Sarah Vaughan/Clifford Brown: Sarah Vaughan (Verve Acoustic Sounds Series) [VERVE]

Why you'll love it

This Verve Acoustic Sounds Series edition is pressed on 180g vinyl in the original mono, in a gatefold jacket. The album went into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999, and Vaughan named it her own favourite of her records.

This edition

• Verve Acoustic Sounds Series
• 180g vinyl
• Mono
• Gatefold jacket

About the album

Sarah Vaughan and Clifford Brown met in a New York studio on December 18, 1954, and made exactly one album together. It was enough. AllMusic reckons she's in arguably the best voice of her career, and Brown plays with dazzling bebop invention right alongside her.

"Lullaby of Birdland" swings with real snap, "April in Paris" and "Embraceable You" melt, "September Song" is slow and luxurious, and "Jim" and "It's Crazy" show off the playful side of her phrasing. Herbie Mann adds flute, and the small band leaves plenty of room for Vaughan to bend melodies into new shapes. The Blackwell Guide to Recorded Jazz noted how she sometimes stretches a song so far that musical phrasing takes over from the words, turning her voice into one more horn in the band. The Penguin Guide to Jazz put it in its Core Collection with a crown.

Billboard told record dealers in 1955 that this package was "virtually a must" for anyone with any jazz trade at all. We are dealers with a jazz trade, and we know better than to argue with Billboard.

Also at Kops: more Sarah Vaughan on vinyl · browse Vocal Jazz

Tracklist

Listen

On EmArcy / Verve (cat# B0032413-01), a reissue of the 1955 album.