Here's another hidden gem
CD Album Title: Modern Jazz Performances of Songs from My Fair Lady
Artist: Shelly Manne & His Friends
Shelly Manne, drums
Andre Previn, piano
Leroy Vinnegar, bass
Originally Recorded: Aug 17, 1956 by Contemporary Records
Remastered by Original Jazz Classics
This trio of Shelly Manne , Andre Previn and Leroy Vinnegar is about as close to jazz - swing perfection as it's possible to get. It came as somewhat of a surprise that Shelly's dominating big band style of drumming is noticeably subdued in order to make room for Andre Previn's sheer technical brilliance and the ever reliably steady bass work of Leroy Vinnegar.
(Photo: Shelly Manne)
The Alan J. Lerner/Frederick Loewe score of My Fair Lady, always a personal favorite, lends itself perfectly to jazz treatments by these three enormously gifted jazzmen. Previn remarked on the original liner notes ' What Shelly, Leroy and I have attempted in this album is unusual insofar as we have taken almost the entire score of a musical, not just 'Gems from....' have adapted it to the needs of the modern jazz musician and are playing it with just as much care and love as the Broadway cast. There has been no willful distortion of the tunes simply to be different, or to have a gimmick , or to provoke the saying, 'Where's the melody?'
From the first tracks, Get Me to the Church on Time , and everybody's favorite, On the Street Where You Live, the haunting I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face, and finishing with Wouldn't It Be Loverly, Ascot Gavotte, Show Me, With a Little Bit of Luck, and I Could Have Danced All Night, it becomes obvious to even the casual listener that the guys are really enjoying themselves.
These songs long ago were entered into the American songbook of popular music, and It's hard to tell whether any of them will eventually become jazz 'standards', which sometimes can take generations. A case in point could be Rogers and Hart's My Funny Valentine which originally appeared in 1937 and had to wait until maybe the 1960s before it finally became recognized as a true jazz standard.
The producers of this album took the three immensley talented jazz players - Manne, Previn and Vinnegar - gave them some of the most melodic and, what would become, 50 years later, the most recognizable material ever written, and let them create a work of their own choosing. The result was a masterpiece that even the most casual jazz buff will want to own and listen to frequently.
