Vocals, Female

Ella Fitzgerald / Sings The Irving Berlin Song Book – Reviewed in 2005

This is a very nice looking Verve Strobe Label Double LP. The quality of the sound changes here not only from side to side but from track to track. We dropped the needle on various songs on each side and side three had the best sounding songs we heard. Every side had some great sounding songs, some with tubey magic and breathy vocals. How About Me and Cheek to Cheek on side two sound particularly good.  

AMG Review

These selections are perfectly suited for Fitzgerald’s voice and her romantic sensibility; they are happy, occasionally sad, and full of swinging rhythm. A few of these songs — “Cheek to Cheek,” “Puttin’ on the Ritz,” and “Blue Skies” — will be most familiar; others, “Top Hat, White Tie, and Tails,” “Russian Lullaby,” and “All By Myself” are as memorable but perhaps less known… For fans who have enjoyed other songbook recordings, this is a must-have; for those unfamiliar with Fitzgerald’s songbook work, this is an excellent place to start.

Helen Humes – ’Tain’t Nobody’s Biz-ness If I Do

Hot Stamper Pressings of Pop and Jazz Vocals Available Now

This EXCEPTIONALLY QUIET Contemporary Recording has wonderful sound on both sides. It’s got SHOCKINGLY DYNAMIC VOCALS — just listen to Miss Humes really belting it out on a great reading of Stardust! The sound is really rich and full with a BIG punchy bottom end. The clarity and transparency are superb, and you can really hear the leading edge transients on the various horns (Carter on trumpet, Rosolino on trombone).

You Can Depend On Me, the opening track, has an exceptionally weighty piano; it’s as if Andre Previn himself were pounding on a baby grand right there in your living room.

We don’t imagine that you are ever going to find a copy that sounds as good as this one.

All the usual suspects are here from the Contemporary corral: Benny Carter, Andre Previn, Leroy Vinnegar, Shelly Manne — providing big band back up for the lovely Miss Humes. We’re even bigger fans of Songs I Like To Sing, but the best moments here are every bit as wonderful.  

This is yet another stellar piece of wax from the best sounding jazz label of all time, Contemporary Records. Dynamic, rich, tonally correct, full of ambience — this record has it all.

Side One

You Can Depend on Me 
Trouble in Mind 
Among My Souvenirs 
Ain’t Misbehavin’ 
Stardust 
Bill Bailey

Side Two

When I Grow Too Old to Dream 
A Good Man Is Hard to Find 
Bill 
‘Tain’t Nobody’s Bizness If I Do 
I Got It Bad (And That Ain’t Good) 
When the Saints Go Marching In

AMG Review

Humes, 45 at the time, was at the peak of her powers, although she never really made a bad record. Accompanied by Benny Carter (on trumpet), trombonist Frank Rosolino, tenor saxophonist Teddy Edwards, pianist Andrew Previn, bassist Leroy Vinnegar, and either Shelly Manne or Mel Lewis on drums, the singer is typically enthusiastic, exuberant, and highly appealing on such numbers as “You Can Depend on Me,” “When I Grow Too Old to Dream,” and “”Tain’t Nobody’s Bizness If I Do.”

Looks familiar.

Dinah Washington – Unforgettable

  • An outstanding vintage mono pressing with Double Plus (A++) sound from start to finish
  • Big, rich and full-bodied with lovely breathy vocals – this All Tube Mastered pressing has the right sound for this music
  • Although this is a stereo recording, the goofy stereo mix sticks Dinah way out in one channel
  • The ridiculous hard panning works to sideline her performance, so our early mono here is the only way to go
  • “The songs focus on love, and they’re distinguished by Washington’s ability to mingle loss and resignation with the promise of the future and a steely determination to make it happen. Ultimately Washington’s art is the romance of experience itself, its enduring truths and possibilities etched in her unforgettable voice. — Stuart Broomer

This ’60s LP has the kind of Tubey Magical Midrange that modern pressings barely BEGIN to reproduce. Folks, that sound is gone and it sure isn’t showing any sign of coming back. (more…)

Barbra Streisand – People

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  • An outstanding copy of Streisand’s fourth solo studio album with solid Double Plus (A++) sound from start to finish – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • This copy is hard to fault – big, open, clear, with space and three-dimensionality that modern pressings can only dream of
  • 4 1/2 stars: “Barbra Streisand returned to form on her fourth album, People, with a selection of songs that showed some of the imagination of her debut album… it was a definite improvement over the second and third albums. (People won Grammy Awards for Best Vocal Performance and Best Album Cover.)” 

This vintage Columbia 360 Stereo pressing has the kind of Tubey Magical Midrange that modern records rarely begin to reproduce. Folks, that sound is gone and it sure isn’t showing any sign of coming back. (more…)

Anita O’Day – Trav’lin’ Light

More Pop and Jazz Vocal Albums

Reviews of Some of Our Favorite Albums by Female Vocalists

  • A superb copy of Anita’s 1961 release, with a Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) side one and an outstanding Double Plus (A++) side two
  • Big space, breathy vocals, lovely leading edge transients on the brass, and plenty of Tubey Magic make this album a true audiophile treat
  • Johnny Mandel’s and Russell Garcia’s arrangements are the perfect compliment to O’Day’s swinging vocals on this tribute to Billie Holiday
  • 4 stars: “… most of this beautiful record find O’Day going her own way in a more forthright, less vulnerable manner… that make[s] haunting use of muted brass at ballad tempos. This was O’Day’s favorite among her Norgran/Verve albums.”

Great players on this one – Ben Webster, Jack Sheldon, Barney Kessel, Al Viola and Mel Lewis are just a handful of the top players on these sessions. A hard record to find in stereo with good vinyl; it took us years to put together this shootout. This ’60s Verve LP has the kind of Tubey Magical Midrange that modern pressings barely BEGIN to reproduce. Folks, that sound is gone and it sure isn’t showing any sign of coming back. (more…)

Sarah Vaughan – Golden Hits (1954-58)

  • Excellent sound throughout with each side rating a solid Double Plus (A++) or BETTER – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • Surprisingly dynamic on both sides – this pressing lets you hear The Divine One when she really was that good
  • This is Sarah in her prime, presenting the listener with an especially good overview of her best Mercury recordings from 1954-58

Wonderful space and most of the richness that makes these ’50s recordings (many by the legendary Robert Fine) so wonderfully natural.

Big, lively and highly resolving. A powerful low end too (which has to be Fine’s doing).

We’ve been fortunate to have a number of excellent sounding Sarah Vaughan records find their way onto our turntable over the course of the last few years, but this is our first official Sarah Vaughan shootout title to make it to the site.

Most of the reason for this unfortunate fact can be attributed to the lack of clean copies of her prime albums for Mercury sitting in our local record store bins. Her best albums are either missing or scratched. (Plenty of Pablos and Mainstreams, sure, but we have never been all that impressed with either label’s recordings of vocalists.)

This Greatest Hits album apparently stayed in print long enough to produce the supply necessary for one of our shootouts, and the result is we now have some wonderful Sarah Vaughan performances with superb sound to share with our customers. (more…)

Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Cole Porter Songbook

  • With outstanding Double Plus (A++) sound or close to it for all four sides, this glorious 1956 mono recording is superb from first note to last
  • Full-bodied, musical, and smooth, with surprisingly spacious orchestral staging – this is just the right sound for this album and especially this kind of music
  • “The combination of Ella and Porter is irresistible and whether up-tempo or down-tempo, Ella’s three-octave range voice soars effortlessly as she makes each song come to life. It was all helped by the cream of L.A. session men and Buddy Bregman’s arrangement that oozes sophistication way beyond his twenty-four years. It is a perfect record.” – Richard Havers

he space is HUGE and the sound so rich. Prodigious amounts of Tubey Magic as well, which is key to the best sounding copies.

Take it from an Ella fan, you can’t go wrong with this one. The sound is rich and full-bodied in the best tradition of a classic vintage jazz vocal album. You could easily demonstrate your stereo with a record this good, but what you would really be demonstrating is music that the listener probably hasn’t heard, and that’s the best reason to demonstrate a stereo. (more…)

Ray Charles & Betty Carter – A Forgotten Classic

More Ray Charles

  • You’ll find outstanding Double Plus (A++) sound on this vintage stereo pressing – it’s the first truly Hot Stamper to EVER hit the site 
  • This 1961 release showcases two of the most soulful singers to ever share a microphone, both at the height of their powers
  • Includes the still-popular “Baby It’s Cold Outside” (no one has ever recorded it quite like these two), People Will Say We’re In Love, Side By Side, and many more
  • 4 stars: “There is certainly a powerful, often sexy rapport between the two — Charles in his sweet balladeering mode, Carter with her uniquely keening, drifting high register — and they definitely create sparks in the justly famous rendition of “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.””

It’s EXTREMELY rare to find a stereo copy of Ray Charles & Betty Carter in anything but beat condition, but here’s one that not only sounds great, but plays exceptionally quietly for an album from this era.

We’ve raved about the DCC pressing in the past. If you own that one, this very record will show you what you’ve been missing. (more…)

Julie London – Julie… At Home in 1960

More Julie London

If you’re a fan of intimate female vocals – the kind without a trace of digital reverb – you should get quite a kick out of Julie… At Home. And unless I miss my guess you’ll be the first and only person on your block to own it! (That’s not a bad thing considering the average person’s taste in music.) 

Need a refresher course in Tubey Magic after playing too many modern recordings or remasterings? These Liberty pressings are overflowing with it. Rich, smooth, sweet, full of ambience (or at least as much ambience as can be heard in Julie’s living room), dead-on correct tonality — everything that we listen for in a great record is here. (more…)

Della Reese – Della in Living Stereo

 

  • Both sides here are rich and smooth with a big bottom end and a lovely musical quality that’s missing from the average copy
  • Plays Mint Minus Minus on side one and even quieter on side two — Mint Minus to Mint Minus Minus
  • “Recorded in 1959, this excellent album finds Reese backed by an orchestra that Neal Hefti arranged and conducted.” – All Music

If you’re a fan of vintage female vocals – the kind with no trace of digital reverb – you may get quite a kick out of this one.

Tubey Magic Is Key

This early Living Stereo pressing has the kind of Tubey Magical Midrange that modern records cannot even BEGIN to reproduce. Folks, that sound is gone and it sure isn’t showing signs of coming back. If you love hearing INTO a recording, actually being able to “see” the performers, and feeling as if you are sitting in the studio with the band, this is the record for you. It’s what vintage all analog recordings are known for — this sound.

If you exclusively play modern repressings of vintage recordings, I can say without fear of contradiction that you have never heard this kind of sound on vinyl. Old records have it — not often, and certainly not always — but maybe one out of a hundred new records do, and those are some pretty long odds.

What to Listen For (WTLF)

Copies with rich lower mids and nice extension up top did the best in our shootout, assuming they weren’t veiled or smeary of course. So many things can go wrong on a record! We know, we heard them all. (more…)