1,001 Albums [I] Must Hear before [I] Die: 17

Live at Mister Kelly's - Sarah Vaughan and Her Trio

To all of my readers - if you have never been to a jazz club (and I mean a Jazz Club, not a bistro that sometimes has a jazz quartet playing to back your dining experience), go as soon as humanly possible.

A small candle lit bar with a small stage and a really great jazz band is unlike anything else in the world, and I mean that in the best way possible. A great jazz club has an ambience that is unique, cozy, and inviting. It's a place where rarely are there people trying to conduct a conversation while the band is playing, but somehow their is a special intimacy - everyone is united, bound by the music.

If you cannot make it to a jazz club, for whatever reason, listen to this record.

Every time I closed my eyes while listening to this record, I was transported there - to Mister Kelly's in Chicago. Now, I have never been to that club - I've never even been to Chicago - but I could swear I was in the room when this was being recorded.

The audience is just as much a part of this record as the band is. In the beginning, an announcement is made, informing that the performance was being recorded, and that everyone in the audience, for the night, was a Mercury recording artist. Throughout the record, you can hear glasses clink, an occasional cough, applause, etc., and it really adds to the record - providing every tune with atmosphere.

My favorite part of this record come during the second track, "Willow Weeps for Me", when Sarah Vaughan apparently drops her lyric sheets and has to improvise, singing at one point something to the degree of, "man, I really flubbed this one", and the audience laughs. She also improvises almost all of the lyrics to"How High the Moon", reverting to scatting a short way through. I forgot which musician said this, but someone once described jazz as being, "a long string of mistakes" that you make work. This record embraces that philosophy.

There is little that needs to be said about Sarah Vaughan's voice that hasn't already been said, except to say that I agree with every positive statement. She is pretty unanimously considered one of the greatest jazz singers of all time, and her incomparable talent is on full display on this album.

On the next rainy day, curl up on your couch with a glass of whiskey and turn this one on.

P.S. - Having Jimmy Jones, Richard Davis, and Roy Hanes as your supporting trio means that you're inevitably going to make a great record - hell, I could be singing on this and it would still sound (at least) decent. Man, do they kill!