Vintage Records Review Desk 1: Frank Sinatra, Matt Dennis, June Christy & Stan Kenton, Cliff "Ukulele Ike" Edwards

This section will feature brief critical appraisals of recently acquired CDs that have somehow caught my attention. Some of them will be new reissues of old recordings, while some others may have been re-released several years ago but only lately added to my collection. I hope readers will find the reviews helpful when looking to augment their own CD collections.

In late 1949, Frank Sinatra struck up a deal with the Lucky Strike cigarette company to start a daily fifteen-minute radio series to be called Lite-Up Time, which would remain on the air until June 1950. The eighteen tracks included in On the Radio: The Lucky Strike Lite-Up Time Shows 1949-1950 (Acrobat Records, 2008) come from shows recorded between September 1949 and March 1950, a time when Sinatra was said to be experiencing trouble with his voice, a fact which really is not apparent in these broadcasts. Backed by orchestras conducted by Jeff Alexander, Skitch Henderson, and Ziggy Elman, Sinatra shines on renditions of standards like "You Do Something to Me," "All of Me," and "I Only Have Eyes for You." Though some of the songs may not be up to Sinatra's high standards of excellence ("There's Yes Yes in Your Eyes," for all of its cuteness, is an example of this) the short Lite-Up Time broadcasts offered him a chance to duet with the sweet-voiced Dorothy Kirsten, as well as allowing for excellent solos from Elman and Bobby Hackett on "I've Got a Crush on You" and "Body and Soul" respectively. Complete with introductions and banter before and after some of the songs, this CD should be a welcome addition to any Sinatra collection.

The author of several great songs that, like "Everything Happens to Me" and "Let's Get Away from It All," Sinatra cut as early as his tenure with the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra, Matt Dennis enjoyed a very respectable recording career in his own right. Born in Seattle into a family of musicians, Dennis not only had a gift for crafting beautiful tunes, but he also was an adept pianist with a pleasant voice, as we can hear in Welcome Matt (Jasmine Records, 2012), a recently released two-CD set that presents four complete albums that Dennis made in the 1950s. He was undoubtedly at his best in a nightclub setting, accompanied by his own piano and a small jazz combo. Two of the albums included here, Plays and Sings and Dennis, Anyone?, feature him in such a setting, performing his self-penned songs before a small live audience. The tunes range from intimate ballads ("Angel Eyes," "Violets for Your Furs," both of them recorded more than once by Ol' Blue Eyes) to witty uptempo list songs ("Will You Still Be Mine?," "We Belong Together"). Dennis excels at both types of material, and on a couple of the tracks, he is ably joined by his wife, Ginny Maxey, who had once been a member of The Modernaires.

The other two LPs included in the set move away from the intimate nightclub setting and present Dennis backed by full orchestras. The Songs of Rodgers and Hart (1955) is an interesting songbook-style album that finds the singer delving into the rich repertoire of the famous songwriting team and creating convincing readings of classic tunes such as "Dancing on the Ceiling," a bouncy "Mountain Greenery," and "I Didn't Know What Time It Was." Closing the set, we find a charming concept album constructed around the motif of home and entitled Welcome Matt Dennis (1959). With classy charts by Dorsey arranger Sy Oliver, the LP mixes well-known standards with three songs written by Dennis, offering nice surprises like a beautiful version of "By the Fireside," a song associated with Al Bowlly. Given the scarcity of Matt Dennis releases on compact disc, this Jasmine set comes to fill an important void and hopefully will help stir some newfound interest in this unjustly overlooked singer who was, first and foremost, a fine songwriter.

One song written by Matt Dennis (the classic "Angel Eyes," with lyrics by Tom Adair) is precisely one of nine included in Duet (Capitol, 1993), a CD reissue of an album that pairs up Stan Kenton on piano with vocalist June Christy. Arguably one of the most unique female singers to come out of the big band era, Christy reunited with former boss Kenton, in whose band she had replaced Anita O'Day as the featured vocalist in the mid-1940s, for an LP that stands as one of the most challenging in the careers of both participants. The project, recorded over the course of four sessions in May 1955, presents Miss Christy's divinely husky voice, with its astounding ability to narrate stories in song so convincingly, sharing the spotlight with Kenton's forceful piano accompaniment, which is afforded plenty of space to shine on his own throughout the album. The result is a classic, though often neglected, record that combines standards (Cole Porter's "Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye," George and Ira Gershwin's "How Long Has This Been Going On") with under-recorded gems (Joe Greene's "Come to the Party," Bobby Troup's "Just the Way I Am") that really sound special in the hands—and pipes—of the duo of Kenton and Christy. Benny Carter's "Lonely Woman," with its powerfully dramatic undertones, and "Baby, Baby All the Time," a song that came to Miss Christy's attention via her much-admired Nat King Cole, are among the many high spots of the album, the latter even prompting the singer to do her share of scatting. In his Biographical Guide to the Great Jazz and Pop Singers, critic Will Friedwald notes that the album could well have been inspired by similar collaborations between Ella Fitzgerald and Ellis Larkins, before going on to suggest that "[t]he starkness of the accompaniment and the exposed, vulnerable nature of Christy's singing effectively foreshadow Tony Bennett and Bill Evans twenty years later" (87). Though sadly out of print, this is a highly recommendable album, and its CD reissue boasts not only fine liner notes by Mr. Friedwald himself, but also two tracks ("Prelude to a Kiss" and the lovely "Thanks for You") that were left out of the original LP release.

And last but not least, a compilation that, in my opinion, is long overdue. Although most certainly unbeknownst to them, Retrieval Records answered one of my requests on this website with their latest Cliff "Ukulele Ike" Edwards release, Fascinating Rhythm 1922-1935. Covering a period of exactly thirteen years, from February 1922 to February 1935, this excellent two-CD set includes Ukulele Ike's series of Hot Combination sessions, on which he is accompanied by the cream of jazz musicians of the 1920s and 30s, legends such as Red Nichols, Miff Mole, Fred Morrow, Dick McDonough, Joe Venuti, Eddie Lang, and Jimmy Dorsey, among others. The result of such combinations, which began to be recorded regularly in 1925, is a slew of pioneering jazz recordings full of hot solos and plenty of the kind of seminal scat singing, called "eefin'," for which Edwards was renowned. The booklet, with liner notes penned by Chris Ellis, features extensive information both on the sessions and Ukulele Ike's phenomenal career, and the set is undoubtedly a must for any serious vintage jazz aficionado.