Search - Sarah Vaughan, Lester Young :: One Night Stand: Town Hall Concert 1947

Little Known Gem

dls31@cornell.edu | Washington, DC | 03/07/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The program on this disc is a split between a Lester Young group and Sarah Vaughan. The sound quality here is good but not perfect. Tenor giant Lester "Pres" Young sounds as fresh as it gets on his numbers, outshining his sidemen on tune after tune. A young Vaughan displays her exceptional voice and keenly developed sense of time and tone. Her sultry, smoky vocal timbre is perfectly under control at all times, making this album a great one."

Live lester near his peak

rmars123@aol.com | 02/24/2002

(3 out of 5 stars)

"The value of this recording is the live banter between Lester and his sidemen. The apparent joy and laughter among the group gives a great insight into Lester's playing at this period of his career - however, this is only for serious Lester fans, otherwise, the somewhat poor sound quality will eventually turn off average listeners. More lively than his studio recordings of the same period."

Beautiful and historical one night stand

Nikica Gilic | Zagreb, Croatia | 06/30/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"First of all, the review that complains that Lester Young is improvising instead of sticking to the melody should be removed from this site. This is a jazz CD for crying out loud!

The president is really improvising at his best (or near his best) level, although the rest of his group doesn't sound as convincing. Part of the reason is that Young has indeed played with better bands, but that's not all - due to admittedly poor sound ballance, you can hardly hear the interesting pianist Sadik Hakim in all the band playing and additional noise...

In addition to that, stylistically speaking, this band is caught between swing and be-bop, the transition Young has inspired but never made himself, as opposed to some of his companions, and these caught-in-the-change groups from the 40's can sometimes sound chaotic to contemporary listener.

Young, nevertheless, shines at this CD, and since he is one of the true geniuses of jazz, his contribution to this CD alone would merrit 5 stars, even if it wasn't for young but already divine singer Sarah Vaughan.

She is incredible, at the peak of her powers, marvellously rhytmicall and cynnically emotional, showing already why she is also considered one of the true giants of jazz.



Highly recomended.



But if you are trained in the digital era (and its recording technology), skip this one and buy the latest Norah Jones or Diana Kral album instead.



p.s.

Since the explosive drummer Roy Haynes is overrecorded at many songs, this is a good opportunity to study his early style in the context of the development of modern jazz."