The Voice Of The Sixties ! / Sommers' Seasons

This Collectors Choice two-fer pairs long out of print Warner Bros. efforts recorded by Joanie Sommers in 1961 and 1963, respectively. The Voice of the Sixties! teams the singer with arranger Neal Hefti, an inspired pairing that yields some of the most vivacious music of her career. Although the album title trumpets Sommers as the voice of her decade, the material here draws heavily on the standards of previous generations, as exemplified by "I'm Old Fashioned," Hefti's inspired backings nevertheless boast an energy that's decidedly modern, staking out territory that's somewhere between pop and jazz, with the end result perfectly complementing Sommers' crystal-clear vocals. With a name like Joanie Sommers, it was probably inevitable that the singer would record a seasonal album sooner or later, and the Stan Applebaum-arranged Sommer's Season is it. And while the session is better than its hokey concept might suggest, it isn't much better -- the material is painfully obvious, and for all of Sommers' charms, there's little she can do with familiar retreads like "April in Paris," "Summertime," and "Baby, It's Cold Outside." Applebaum's wan arrangements aren't much help -- his jazzy backdrops afford Sommers a fair amount of space in which to operate, but the line between subtle and dull is a fine one. ~ Jason Ankeny