Customer Reviews

Swingin With Humes

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

 

 

Unhappy? Listen to There'll Be Some Changes Made..You won't be able to stop smiling! Although a recording, you'll never know it thanks to her wonderfully inventive rhythm. Not knowing Helen Humes, I bought this "LP" by chance. It has given me so much good listening time that I finally had to buy the CD.

Do it. Buy this CD. Helen Humes can make the most assinine lyrics sound ingenious, the dullest melody a diddy. She swings. She's beautiful.

the few albums she released on the Contemporary label back in the early 60's are all great, get them all. I like this phase of her career the best, better than the recordings she made in the late 40's. Any album with Wynton Kelly, Leroy Vinnegar and Teddy Edwards has got to be okay.

They say most people won't listen to jazz because you can"t dance to it and is too serious to play at parties?! One listen to this disc will blow that misconception right out of the water! Just listen to "I'm Confession","Pennies From Heaven", and "When Day Is Done". Try "Someday My Prince Will Come",if you wanna slow dance. Both your ears and your feet will be glad that you slapped this album on your CD player.

I must have some anti-Helen Humes gene in my head because as much as tried I can't get appeal of this lady.
While making my morning coffe,I mused why is it so - I heard she was great singing with Count Basie and recorded several suprisingly good albums in early 1960s with excellent jazz musicians around her (sort of come-back for her),so I actually went to CD shop and bought not one but two of them and to put it mildly,was not floored with them.At all.
So here am I,stuck with two albums by Helen Humes and having them for years now,I still can't get my head around them and not liking her.
Why she annoys me so?
This is strictly jam-session,very loosely arranged and musicians are joy - specially piano - in fact,if only this was purely instrumental album I would probably liked it much more but Humes voice,sunny and sweet,reminds me too much of that squeeky girl that Scarlet O'Hara sent for doctor when Melanie was about to give a birth in "Gone with the wind" and everything about her swinging,improvising and follow-the-beat-or-else approach tells me there was not any time in studio for rehearsal,they just put her in the front of microphone and voila,she let that little squeak.
Oh come on,I said to myself,look at that cute little face,look at that smile,she was lovely lady.What do you know,you are just an idiot,Count Basie would not have her if she was not great singer.
But than,even Louis Armstrong had that woman singing on his albums and everybody was surprised why is he giving her so much space,so what.
OK than,do you think you would sing this better than,mister know-it-all?
No,not me,but I know for at least handful of others who would act this better,put a little emotions in lyrics,whisper now and than,gently nuanced these words,shade those standards with a new twist and give them something different and not just meander and tap the foot and swing because this is supposed to be swing - even Blossom Dearie with her little girl voice would make this a joy,but Humes sounds like someone brought her from shopping outside and told her "you won't get these bags unless you record an album in next 30 minutes and better be fast" so she rushed through this thinking about those little red shoes in the window and recorded not one but two albums and they are in my collection,or is it actually one album with two different covers and now I'm agonising here trying to find something positive to say about it.
Good instrumentals.