Clifford Brown With The Great jazz Singers.

Hip-O-Select, the reissue label associated with the Universal Music Group that includes the classic Mercury, Emarcy and Verve catalogs has issued a second volume in its Emarcy Master Takes reissues of Clifford Brown’s music, The Singer Sessions. This deluxe reissue comes packaged in a profusely illustrated hardback booklet with annotation from DownBeat associate editor Aaron Cohen, with three stick back pockets that the compact discs are housed in. The booklet contains wonderful photographs of the various performers on these sessions as well as the covers of the original releases of these recordings which included not only LPs but extended play EPs as well. This packaging is marvelous.

The first two of the three CDs reissue the sessions that produced (among other releases) Dinah Jams and  Jam Session. The material is presented as it was originally recorded with Cohen providing the details how this session came about. Max Roach and Clifford Brown had already recorded extensively in the days before this session. Junior Mance notes that while labelled a jam session, this was actually a party in the studio with such an impressive cast of musicians that included Brown, Roach, Harold Land, Richie Powell and George Morrow along with pianist Mance, trumpeters Clark Terry and Maynard Ferguson, bassist Keter Betts, guitarist Herb Geller, and drummer Buddy Rich.

I am more familiar with the selections on which Dinah sings (including my favorite recording of Lover Come Back to Me, and the superb I’ve Got You Under My Skin). Listening to the hot bop of Denzil Best’s Move and the rousing rendition What Is This Thing Called Love, is wonderful as it sounds what one might have heard if they were on a Jazz at the Philharmonic tour. Brownie’s mix of sweetness and hot fire always impresses and one must not lose sight of just how good a saxophonist Harold Land was as can be heard in his terrific solo on You Go To My Head. And one should not forget the shorter performances such as Dinah’s wonderful vocal on No More. 

The third CD combines two later sessions on which Brown played, one with Sarah Vaughan and the other with Helen Merrill. The first session featuring Vaughan was originally from an album titled after the singer and with a session that also included Paul Quinichette on tenor, Herbie Mann on flute, Jimmy Jones on piano, Joe Benjamin on bass and Roy Haynes on drums with Ernie Wilkins handling the arrangements. The playing is a bit tighter here with the focus on Sarah Vaughan’s vocals. There are still plenty of moments such as Brown exchanging fours with Vaughan’s scatting on Lullaby of Birdland. April in Paris, opens without the horns, before Quinichette has a lovely solo and Brown adds some muted trumpet accompanying Vaughan as she resumes singing. On He’s My Guy there are nice choruses for Quinichette and Brown before Jones takes the spotlight. The combination of Sarah Vaughan’s divine singing, Wilkins’ terrific arrangements and the superb playing by the studio band this date, not simply Brown, results in a classic recording. 

Helen Merrill’s eponymously titled debut recording had Brown, flutist Danny Banks (also on baritone) as featured horns accompanist on a Quincy Jones supervised date that included Milt Hinton or Oscar Pettiford on bass, Jimmy Jones on piano and Barry Galbraith on guitar in the studio. Brown’s bright open playing during his solo contrasts with Merrill’s soft vocals (almost like a whisper) on Don’t Explain as she sings “you’re my joy and pain.” You'd Be So Nice To Come Home To swings lightly and Brown takes some spirited choruses after Jones takes a solo. Listening to her on What’s New, I can understand why Dexter Gordon also took to this ballad, while on Yesterdays, the longing she expresses is complemented by Brown’s featured choruses. This was a recording full of charm and heart, It had an impact on Merrill such that she would revisit it four decades later with a homage to Brown employing a brass ensemble to evoke his spirit.

The Singers Sessions is a welcome companion to the previously issued 4 CD set, “The Emarcy Master Takes” which compiled the recordings Brown and Max Roach made together, this will be welcome to those who do not have the initial recordings. The music sounds good and the backing is attractive. This music is to quote Merrill singing a Gershwin classic, “it’s wonderful, it’s marvelous,” and recommended although those having prior reissues of some or all of this material might pass on this. Certainly this would make a welcome holiday present.

The recording company sent me a review copy. Here is what I believe is the only video of Clifford Brown performing that exists and originated from a fifties local late night show that Soupy Sales hosted.

Roberta Gambarini and Hank Jones Were There

Roberta Gambarini certainly has come a long way in a few years since coming to the United States in 1998 from her native Italy. Within two weeks of her arrival, she was a finalist at the Thelonious Monk Competition, devoted to jazz vocalists that year along with Jane Monheit and Terry Thornton. Since then her career has slowly taken off, accelerating in more recent years after the release of her first American recording, Easy to Love, and now her major label debut with the great Hank Jones on Emarcy, You Are There. In the interim she has been nominated for a Grammy, selected by the Jazz Journalists Association as best female jazz vocalist and selected as Talent Deserving Wider Recognition in the Downbeat Critics Poll, while making acclaimed concert and festival appearances with some of the greatest jazz musicians in the world including Roy Hargrove’s Big Band and the Dizzy Gillespie Alumni Orchestra.

Hank Jones and Roberta Gambarini at the 2007 Duke Ellington Jazz Festival

Roberta Gambarini possesses such a beautiful voice and if one can here some echoes of Sarah Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald, she has become such a marvelous singer in her own right. Her pitch perfect, her phrasing exquisite, her enunciation of the lyrics so magical. Between her delivery of the lyrics and her scatting her voice is another instrument. Backed by only Hank Jones’ piano, she takes us on at our of some of the great songs, such as Deep Purple, Just Squeeze Me, Lush Life and Stardust. She introduces us to lesser known gems like a Benny Carter song, When Lights Are Low, and a Gigi Gyrce and Jon Hendricks ballad, Reminiscing. Most interesting is Irving Berlin’s Suppertime, that is done in tribute to Ethel Waters who first sang this moving song in the musical revue, As Thousands Cheered. As Ms. Gambarini notes, this was “the first song to address the unspeakable evil of racial lynching.” The lyrics do not describe the strange fruit of southern tress, but rather the heartache of the wife and mother who knows her husband and the children’s father is not coming home. “I know I should set the table cause it’s Suppertime,” but is unable ‘because that man of mine ain’t coming home no more.” With Jones understated accompaniment here, this is simply a powerful performance.

Elsewhere Jones gets a number of opportunities to stretch out as on the Ellington classic, Just Squeeze Me. After his solo, she scats and then trades fours with him. The delight the two have making music together comes across throughout this recording that certainly will be among the most highly recorded vocal jazz recordings issued in the United States this year. Having the pleasure of having seen the two performing this past fall, this writer has been awaiting the US release of this 2005 recording session, and it has certainly been waiting for.

This was a purchase. Here is Roberta Gambarini and Hank Jones with a rhythm section performing.