and early modern) jazz.

Sassy is amazing! With Clifford Brown, Count Basie, on "One Night Stand" with Lester Young, also with Miles Davis, Tony Scott, Roy Haynes, Clark Terry...

You name it! She has so many great moments.

This Tivoli gig with excellent Kirk Stuart trio represents another of her brilliant performances; full of swing (with occasional and magnificent scatting - "Sassy's Blues"!) proving once again why the instrumentalists often spoke of her as one of their own; she used her voice as a jazz instrumentalists would, bending lyrics, melody and everything else to fit her wishes... The song selection is brilliant (this might serve as a collection of her best hits) - Poor Butterfly, Say it isn't so, I Cried for you, Black coffee, Polka Dots and Moon beams, All of me...

One of Vaughan's trademarks were also ballads, at times a bit too dramatic, but she doesn't indulge that much in them here - she sounds too energetic to be pompous. Admittedly, Sassy does get a tad too happy on some songs (first half of "Lover Man", for instance), jeopardizing the performance, but that's a marginal occurance on this double CD jazz extravaganza, a must have for all serious jazz collectors.

p.s.

This top class jazz is also quite accessible to wider audiences; try this and you'll forget there ever was a Norah Jones, Diana Krall or even a serious performer such as Cassandra Wilson.

Hearing to believe, even it would say more, it's only necessary to listen this excellent record with a little attention for detecting we are in front of one of the best JAZZ singers ever and in front of a fascinating recording, completely relaxed. Of course we are talking about the great SASSY, SARAH VAUGHAN. Saying this, I think it's sufficient and besides this great registration is considered perhaps one of her best live sessions of the 1960' s if not the best (Only of these live sessions we could find one recording better than this "Sassy Swings the Tivoli" the earliest 1957 "At Mister Kelly's" session). About "Tivoli" I am going to refer to some few songs because are standards very well-known ever, Vaughan is quite expressive in tunes as "Misty", "Sometimes I'm Happy", "Tenderly", "Poor Butterfly" and " "I Cried For You", but the remainder of the record and its interpretation is absolutely brilliant. In this occasion he is joined by her rhythm section of the period, pianist Kirk Stuart, bassist Charles Williams and drummer George Hughes instead of the habitual orchestras and that they do a session delight, the fact is that most of her best records have been done with small groups rather than orchestras, despite the grandiloquence of her voice.