Customer Reviews

When the Sun Goes Down

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

 

 

Simply the favorite CD in my collection! Amazing soul and truth. Songs that make me want to get up and dance! Songs that make me laugh and cry. The title cut "In the evening when the sun goes down" is so soulful and searing that I have to remind myself to breathe.

It just doesn't get any better than this.

I was living in Paris when this disc came out. An American friend brought me a cassette of it to cheer me up. I plugged it into my ears and it carried me through cold winter streets, crowded metros and my own blues. I listened to my tape over and over until it died. Ernestine delivers unapologetic, sexy, fierce blues in all flavors on this disc. When she sings the line, "if I'm to be all alone here, then WHY do I need you?" I laugh ever time with the delicious vengeance that only the blues can deliver. Her band swings perfectly behind her, especially that piano player with the nimble licks. The blues never felt so good...

Any questions?

Every aspect of this recording displays total mastery. Anderson's singing is all you could ask of this style: not understated or overstated, no gimmicks, just unaffected, hard hard down and dirty as it should be, like this is just the way she thinks and feels about stuff.

Same goes for the players. The time--the beat--never lets up for a second. The intensity never wanes. There is not one note too few or too many by any of the instruments. You can hear the thread running from gospel to hard core jazz in the piano. The bass, as it should, leads the beat ever so slightly and drives the group relentlessly forward. Every stroke on the drums is there the right way for the right reason. The sax wails over it all in the showy, extroverted, over-the-top tradition that makes you laugh with delight at the bawdiness of it all.

These musicians are performing at a level one rarely hears. This music is so deep inside them they aren't even aware of how much they know about it. If you listen as I have, critically to every note on this album from start to finish, you will find that there is not one note that isn't exactly what, where, when, and how it should be. This is a performance as perfect and inspired as you will find. There aren't enough stars to rate this album.

This is one of my favorite Jazz/Blues CDs. What a perfect voice Ernestine Anderson has. When I imagine the perfect female Jazz/Blues singer at some sophisticated club, it would be her. Highly recommended.

In 1958, Time magazine called Ernestine Anderson "... the best-kept jazz secret in the land." By then, she had already been singing professionally for more than a decade - and, almost thirty years later, when she recorded "When the Sun Goes Down," she was still crankin' out great albums.

Quincy Jones once desribed Ms Anderson's warm, smooth, sultry contralto voice as "honey at dusk." She has a straight ahead, no frills style, strongly influenced by the blues, (of which there is more than just a little bit on this album). And as Ralph Gleason remarked, "... she swings like mad."

"When the Sun Goes Down" is a set of standards, done with a blues edge, and straight out blues - from "I Love Being Here With You" and "Alone on My Own," to "Goin' to Chicago Blues" and "Someone Else is Steppin' In."

Ms Anderson is supported by pianist Gene Harris, Red Holloway on tenor, legendary bassist Ray Brown, (who, if memory serves me, was also Ms Anderson's manager), and drummer Gerryck King.

The sonics are up to Concord's usual standards: Clear, precise, with a hint of warmth. Ms Anderson's voice is front and center and there's plenty of instrumental separation.