Customer Reviews

Something Cool

5 star:		(35)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

A decade ago Capitol released "Something Cool" on C.D. intermixed with singles done at the same time, totally obliterating one of the most original and significant albums in recording history. At last now the album is restored to its original form and once again we hear a fresh, intriguing collection matching off-beat songs to fascinating jazz vocals and imaginative arrangements. "Something Cool" was one of the first true albums, a gigantic seller and the catalyst for getting June Christy out of the B-list singles market into the A-list album field. Even better, we get the stereo remake done six years or so after the original album with nearly the same musicians and here's June a totally different artist, much deeper, much wiser, huskier in the voice, more experienced in the soul. With the same arrangements, same conductor, nearly the same musicians, same songs and same singer, it's still a totally different listening experience. But both albums, on the their own, are great and profound and thrilling. A double whammy.

Having just reached the "legal" drinking age, on a sunny, hot summer afternoon, in Pittsburgh, PA, my "coolest" male friend decided to take me for a DRINK.
He loved jazz and jazz singers, so we went into a very dim, cool, jazz nightclub.
There, I spent what was to be one of the most memorable afternoons of my life...on stage, singing Something Cool, was June Christy. Quietly, my friend ordered my first Tom Collins for me.
As I was drinking it, Miss Christy paused, and said to me, "This one's for you." At that moment, I realized what being a first class, most talented singer can do...bring special joy, and create lasting memories.
With her wonderful, rich voice, and Something Cool, Miss Christy
still transports me back to that afternoon.
Get this CD, and allow her to make memories for you.
HCS
HCS

I basically swiped this LP from my big brother when I was about 8 or so.I had listened to it every day,and when he was going back to the base,I sneaked it out of his suitcase! Then I wore the LP out,and had to get several more.So,here it is on CD!! Ms.Christy was a very tiny lady,but she can hit the low notes with the best of them.My absolute favorite on the CD is "Midnight Sun."Of all the versions I've heard of this song,June's is my favorite.Her unusual phrasing,and the depth of her voice is wonderful to listen to.Here I am,55 and still in love with the songs on this CD.I'm sure you will buy this as you fill up your Christy Quota.You will not be disappointed.
Oh,yes..I bought my brother his own CD when it came out!

Like many of the other reviewers, I amazingly had never heard of June Christy, but she has become one of my favorite singers, possibly my all-time favorite. Her voice is always extremely engaging, with a certain huskiness to it. You always feel that she pours herself into each interpretation, yet with the utmost in taste and style. I was blown away by the first song I played, Something Cool. My only quibble with the CD is in the order of songs. "Concept albums" from the '50s, such as those arranged by Rugolo, Riddle, Jenkins, and Weston, are planned not only programmatically, but musically. Each song flows harmonically into the next, even looping around from the last song back to the first. A psychological arc results in the case of Christy's albums with the most intense songs in the middle going to the end, with a less intense closing song leading back to the first song. I strongly urge listeners to try the program as listed on the front of the album (which I feel is the correct order of Something Cool) and you will immediately hear the difference. For example, hear how The Night We Called it a Day leads perfectly into This Time the Dream's On Me, by way of a common octave leap as a "connecton" between the two songs. While the extra songs are fun, especially Whee Baby, they are not quite of the caliber of the original Something Cool album. The masterpiece is found in the correct programmatic order, not chronological order!!!

I was familiar with June singing the pop hits of the Kenton orchestra, so I was intrigued when I saw a whole CD of June Christy. What the heck, twenty four tracks, can't go too wrong, right?

A discovery like this comes along only a few times in a lifetime. The CD reissue packs in an extra 13 bonus tracks, adding a pop flavor from her singles to the "cool" jazz vocals of the original album. I'm sure that fans who had the opportunity to own the original albums must've been thrilled with the release of delights from the vaults such as "Out of Somewhere", one of my favorites.

The reason June Christy is my favorite jazz vocalist is that she sings with subtlety and finesse, so that unlike the jazz vocalists who beat you over the head with their "style", June wraps her lovely voice around a song while allowing the song its own due.

Once you hear this one, you'll probably wind up getting the rest of her catalog. I know I did.

June Christy is amazing, and this album is a tour de force -- 24 tracks that complement and enhance what was already a great set (the original album, which is buried in here for those willing to program their CD players). It would have been helpful to retain the original 'Something Cool' song sequence, perhaps to start the CD, but everything included belongs here.

June Christy is one of the better female voices to emerge from the Big Band Era (she worked with Stan Kenton; another well known girl singer, Ella Fitzgerald, worked with Chick Webb's band, so the competition was pretty serious). She handles the brooding, melancholy settings as well as the upbeat, navigating some complex arrangements as in 'I'll Take Romance'. 'Something Cool' is typical of the dusky, introspective vocals that propel Christy ahead of most of her contemporaries. Her voice is powerful when it needs to be, and so it is never buried in the arrangements. Low notes are memorable, and Christy never seems to force herself into ranges that make other female vocalists sound overly thin. The result sounds confident, smooth and powerful. To his credit, Pete Rugolo provides accompaniment that sets the mood without stealing the show.

It's hard to believe this album came out in 1953. Aside from a couple of minor glitches on the source tape (in Lonely House, for example), sound quality is good to very good. And June Christy sounds very modern in her interpretations of some intricate vocals.

I would have no reservations recommending this to someone who has yet to hear June Christy or to someone who just loves great jazz vocals. Most of the songs are obscure now, but Christy really brings them to life. I would consider it essential among female vocal albums of the past century.

You don't hear Jazz Singers like this one anymore! WOW! June Christy has that sultry yet smooth voice from the past. Just picture a smoke-filled night club back East or out West in the late 1950s or early 1960s. You could even throw in a film noir with June Christy singing in the background with a spotlight on her as she swoons us on stage. With both mono and stereo tracks on this CD, you have a choice. Both tracks are flawless. Don't miss June Christy at her best - Something Cool indeed.

I missed her when I was a little kid in the 50s. It wasn't until I lived with a woman older than me in the 1970s who was a big fan from her own high school days that I heard June Christy. My father had been a big band fan and I was pretty familiar with Ella and Sara and Billie Holiday. I thought white girl singers at the time were all Rosemary Clooney and Doris Day. Then I heard June and she took my heart away. Now, at 55, I have all her capitol records, an autographed picture from the forties, a copy of her obituary that was published in the Chicago Tribune in 1990, and I still play her records (now CDs), and they still give me that exquisite joy you get from something that is emotionally perfect. This CD is particularly good, having first the mono recordings of these songs, and then the stereo recordings, in the right order. I believe this to be one of the first real concept type albums, in the sense that it fits together remarkably well, in the order that it is in. I know there was an initial shorter release on the older vinyl. And I know there are some ep versions of this set, but I am convinced that the order of the songs as it appears twice on this CD is the order that June and Pete Rugolo put it in and meant it to be heard in. This album/CD is a story, a narrative. And you can find in it a real person. June's singing, while not technically as good as some of her contemporaries, is stunning because of the intimacy she brings to the lyrics. She is right there, actually living the song. And the arrangements are just perfect. This is one of the greatest records anybody in any genre ever made.

"Something Cool" unquestionably is one of the finest albums ever recorded by any popular or jazz vocalist. The original 10-inch LP release constituted a totally innovative idea in album-making, with truly eccentric songs arranged by Pete Rugolo in a fresh-breeze-in-the-face manner (with some touches of the macabre) and June Christy singing her heart out while maintaining the cool which made her so appealing. The 12-inch LP, with four added songs, was even more thrilling. Now the CD adds in all the singles Christy and Rugolo recorded in the same period. Oddly, the album notes never state that all the recordings are arranged in the order recorded. Without knowing that the collection doesn't make any sense as the album is all broken up and there seems to be no beginning, middle, end or pacing. Once you know it's all in order recorded, however, it all makes sense. The remastering is excellent and the previously-unreleased songs a special pleasure. Now Capitol needs to issue the stereo version of "Something Cool" recorded six years after the original, with the same arrangements, same conductor and many of the same musicians but a TOTALLY different RESULT because the instruments are more separated and Christy had evolved into quite a different artist. Same songs, same order of songs, same arrangements, same conductor, same musicians, same studio and a DIFFERENT album. It deserves to be heard again.

I grew up with this album, Miss June Christy's "Something Cool". Through my troubled teens and eager adulthood, Miss Christy was there with her soothing voice. I must have owned a dozen of these albums as I moved through life and lived in many countries to live it. Now I will be owning a CD. It is an album that lives forever. The finest music, the finest musicians, the finest vocalist.