CD 1
1. Jelly, Jelly
2. Skylark
3. Stormy Monday Blues
Earl Hines (piano) and his Orchestra
4. Blowin' the Blues Away
5. A Cottage for Sale
6. Lonesome Lover Blues
7. Prisoner of Love
8. I'm in the Mood for Love
9. You Call It Madness
Billy Eckstine and his Orchestra
10. Everything I Have Is Yours
Sonny Burke and his Orchestra
11. Intrigue
12. Blue Moon
13. Mister B's Blues
14. Caravan
Hugo Winterhalter and his Orchestra
15. Body and Soul
16. Jealousy
Buddy Baker and his Orchestra
17. My Foolish Heart
Russ Case and his Orchestra
18. Dedicated to You
19. You're All I Need
Duets with Sarah Vaughan; Joe Lippman and his Orchestra
20. I Wanna Be Loved
Russ Case and his Orchestra
21. Be My Love
Buddy Baker and his Orchestra
22. I Apologize
23. If
Pete Rugolo and his Orchestra
24. I Left My Hat in Haiti
Woody Herman (clarinet, alto saxophone) and his Orchestra
25. Taking a Chance on Love
George Shearing (piano) and his Quintet
26. One for My Baby and One More for the Road
Bobby Tucker (piano) and his Quartet
CD 2
1. Kiss of Fire
Nelson Riddle and the Orchestra
2. Tenderly
Bobby Tucker (piano) and his Quartet
3. St. Louis Blues
The Metronome All-Stars
4. I Let a Song Go Out of My Heart
5. No One but You
Lou Bring and his Orchestra
6. Cheek to Cheek
7. Passing Strangers
Duets with Sara Vaughan; Hal Mooney and his Orchestra
8. The Boulevard of Broken Dreams
9. You Don't Know What Love Is
10. Stella by Starlight
11. Gigi (Gaston's Soliloquy)
Bobby Tucker (piano) and his Orchestra
12. Imagination
13. Lullaby of the Leaves
Pete Rugolo and his Orchestra
14. Little Mama
15. Blues, the Mother of Sin
Count Basie and his Orchestra
16. As Time Goes By
17. Stormy Weather
18. Blues in the Night
Billy May and his Orchestra
19. Without a Song
20. Lush Life
21. 'Deed I Do
22. Misty
Bobby Tucker (piano) and his Orchestra
23. In the Still of the Night
24. Alright, Okay, You Win
Quincy Jones and his Orchestra
Dip into any track here, and enjoy the smooth, even singing of Billy Eckstine as he caresses the melodies with honeyed tone. His handling of music and
text, reflecting the natural flow and emphasis of speech with a tasteful, tactful rhythmic freedom,
could serve as an object lesson for students of popular song.
Still, Eckstine's performances, for all their ease and flexibility, can feel a bit detached. The best balladeers -- a Sinatra, a Streisand, a Nancy LaMott
-- treat each song as a dramatic scene, bringing it to life by connecting to the shifting emotional nuances of the lyric, line by line. Eckstine,
particularly in the earlier tracks, is content to roll out the words and the honeyed tones in much the same way from line to line, and even from song to
song. It's all pleasing and musical, to be sure, but only occasionally -- as with the affirmative ambivalence of Prisoner of Love -- does the
singer's manner seem directed to a specific response.
A pair of duets with Sarah Vaughan, recorded in 1949, stand out from the surrounding tracks on the first disc, perhaps because she spurred Eckstine to
greater involvement efforts. When Vaughan begins Dedicated to You, her clear, forward voice is a refreshing change from Eckstine's invariable
baritone. You're All I Need, in this arrangement, is even better: Eckstine begins, in warm voice; Vaughan answers; and the two continue to swap
off lines and verses, back-and-forth, to lively effect.
Otherwise, the best tracks on the first disc are a laid-back treatment of Be My Love -- the extroverted Lanza passion is missing, and it's not
missed -- and a light, pointed Taking a Chance on Love. I Left My Hat in Haiti is playful, and I liked If, where Eckstine pivots
in mid-phrase from a proclamatory stance to an intimate, caressing one -- nicely done.
Things get better on the second disc, and not just because the recording quality keeps improving: a more experienced Eckstine finally starts to make his
performances personal, rather than merely pleasant. He's nuanced and responsive in Tenderly, where the piano brings a nice improvisatory feel to
the bridge. I Let a Song Go Out of My Heart brings a distinct leap forward in sonic clarity, though it, like the previous track, dates from 1953;
Eckstine plays against the text in a hopeful performance. St. Louis Blues is properly bluesy, Stella by Starlight expressive, as well as
enveloping in the low range.
In Gigi, Eckstine is gripping in the brief, unfamiliar introduction, then oddly run-of-the-mill in the chorus; on the other hand, he enters into
the ruminative spirit of Blues, the Mother of Sin. Another pair of duets with Sarah Vaughan again offer a nice immediacy: the close harmonies and
firm singing are appealing in Cheek to Cheek, and really affecting in Passing Strangers. The "live" recordings from Las Vegas and New
York that close out the collection catch Eckstine at his most spontaneous, although Misty ends up feeling generic.
Occasionally, we're reminded that not every item in the Great American Songbook is necessarily deathless: Harry Akst's Intrigue is a forgettable
beguine, and I find no reason ever to return to it, save that I've already forgotten how it goes. Neither are all the arrangements felicitous. Caravan, backed by "tribal" drums, slows the main theme to half speed -- I didn't immediately recognize it -- and then reverts to the usual tempo
at the bridge! The stylized rendering of One for My Baby and One More for the Road loses the lazy effect of the original rhythms, leaving Eckstine
sounding more generic than ever. I'm in the Mood for Love sounds too high for this singer in this key, and he strains audibly at the upward lines.
(To be fair, up-tempos and more pattery songs that lie similarly high, such as Mister B's Blues, cause the singer no problem.)
This kind of retrospective allows you to trace the evolution of arranging styles along with that of the artist. The early tracks -- along with the later Stormy Weather -- hew to the basic jazz-band model, dominated by saxophones and trumpets. Lonesome Lover Blues even hews rather closely
to a traditional jazz structure, bracketing a brief Eckstine solo -- one chorus and out -- with an extended introduction and postlude, treating
the vocal as "just" one more featured instrumental. In the ballads, the addition of strings to the arrangements adds warmth and a romantic surge,
particularly in the later cuts. Tenderly is accompanied by just a small combo, as in a nightclub, with a lovely intimacy. Boulevard of Broken Dreams, with its gently dissonant boulevardier flutes and its martial take on the tango, seems to have classical
ambitions.
The remastered sound is mostly rather good. Eckstine's voice is always front and center, marred only by a touch of distortion in A Cottage for Sale and the peaks of St. Louis Blues. On the earlier, jazz-band tracks, the saxes sound as present as the voice, but the
trumpets are comparatively thin and shallow. The brassy introduction to Kiss of Fire is both hard-edged and congested. In the later recordings --
beginning with that late-1953 I Let a Song... -- the instruments sound beautiful, with expansive tone and, when strings are involved, a nice
sheen.
Stephen Francis Vasta
Stephen Francis Vasta is a New York-based conductor, coach, and journalist.
CD Reviews
Retrospective RTS 4252
