Rod Stewart - Every Picture Tells A Story
Rod the Mod finds his solo footing, headed for stardom, with the Faces in his wake.
6:00 AM GMT 22/06/2011
Features Disc of the day
Sammy Davis Jr./Buddy Rich
The Sounds of ’66
(Reprise, 1966)
Subtleties be damned! It's the belter and the basher of neon supper club jazz, up for a big Vegas night out.
Given that songs now float out in the cold electronic ether, untethered from their natural homes, the idea of treasuring an LP because it has a great opening track seems about as relevant to the modern world as sending important messages by fax and keeping the phone in the hall. But, if we're still allowed to cleave to such outmoded ideas, can I put forward Come Back To Me from Sammy Davis Jr./Buddy Rich's The Sounds of '66 as the most darned exciting way possible to kick off a vinyl long-player. The album was cut live at The Sands Lounge in Las Vegas in the early hours of the morning in May 1966 and finds the singer in bold and bullish mood. Prior to 1960's desegregation, black artists who played the Vegas venues - like Nat King Cole, Count Basie and Sammy - were still excluded from the hotels, casinos and restaurants. Davis was instrumental in breaking Vegas's colour bar and The Sound Of '66 is that of the valiant conqueror, albeit one with an almighty chip on his shoulder. However hard he tried, fellow Vegas "buddies" like Frank and Dino still regarded Sammy as a bit of a joke. The more Sammy tried to prove his worth, the more desperate he looked; while Frank bathed in the cool aquamarine light and Dino made it all look so drunkenly easy. But boldness, desperation and arrogance are the stuff of rock'n'roll and Come Back To Me kicks even before the track starts, with Sammy's sharp spoken-word introduction setting the early hours scene ("As I look at my watch now it's a quarter after five. In Las Vegas it is still swingin'") and setting conductor George Rhodes and drummer Buddy Rich free of the traps ("Go, George!"). He also tells us that "for the next ten or twelve sides" we should "just relax, sit down and swing with us," but there's fat chance of that as Rich gloriously bashes and wallops his way through What Now My Love, What Kind of Fool Am I and even Ding-Dong! The Witch Is Dead and Davis holds on tight, bellowing and barking over these smooth classics in a manner that can best be described as SLEAZY. Cut for Sinatra's own Reprise label, Sounds Of '66 sounds like a boot in Frank's face, a belting big band supper jazz ba-boom that is as far removed from the hipster now scene as you could possibly imagine and, for that reason, it also sounds gloriously transgressively wrong. It makes young people feel ill. Another reason to marvel at its out-of-the-past power.
Andrew Male
Posted by Ross_Bennett at 6:00 AM GMT 23/03/2009
Further Listening
Sammy Davis Jr. – At The Cocoanut Lounge (Reprise, 1963)
Frank Sinatra – Sinatra At The Sands (Reprise, 1966)
Buddy Rich - Swingin’ New Big Band (Blue Note, 1966)
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I guess I disagree in so many ways. 1) Vinyl LP as an "outmoded idea". I think I would have only agreed with you in the 1980's when I (along with everyone) was desperate to prove that digital was better than analog, as if the world would stop revolving if I couldn't convince each person I met of this fact. Don't misunderstand. I am also not one of those analog pseudo-purists desperate to prove that "analog is better". However music is recorded is however music is recorded, and short of actually going back in a time machine, won't be improved by format conversion. I say this having heard so many "remasters", trust me. To be frank they all end up sounding weirder never better. I could name the train wrecks one-by-one, but I'll spare you. 2) That Sammy looked desperate, that he was trying too hard, that he failed to exude the laid-back made-it-look-easy charm of Frank or Dino, and that this in itself is a failure that would scare away the "Hipsters". The hipsters, like anything that "trends", by that very definition, date themselves. Be assured that pleasing trendy whims is the surest way to guarantee exclusion from the rarefied short list of truly timeless music.
Sammy's earnestness is what earns his performance it's spot on that rarefied short list.
Compare his performance here of "What now my love" to Frankie's head-bobbing finger-snapping emotionally inappropriate version of the same song. I'm a Frank Sinatra fan, but his reading of "What now my love" is a puzzling "is-this-trip-necessary" walk-through of a song delivery when some kind of emotion should have been in order. His "coolness" blew the song!
Posted by Morgan Bochan at 1:11 AM GMT 11/09/2011 Report Abuse
Reply to this post
I guess I disagree in so many ways. 1) Vinyl LP as an "outmoded idea". I think I would have only agreed with you in the 1980's when I (along with everyone) was desperate to prove that digital was better than analog, as if the world would stop revolving if I couldn't convince each person I met of this fact. Don't misunderstand. I am also not one of those analog pseudo-purists desperate to prove that "analog is better". However music is recorded is however music is recorded, and short of actually going back in a time machine, won't be improved by format conversion. I say this having heard so many "remasters", trust me. To be frank they all end up sounding weirder never better. I could name the train wrecks one-by-one, but I'll spare you. 2) That Sammy looked desperate, that he was trying too hard, that he failed to exude the laid-back made-it-look-easy charm of Frank or Dino, and that this in itself is a failure that would scare away the "Hipsters". The hipsters, like anything that "trends", by that very definition, date themselves. Be assured that pleasing trendy whims is the surest way to guarantee exclusion from the rarefied short list of truly timeless music.
Sammy's earnestness is what earns his performance it's spot on that rarefied short list.
Compare his performance here of "What now my love" to Frankie's head-bobbing finger-snapping emotionally inappropriate version of the same song. I'm a Frank Sinatra fan, but his reading of "What now my love" is a puzzling "is-this-trip-necessary" walk-through of a song delivery when some kind of emotion should have been in order. His "coolness" blew the song!
Posted by Morgan Bochan at 1:12 AM GMT 11/09/2011 Report Abuse
Reply to this post
I guess I disagree in so many ways. 1) Vinyl LP as an "outmoded idea". I think I would have only agreed with you in the 1980's when I (along with everyone) was desperate to prove that digital was better than analog, as if the world would stop revolving if I couldn't convince each person I met of this fact. Don't misunderstand. I am also not one of those analog pseudo-purists desperate to prove that "analog is better". However music is recorded is however music is recorded, and short of actually going back in a time machine, won't be improved by format conversion. I say this having heard so many "remasters", trust me. To be frank they all end up sounding weirder never better. I could name the train wrecks one-by-one, but I'll spare you. 2) That Sammy looked desperate, that he was trying too hard, that he failed to exude the laid-back made-it-look-easy charm of Frank or Dino, and that this in itself is a failure that would scare away the "Hipsters". The hipsters, like anything that "trends", by that very definition, date themselves. Be assured that pleasing trendy whims is the surest way to guarantee exclusion from the rarefied short list of truly timeless music.
Sammy's earnestness is what earns his performance it's spot on that rarefied short list.
Compare his performance here of "What now my love" to Frankie's head-bobbing finger-snapping emotionally inappropriate version of the same song. I'm a Frank Sinatra fan, but his reading of "What now my love" is a puzzling "is-this-trip-necessary" walk-through of a song delivery when some kind of emotion should have been in order. His "coolness" blew the song!
Posted by Morgan Bochan at 1:15 AM GMT 11/09/2011 Report Abuse
Reply to this post
Comment on this post