TV Radio Mirror (Jan - Jun 1963)

ON THE RECORD Vocit Monthly 4 RECORD Guide* POPULAR ***Piano, Strings and Moonlight, The Many Moods of Dave Grusin (Epic) — This is Dave Grusin's second album and it is much more impressive than his first, "Subways Are for Sleeping" (also on Epic). Here Dave shows his much more valuable talents for arranging and composition. The tunes are all the very best of the "standards" backlog: "Love Is Here to Stay," "My Funny Valentine," "The More I See You" and "When Your Lover Has Gone" — to cite a few. Included also is a Grusin original called "Sara Jane." (It is my particular favorite here.) Dave ambles comfortably through the material. Always with ease of action. The right hand weaving constantly through the accompanying body of strings. It is very much in the Previn groove, when one thinks of levels of taste and performance. Tasty is the word. Tasty and subtle, with a dash of enchantment. This one is a charmer. The Frank Loesser tune from "How to Succeed," "I Believe in You," was also chosen for vital Martin-izing. The arrangement is musical and invigorating, with Tony gilding all the edges. Unfortunately, there are other vehicles here of very little value. On the tune, "I'll Be Seeing You," Tony overcomes the rather crass arrangement; he sort of sings in spite of it. The arrangements on side-two are largely insensitive and cliche-ridden. In some cases, Tony finds it hard not to be drawn into an over-dramatic obviousness of expression. (On "To Be Alone," we find him speaking to a saccharine strings background.) Tony is at his best, a winner always. Four stars for Tony — two stars for the album. POPULAR: BLUES infr^r-fr Count Basie Swings and Joe Williams Sings, Count Basie Orch.; Joe Williams, vocalist (Verve) — This is a re-issue of some classics of 1956, Have the Blues," "Alright, O.K., You Win," "The Comeback," "Teach Me Tonight" and "In the Evening," to cite a few. Here Joe exhibited possibly his finest recorded moments. For Basie, this period was a throw-back to the legendary times of his association with Jimmy Rushing, the past-master of the blues. At any rate, these sides are very much classics, on all counts. The band is a seething machine of excited outpourings. The solos of trumpeter Joe Newman and saxophonist Frank Foster are highly stimulating excursions. The pulse of the band is — to sound contradictory — a settled agitation. Drummer Gus Johnson (who later left the band to be replaced by Sonny Payne) made all the difference. His constant desire to keep ordered time, by declining to showboat, gave the band a subtle and enduring undercurrent. I find this album to be like a captured moment of jazz history, bigband variety. I trust you will, too. mi oeaeuiar* NQpman iueoif **Fly Me to the Moon, Tony Martin (Dot) — Tony Martin is a talent this reviewer has never undersold. The reason for the sad rating has nothing to do with Tony's performance. Rather, it's the direction and intent of the album. Included are cuts easily of fourstar rating level — the title tune, for instance. Tony does this Bart Howard standard like he'd written it. The closing part struck me strongly. A beautiful and unusual change of key, with Tony's resonant voice reading so professionally that it creates a moment of rare richness for the ear and heart. a year which saw a new Basie orchestra rise to prominence. Much of this surge can be attributed to new Basie arrangements, a band full of players who could play weU together— as well as singly — and the shouting talents of Joe Williams, which gave the band a final thrust upward into the popular market. This monumental year of '56, with its output, has not been capped yet by Basie plus band or Williams on his own. It still seems a shame that this parting took place. All the real big hits are here under one roof: "Every Day I POPULAR: CHORAL ***Choral Spectacular, Norman Luboff cond. 100 voices and the RCA Victor Symph. Orch. (RCA Victor) — Here's an album that is an impressive offering by one of the industry's finest choral directors. As I am used to hearing Luboff's part-writing and clarity of voice mixes, this album did take me back for a moment, but Mr. Luboff — not to be outdone by the technical probblems involved with putting one hundred voices and a symphony orchestra onto the tape — wrote a bit differently to 30