Sarah Vaughan Centenary

[gmonahan]

I like the live Tokyo date from Mainstream. Picked that one up in a Jazz Heritage edition. For some weird reason, Jazz Heritage reissued a bunch of Maintream jazz things from that period.

I also prefer later Sarah, especially the Ellington song books on Pablo.

 

[soulpope]

14 minutes ago, gmonahan said:

I also prefer later Sarah, especially the Ellington song books on Pablo.

👌👍 ....

[sgcim]

I was pretty young when I was taken to my first jazz concert by my parents. It was at the felt Forum in NYC,and I was all excited because Kenny Burrell was on the bill, along with Sarah Vaughn and Herbie Mann. My parents seemed to be enjoying it (even when Sonny Sharrock came out dressed like a butcher, and turned his distortion up to eleven, and drove some guy running out of the place yelling out. "that's supposed to be jazz?!!!).

Then Sarah Vaughn came on last, with that relaxed way of singing she had, which carried over to her speaking voice. Immediately, my father hears that relaxed voice, and starts complaining, "She's soused!" My mother was more familiar with how she sang and said to my father that that was the way she sung. But he wouldn't let up, and after each song, he started saying things like, "She should be ashamed of herself, she's coming out in front of all these people, drunk as hell!" I didn't know what to think, I hadn't even heard her before. She had some glass she was drinking from (probably water), and my father thought she was getting more and more wasted as the concert went on.

Finally it was too much for my father. He said, "Come on, we're getting out of here! We're not going to sit here and listen to this drunk make a fool out of herself!" We took the subway and the bus to my Grandmother's house, where we stopped for dinner. My father just kept ranting about Sarah Vaughn and my mother tried to defend her, but my father pronounced his final judgement, "She' a drunk".🤣

 

[JSngry]

Sounds like your dad saw the facts but not the truth. I guess he left that up to your mom.

It does seem weird that your dad would be more freaked of by Sarah Vaughan than Sonny Sharrock! 

[sgcim]

17 hours ago, JSngry said:

Sounds like your dad saw the facts but not the truth. I guess he left that up to your mom.

It does seem weird that your dad would be more freaked of by Sarah Vaughan than Sonny Sharrock! 

My dad was a weird guy. He had played guitar professionally during the Depression and the only thing he left me was a '35 D`Angelico, so he saw the evolution of the guitar from Django to Hendrix. He always had a theory that he kept repeating to me throughout his entire life: "You know, the electric guitar was the first synthesizer". So Sonny Sharrock didn't bother him; it was just more proof of his theory. He was a songwriter, too, and the thing he hated about rock music was the fact that they always used the word 'baby' in all their lyrics. It really annoyed the hell out of him! He bought me a used POS guitar synthesizer made by Ibanez for Christmas, but it couldn't track, so it was useless.