Sarah Vaughan reissued

This is a real classic vocal jazz album with Sarah Vaughan performing with ace musicians like Clifford Brown and Roy Haynes that now gets reissued on vinyl.

Sarah Vaughan (Verve, 2021)

There is no resisting Sarah Vaughan, whether she sings a melancholy ballad like “April in Paris” or a happy up-tempo happy song like “It’s Crazy” where she is followed by a blistering trumpet solo by Clifford Brown.

Her voice is beautiful. She would sound good reading a newspaper, and in addition to that she is a master of vibrato and phrasing. 

This self-titled album from 1954 is a good starting point to get acquainted with her. She sings with a sextet with three horn players. The music is very well-arranged, and -programmed. 

Caricature

With the smooth flute playing of Herbie Mann the album almost gets too close to easy listening at times, but the depth of the performance of Vaughan and Brown never lets that happen.

Roy Haynes who would become a frequent collaborator with Vaughan keeps the rhythm happening with subtle genius and he is a joy to hear even with brushes.

Like Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan is a virtuoso. She has incredible range which allows her to sometimes make unusual choices of notes more common among instrumentalists. Sometimes her phrasing borders on caricature, like on “Embraceable You”, but it also points towards the vocal technique Betty Carter would later use.

I like her later quartet albums better, like At Mister Kelly’s (1957), but there is no denying that this is a classic.