Big Band recordings with pop/non-jazz vocalists.

[Rooster_Ties]

Individual tracks, or entire albums -- take your pick.

Two from my collection...

Sinéad O'Connor - "Am I Not Your Girl?" (Ensign/Chrysalis, 1992). An entire album of big-band versions of pop standards. The best tracks (about half the disc) work pretty well, I think. (I don't pull this out all that often, but usually enjoy it when I do.)

And one individual big-band track that I was just listening to in the car this morning, from...

Björk - "Post" (Elektra, 1995). The song "It's Oh So Quiet", which is a total hoot!! (Not a trace of a big band anywhere else on the album, but this one track is pure big band.)

What are some of your favorites??? And what's interesting, or unique -- even if it doesn't work as well as you might like.

Couple other things that came to mind, though I haven't heard them personally...

1) Didn't Deborah Harry (of Blondie) record once or twice with The Jazz Passengers??

2) Hasn't Elvis Costello done a little work, here and there, with a big band or two??

Edited November 17, 2004 by Rooster_Ties

[Alexander Hawkins]

I have a track of Elvis Costello singing 'Weird Nightmare' (I think!) with the Mingus Big Band, which I quite enjoy!

[brownie]

Sting did an album with the Gil Evans Orchestra at the 1987 Perugia Jazz festival that is out on the JazzDoor label. Did not bother to get this after hearing one track that left me unimpressed!

[Rooster_Ties]

Sting did an album with the Gil Evans Orchestra at the 1987 Perugia Jazz festival that is out on the JazzDoor label. Did not bother to get this after hearing one track that left me unimpressed!

Oh yeah, I completely forgot about this one -- and I even own it .

I'd call it "interesting", but the best track is the all-instrumental (Sting-less, at least on vocals) big-band version of "Synchronicity" (I forget if it's " Synchronicity I" or "Synchronicity II", and it's mislabeled on the disc anyway as some entirely different tune). I'd call this release (in total) "better than average" for Sting's output, and certainly "less than average" for Gil's (goes without saying).

Guess I could (should?) also mention the studio recordings of "Little Wing" and "Up From The Skies" that Sting did with Gil Evans, in conjunction with the "Nothing Like The Sun" sessions.

Edited November 17, 2004 by Rooster_Ties

[JSngry]

James Brown - SOUL ON TOP.

[Jazzmoose]

Couple other things that came to mind, though I haven't heard them personally...

1) Didn't Deborah Harry (of Blondie) record once or twice with The Jazz Passengers??

2) Hasn't Elvis Costello done a little work, here and there, with a big band or two??

In addition to his Mingus Big Band stuff (which I enjoy more each time I hear it) Costello also recorded with the Jazz Passengers, I believe...

[BERIGAN]

Björk - "Post" (Elektra, 1995). The song "It's Oh So Quiet", which is a total hoot!! (Not a trace of a big band anywhere else on the album, but this one track is pure big band.)

I may have mentioned this in the past, but if you get the chance, the original Betty Hutton version is interesting, and clearly an inspiration for Bjork's version...

[robviti]

according to amg, joni mitchell's both sides now features "Vince Mendoza's arrangements — a third of them played by a gigantic 71-piece orchestra, a third by a regular-size orchestra, and a third by a swing-style big band."

[JSngry]

And it's none too bad, either.

[JSngry]

Not too shabby either, this one.

[Man with the Golden Arm]

Surely you can't pass up this!

[JSngry]

On such bets are fortunes lost.

[Big Al]

Surely you can't pass up this!

Actually, I can.

And don’t call me Shirley.