“Out There with Betty Carter”   Peacock’s Progressive Jazz   (1958)   Featuring:  Kenny Dorham, Ray Copeland (tp), Melba Liston (tb), Tommy Gryce, Jimmy Powell (as), Benny Golston, Jerome Richardson (ts), Sahib Shihab (bars), Wynton Kelly (p), Sam Jones, Peck Morrison (b), Specs Wright (d), Betty Carter (vcl)

(49 votes, average: 4.51 out of 5)

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“P.S. – Tony Pastor Plays and Sings Shaw”   Tony Pastor and his Orchestra   Everest Records.   What did Tony do with all his LP Covers?!

(43 votes, average: 3.70 out of 5)

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Dean Martin “My Woman, My Woman, My Wife” b/w “Here We Go Again”   Reprise Records

(59 votes, average: 3.64 out of 5)

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“Skylark”   Jackie Paris Brunswick Records.   (1955)

Only Yesterday, If Love Is Good To Me.

(JACKIE PARIS, vocal; NORMAN LEYDEN, leader, arranger; BILLY TAYLOR, piano; TRIGGER ALBERT, bass; CARMEN MASTERN, guitar; BUNNY SHAWKER, drums; HYMIE SCHERTZER, alto; AL KLINK, tenor; plus 4 strings.)

I Had A talk with A Daisy , Skylark, Idle Gossip.

(JACKIE PARIS, vocal; NEAL HEFTI, leader, arranger; BILLY TAYLOR, piano; SANDY BLOCK, bass; ED GRADY, drums; GEORGE BARNES, guitar; HARRY BRAUER, vibes; plus 10 strings.)

I love this song.   Gene Ammons does a nice instrumental version, but everyone has done it.   Johnny Mercer wrote the words (allegedly for Judy Garland with whom he had an affair) and Hoagy Carmichael wrote the music.   It was published in 1942.

Skylark

Have you anything to say to me

Won’t you tell me where my love can be

Is there a meadow in the mist

Where someone’s waiting to be kissed

Oh skylark

Have you seen a valley green with spring

Where my heart can go a-journeying

Over the shadows and the rain

To a blossom-covered lane

And in your lonely flight

Haven’t you heard the music in the night

Wonderful music

Faint as a will o’ the wisp

Crazy as a loon

Sad as a gypsy serenading the moon

Oh skylark

I don’t know if you can find these things

But my heart is riding on your wings

So if you see them anywhere

Won’t you lead me there

Oh skylark

Won’t you lead me there

(37 votes, average: 3.51 out of 5)

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“Music to Suffer By”   Leona Anderson on Unique Records (1958)   A glutton for punishment?   Check out the awful truth at WFMU’s Beware of the Blog

(56 votes, average: 4.29 out of 5)

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“Sleep, Baby, Sleep”   Lullabies From Around the World”   Lila Sands Jones, Soprano   Vox Records

(40 votes, average: 2.70 out of 5)

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“An Evening With Eddie Heywood and Billie Holiday” Commodore Records.   A 1960 release of recordings from 1944 sessions and an exquisite Chuck Stewart cover photo!

(37 votes, average: 3.46 out of 5)

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“The Touch of Betty Johnson”   Bally Records

(31 votes, average: 3.45 out of 5)

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Laura Nyro and Labelle “Gonna Take A Miracle” Columbia Records (1971) Laura Nyro has long been my favorite singer-songwriter. As a kid, I listened over and over again to all of her first records. When she came back to touring in 1976, I saw her at Tanglewood (released as the live record “Season of Lights”) and at Case Western University in Cleveland. Her first four records were her greatest, but as each new record came out during her middle period (“Smile,” “Nested,” “Mother’s Spiritual”), I bought them right away and found something special in each one.   In the late 80’s I saw her at the Bottom Line a few times. I have her records from the 90’s and, while I don’t have the same emotional connection to those songs, her voice remains soulful and warm and familiar to me. I like her covers of r&b songs on those last records – which brings me back to “Gonna Take a Miracle” which is all covers of sixties soul songs with background vocals by Patti Labelle and Labelle. Laura grew up singing these songs accapella with her friends on the streets and in the subways of New York.   Making this record must have been a labor of love. Sadly, she died in 1997 at only 49 years old.

(43 votes, average: 3.88 out of 5)

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Carmen McRae Bethlehem Records. Designed by Burt Goldblatt

(33 votes, average: 3.18 out of 5)

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