Search - Sarah Vaughan :: Sassy Swings the Tivoli

This two-CD set presents two hours of Sarah Vaughan performing in Copenhagen's Tivoli over a four-day period in 1963. It's Vaughan doing what she did regularly, singing strong material in the context of her working trio, made up here of pianist Kirk Stuart, bassist Charles Williams, and drummer George Hughes. Producer Quincy Jones supposedly worked with her on selecting the tunes, but there are no surprises. The material is all familiar standards and jazz tunes, and those songs that might be unusual in another singer's repertoire--"Black Coffee" or "Poor Butterfly"--were mainstays in Vaughan's. These are wonderful performances. Vaughan's voice was as fine an instrument as has ever sung jazz and her timbre was without peer. Scatting on an uptempo song like "Sometimes I'm Happy" or her own medium-tempo "Sassy's Blues," she's as fluently inventive as almost any instrumentalist. While her ballads would sometimes become stagy in live performances--complete with asides to the band or audience--they could also be marvelous, and there are many in that category here. Vaughan's sound is so variable that she sometimes gives the impression another singer has begun a song, and she can range within a single song from the richest depths to soaring, fluting highs. There are dual versions of a few songs here--"What Is This Thing Called Love," "Lover Man," "I Cried for You"--and they demonstrate just how spontaneously creative Vaughan was. --Stuart Broomer