Sarah Vaughan At Mister Kelly's

Album: At Mister Kelly's
Artist: Sarah Vaughan
Born: Newark, New Jersey
Released: August 1957
Genre: Jazz
Influenced: Frank Sinatra, Amy Winehouse

This is the first of the albums covered so far that I own on vinyl, so inevitably I've given the record a spin as I write this blog. Adding this to my list might suggest I'm some sort of jazz afficionado, but that's certainly not the case. I love this album for three simple reasons; 1) Sarah Vaughan's voice, one of the most sublime I've ever heard, 2) the way it summons up the smoky, intimate atmosphere of jazz clubs in the 1950s before they went into decline, and 3) its sense of fun and freedom. There are very few live albums on this list, mainly because with most modern recordings the studio is the best place for a band to realise its ambition, but jazz is a real exception because of the emphasis on improvisation, and on tracks like How High The Moon you get a sense of Sarah Vaughan's capacity for vocal acrobatics.

On Willow Weep For Me, one of my favourite tracks on the album, there's another brilliant piece of improv following a section near the end of the song where Vaughan, by her own admission, "fouled up so well"; yet she still keeps the audience on side with her charm and earthy wit. The LP that I own and the Spotify link above contain nine tracks from the show, but there is a longer version of the recording available. Though some may find the album (and this style of music) slow and soporific, it never fails to relax me. Sarah Vaughan also performed by far the best version of the amazing Sondheim song, Send In The Clowns, I've ever heard. Definitely worth discovering.