Sings the Harold Arlen Songbook

構成数 : 1枚
合計収録時間 : 01:02:20
Personnel: Julie Wilson (vocals); William Roy (arranger, piano). Recorded at Giant Sound, New York, New York on August 25 & October 12, 1989. Includes liner notes by Gary Stevens. Personnel: Julie Wilson (vocals). Liner Note Author: Gary Stevens. Recording information: Giant Sound, NY (08/25/1989/10/12/1989). Arranger: William Roy. For this volume of her ongoing songwriter series, Julie Wilson focuses on Harold Arlen, the bluesy composer who worked with a number of lyricists on songs for Harlem nightclub revues, Broadway musicals, and Hollywood movies of the `30s, `40s, and `50s. She is abetted as usual by pianist/arranger William Roy, who pipes up for a duet occasionally. Arlen might not seem the likeliest of subjects for the 64-year-old club singer, since blues isn't really much a part of her repertoire. She does, however, get at it by way of her acknowledged debt to Billie Holiday, introducing a turn of phrase here and there that might have come from Holiday in her later years, such as the way she sings "I'm feelin' so bad" in "One for My Baby." On that song, introduced by Fred Astaire and long claimed by Frank Sinatra, as on others, she doesn't worry herself about who has sung these songs before, mixing, for instance, this famous saloon song with another, "The Man That Got Away," which is one of Judy Garland's signature songs. Wilson does not, however, dare to try Garland's best-known Arlen number, "Over the Rainbow," but that may be because it doesn't suit her sophisticated, well-worn persona. She uses that persona beautifully to re-interpret songs elsewhere, however, such as on her considered and conversational reading of "I've Got the World on a String," which has none of Sinatra's triumph in it, but, again, does have something of Billie Holiday. She can be playful, too, notably when she and Roy take on the Marx Brothers-inspired "Lydia, the Tatooed Lady," and her reading of "Stay Out of My Dreams" is a tender introduction to an Arlen/E.Y. Harburg song written for a show that was never produced (Nellie Bly) and given its first-ever recording here. Although the song pairings she comes up with often work well, such as a combination of "Anyplace I Hang My Hat Is Home," "Come Rain or Come Shine," and "I Had Myself a True Love" that makes for a strong finish, there may be one or two too many medleys. But that may just be a way of saying that this collection should have been a two-disc set. ~ William Ruhlmann
録音 : ステレオ (Studio)