Search - Kay Thompson :: Golden Years

SENSATIONAL!!!

03/02/1999

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Kay Thompson has smart-set style, vocal virtuosity, class, and arrangements to kill (her swinging version of "How Much Do I Love You" alone is worth the price of the CD). She taught Judy Garland and Lena Horne style at MGM, and you can see where those two seminal artists developed some of their technique. The last 10 tracks, taken from her obscure studio album of 1952, are by far the best, and each swings. A must for any fan of Sinatra, Garland, Horne, Lee... actually, for anyone!"

Exciting vocal arrangements, but very poor sound

04/24/2002

(2 out of 5 stars)

"Kay Thompson is an amazing vocal arranger and singer and it is wonderful to hear her at the top of her craft. The cd on the other hand suffers from poor sound quality. This cd has been recorded from an out of print album and pops and skips along. It is really too bad because it distracts from the performance. I hope that some time in the future they will release the material from the original source."

Kay Thompson, the vocal cannon!

uthungus | San Francisco, CA | 10/26/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"It's really a shame more of Kay Thompson's vocal work isn't (as yet) out there! I was impressed with both her speaking presence as well as booming vocal capabilities from the very first (of many) viewings of "Funny Face"! Let's face it, outside of the background vocalists in that movie she's really the only one that can actually sing (and that's no putdown to either Fred Astair or Audrey Hepburn; both of whom I love for their many other talents)! She's absolutely amazing! This collection came available a few years back and I snapped it right up, only having her recordings up to that time from the aforementioned soundtrack. What others have said about the sound quality is true, but nowadays remastering equipment has come a whole lot further, so maybe a second re-release of this and others is somewhere out there in the works, one can only hope. But my favorites on this one start about midway with her standards like "That Old Feeling", "Where are You?", "Blue Moon", etc.. The earlier big band numbers are enjoyable too in another way like "Take a Number From one to Ten" for example, but you also have to like earlier recordings that were about a "band singer" that was only one part of the whole ensemble (see also Janet Blair or Lucia Pamela) until musical tastes later went off the direction they did. Overall, though this is a good diverse body of her earlier years and I'll look forward to coming across more from this amazing lady as I collect things!"