Part 3
 Essential Recordings

In the second installment of “Jazz Essentials,” we recommended five examples showcasing the early architects of jazz. Among them, of course, was Louis Armstrong, who was influential not only for the bravura trumpet playing that set the standard for jazz improvisation in a group setting, but also for his impact on the jazz vocal art. He not only vocalized with the rhythmic swing and phrasing of an instrument, but also introduced the popular use of scat-singing, often employed when words failed to impart the proper lilt or wit to a given piece of music. Using Armstrong as a springboard to the great jazz singers who followed, we now turn our attention to six more important vocalists of jazz history.

Bing Crosby is best known for his huge popularity as a singer of pop and novelty tunes, a star of radio and TV, and an actor of incredible range, from wacky comedy to heart-rending pathos. But he began as a jazz singer greatly inspired by Louis Armstrong. A contemporary of Armstrong, Crosby influenced countless crooners, including Frank Sinatra. Despite her limited vocal range, Billie Holiday combined an appreciation for the blues, an innate sense of swing, unusual phrasing and a gift for conveying and evoking intense emotions. Unlike most singers who had come before her, she occupied a high, middle ground between the straight blues interpretations of singers like Bessie Smith and the dull, uninflected delivery of most Tin Pan Alley songsters. There was no greater swinger among singers than Ella Fitzgerald. A near-contemporary of Billie Holiday—born two years later—Fitzgerald raised the vocal art to a pinnacle with her unerring pitch, her wide range and her sense of irrepressible joy in every tune. Throughout a career spanning nearly 60 years, she introduced new material with a curious zest, even when it seemed inappropriate or beneath her talents. Sarah Vaughan possessed pipes of operatic potential, capable of multi-octave leaps with a wonderfully controlled vibrato. A transitional jazz singer, Vaughan began her career in the swing era but adapted well to the new sounds and rhythms of bop in the late 1940s. Like Armstrong, Nat King Cole is equally important as an instrumentalist and a singer. His influential piano trio of the late 1930s and 1940s was one of the few to eschew a drummer in favor of a guitarist. Like Crosby, he became a singer of pop standards and occasional novelty songs and was a multi-media star of records, television and movies.

As with other early artists who we have recommended as essentials in any jazz collection, we will focus primarily on multi-disc anthologies. Since recordings of the 1930s and 1940s were initially available only on 78 rpm discs, and even later LPs can be uneven and incomplete examples of the artist’s work, we will suggest more representative collections.

BING CROSBY

Bing! His Legendary Years, 1931-1957

MCA Records

This four-disc set from 1994 is the best package of Crosby’s best years. It documents the arc of his career from the early jazz years, through the crooning radio and film years of the 1940s and into the modern pop-song television era. In doing so, it accomplishes the monumental task of representing all styles with which he is most often associated—swing, ballads, novelties, cowboy songs, holiday tunes and even the travel trifles of Hawaii and Ireland.

Among the early gems included are “I Found a Million Dollar Baby,” “Dancing in the Dark” and “Stardust.” From Crosby’s popular holiday songbook are “White Christmas,” “Silent Night,” “O Come All Ye Faithful,” and “Silver Bells.” But the lion’s share of this 101-song collection is devoted to the standards of the Great American Songbook as interpreted with that marvelous, unmatched Crosby baritone.

For listeners who want more of Crosby from a particular period, we recommend additional jazz recordings from the late 1920s and early 1930s and—for that nostalgic sleigh ride down Santa Claus Lane—a whole album of Christmas music.

BILLIE HOLIDAY

Lady Day: The Master Takes and Singles

Columbia Legacy Records

When it comes to Billie Holiday’s most fruitful years on Columbia records, fans have several formats from which to choose. Those on a limited budget can go with the single-disc “God Bless the Child” from 1996 or 2001’s double-disc “Lady Day: The Best of Billie Holiday.” For the completist, there is the 10-CD “The Complete Billie Holiday on Columbia (1933-1944),” also released in 2001.

We recommend the middle path, the wonderful four-disc 2007 entry entitled “Lady Day: The Master Takes and Singles,” a collection of 80 superb recordings made between 1935 and 1942. The sound is great, the selections are unimpeachable, and the performances are flawless, reaffirming Holiday as likely the best jazz singer of all time.

Of course, it helps that she is accompanied by some of the great players of the era, including pianist Teddy Wilson, saxophonists Lester Young, Ben Webster, Chu Berry and Johnny Hodges, clarinetists Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw and Jimmy Hamilton, trumpeters Harry “Sweets” Edison, Roy Eldridge, Buck Clayton and Charlie Shavers, guitarists Freddie Green, Dave Barbour and John Collins, bassists Milt Hinton, John Kirby and Walter Page, and drummers Jo Jones, Kenny Clarke, and Gene Krupa.

ELLA FITZGERALD

Something to Live For

Verve Records

Fitzgerald recorded from the early 1930s well into the 1980s—an incredible output—and much of it is first-rate. But we give the nod to this 1999 two-disc collection of 30 songs, ranging from 1935 to 1966. “Something to Live For” is a companion to the TV documentary of the same name, which appeared on the PBS series “American Masters.”

Importantly, it contains eight selections from her early years with Decca, including the iconic “A-Tisket, A-Tasket.” Among the other career highlights are “How High the Moon,” “But Not for Me,” “Ridin’ High,” “Angel Eyes,” a live and swinging version of “Oh, Lady Be Good,” “The Lady is a Tramp,” “Body and Soul,” the scat masterpiece “Airmail Special,” “Mack the Knife,” “Mr. Paganini,” and one of her many excellent renditions of “’Round Midnight.”

Like Holiday, Fitzgerald got the sidemen she so richly deserved. Among those included here are pianist Oscar Peterson, saxophonists Colman Hawkins, Lester Young, Ben Webster, Stan Getz, Illinois Jacquet, Flip Phillips and Sonny Stitt, trombonist J.J. Johnson, trumpeters Harry “Sweets” Edison and Roy Eldridge, guitarists Herb Ellis and Barney Kessel, and bassist (and former husband) Ray Brown.

SARAH VAUGHAN

Young Sassy

Proper Records

We can recommend 2001’s “Young Sassy,” without reservation, for a number of reasons. Whereas early recordings of Holiday and Fitzgerald were often inferior to their later work—usually due to weak material—Vaughan’s beginnings were more auspicious. Her voice was always magical, and the tunes here are largely drawn from the standards. Also, this four-disc collection contains her entire output between 1944 and 1950, an amazing 94 songs, at the very reasonable cost of less than $30.

Few can complain about a set list that includes “East of the Sun (and West of the Moon),” “Lover Man,” “Mean to Me,” “You Go to My Head,” “It Might as Well Be Spring,” “I’ve Got a Crush on You,” “Body and Soul,” “Time After Time,” “I Cover the Waterfront,” “Tenderly,” “Love Me or Leave Me,” “The Nearness of You,” “Come Rain or Come Shine,” and “Black Coffee.”

Great thanks are due the folks at Proper Records, a UK label that has released dozens of modestly priced collections of jazz, blues, country and other great American music in recent years.

NAT KING COLE

The Best of the Nat King Cole Trio: The Instrumental Classics/The Vocal Classics

Blue Note Records

Since Nat Cole’s later recordings often suffer from a poor choice of material and overproduction, it is wise to start at the beginning. The three discs included in “Best of Nat King Cole: The Instrumental Classics/The Vocal Classics” present 62 tracks from the trio’s productive years of 1944 to 1950. The instrumental and vocal excellence presented here may come as a surprise to the unfortunate listener who knows only the Nat King Cole of “Ramblin’ Rose,” “Mona Lisa,” “Those Lazy, Hazy, Crazy Days of Summer” and “Cat Ballou.”

Among the most notable selections here are “Sweet Georgia Brown,” “Honeysuckle Rose,” “How High the Moon,” “Straighten Up and Fly Right,” “It’s Only a Paper Moon,” “Sweet Lorraine,” “Frim Fram Sauce,” “Route 66,” “Meet Me at No Special Place,” “When I Take My Sugar to Tea,” “Too Marvelous For Words,” and “For all We Know.”

Cole’s satiny voice, impeccable piano playing and warm delivery require no strings, horns or other production “values,” which often weakened his later recordings. That is what makes these trio sides so important and so supremely listenable. By the way, we must pay our respects to the other players that make these recordings so timeless: Oscar Moore and Irving Ashby alternating on guitars, and Joe Comfort and Johnny Miller alternating on bass.    

FRANK SINATRA

The Capitol Years

Capitol Records

Few critics disagree that Sinatra’s middle period, his Capitol years from 1953 to 1961, produced his finest hours of recorded music in a career than spanned six decades. You can’t go wrong with any of the individual releases of the Capitol decade, so why not own them all? Either save up your money and purchase this 21-CD boxed set or buy the CDs individually, as I have over the last decade or so.

This 1998 EMI British import gets kudos for its purportedly superior sound over the individual domestic re-masters that were issued in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The box contains each of the original LPs packaged as a separate CD, with an additional disc compiling bonus tracks entitled “The Rare Sinatra.” The mammoth 272-track collection is also outrageously expensive, upwards of $600. Proponents claim that Sinatra’s voice is brighter, more alive, here than on the U.S. versions, but these esoteric arguments are subjective and fail to justify the cost, unless you happen to be independently wealthy.

For those of us who have to work for a living—and who have other music on our wish list—the way to go is to acquire the U.S. Capitol reissues as singles, for around $12 each. That way, you also get the bonus tracks that are added to each CD, expanding the length beyond the original 30 minutes or so. Most of Sinatra’s Capitol recordings are classics, so you can’t go wrong by either purchasing them chronologically or by going for your favorites first. Eventually, you should own “Songs for Young Lovers/Swing Easy” (1954), “In the Wee Small Hours” (1955), “Songs for Swingin’ Lovers” (1956), “A Swingin’ Affair” (1957), “Where Are You?” (1957), “Come Fly With Me” (1958), “Only the Lonely” (1958), “Come Dance with Me” (1959), “No One Cares” (1959), and “Nice and Easy” (1960). These 10 recordings represent a seven-year run of brilliance unparalleled in American popular song.  

Once you have satisfied your appetite for Sinatra’s greatest period, supplement your collection with something from his early years with Columbia Records and his later years on the Reprise label. Try to find the four-disc, 97-track “Best of Columbia Years 1943-52,” released in 1998, and go with either 1990’s, four-disc “The Reprise Collection” or “The Very Best of Frank Sinatra,” an excellent double-disc, 40-track overview of the Reprise years released by Warner Bros. in 1997. Happy listening!

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