[MRL 409] Vaughan/McCrae/Washington/King - Billie Holiday Revisited

---Tracks 1,7,11---
Sarah Vughan - Vocals
John Cianelli - Bass
Jimmy Cobb - Drums
Carl Schroeder - Piano

From "Live In Japan, Vol 2" MRL 702 (1973)


---Track 2---
Dinah Washington - Vocals
Clifford Brown - Trumpet
Maynard Ferguson - Trumpet
Clark Terry - Trumpet
Herb Geller - Sax (Alto)
Harold Land - Sax (Tenor)
Junior Mance - Piano
Keter Betts - Bass
George Morrow - Bass
Richie Powell - Piano
Max Roach - Drums
Bob Shad - Producer

From "Dinah Jams" EmArcy MG 36000 (1954)


---Tracks 3,5,8---
Carmen McRae - Vocals
Ray Beckenstein - Flute
Joe Puma - Guitar
Paul Breslin - Bass
Norman Simmons - Piano
Frank Severino - Drums
Jose Mangual - Bongos

From "Alive!" MRL 800 (3,5 from "Woman Talk" (1965), 8 from "Live & Wailing" (1965))


---Tracks 4,9---
Morgana King - Vocals
Hank Jones - Piano
David McKenna - Piano
Jospeh Galbraith - Guitar
Mundell Lowe - Guitar
Milt Hinton - Bass
Mel Lewis - Drums
George Devens - Percussion
Phil Kraus - Percussion
Don Butterfield - Tuba
Willie Dennis - Trombone
Clark Terry - Trumpet, Flugel Horn
Joseph Wilder - Trumpet, Flugel Horn
Richard Berg - French Horn
James Buffington - French Horn
Donald Corrado - French Horn
Tony Miranda - French Horn
Al Richman - French Horn

Reeds - Julius Baker, Leon Cohen, Tom Newsome, Romero Penque, Charles Russo, Sol Schlinger, Bill Slapin, Phil Woods
Violins - Fred Buldrini, Norman Carr, Mac Ceppos, Peter Dimitriades, Leo Kahn, Leo Kruczek, Joe Malignaggi, Harry Melnikoff, David Nadien, Max Pollikoff, Eugene Orloff, Tosha Samaroff, Aaron Rosand
Violas - Richard Dickler, Leon Frengut, Emanuel Vardi
Celli - Peter Makas, Avron Twerdowsky

From "A Taste of Honey" Mainstream S-6015/MRL 321 (1964/1973)


---Track 6---
Art Farmer - Flugel Horn
Robert Demmer - Trumpet
Robert Politzer - Trumpet
Garney Hicks - Trombone
Hans Löw - Alto Flute
Hans Salomon - Alto Sax, Bass Clarinet, Arranger
Leszek Zadlo - Soprano & Tenor Sax
Fritz Pauer - Acoustic & Electric Piano
Julius Scheybal - Guitar
Richard Österreicher - Guitar
Rudolf Hansen - Bass
James B. Woode II - Bass
Erich Bachträgl - Drums
Jula Koch - Percussion
Hans Grötzer - Concertmasters
Toni Stricker - Concertmasters
Wladi Cermac - Violins
Bruno Mayr - Violins
Erich Koritschoner - Violins
Paul Fickl - Violins
Herbert Heide - Violins
Walter Topf - Violins
Kurt Plaschka - Violins
Wolfgang Reichert - Violins
Johann Fuchs - Violins
Gerhard Zatschek - Celli
Heinz Fussgänger - Celli
Dagmar Söthje - Celli
Bruno Schimann - Celli
Stephanie - Vocal
Karl Kowarik - Arranger
Peter Herbolzheimer - Arranger

From "Gentle Eyes" MRL 317 (1973)


---Tracks 10,12---
Charles McPherson - Alto Sax
Leroy Williams - Drums
Sam Jones - Bass
Earl Dunbar - Guitar
Ron Carer - Bass
Barry Harris - Piano
Lonnie Hilliard - Trumpet

From "Siku Ya Bibi (Day Of the Lady)" MRL 365 (1973)




Intro
1 Sarah Vaughan - Summertime
2 Dinah Washington - Crazy He Calls Me
3 Carmen McRae - Don't Explain
4 Morgana King - Easy Living
5 Carmen McRae - No More
6 Art Farmer - God Bless The Child
7 Sarah Vaughan - There Is No Greater Love
8 Carmen McRae - Miss Brown To You
9 Morgana King - Easy To Love
10 Charles McPherson - Lover Man (Oh Where Can You Be)
11 Sarah Vaughan - I Cried For You
12 Charles McPherson - Good Morning Heartache

[MRL 403] Carmen McRae - Live and Doin' It

1965



Personnel
Carmen McRae - Vocals (Piano on A5)
Victor Sproles - Bass
Norman Simmons - Piano
Stu Martin - Drums



Side A
1 Guess Who I Saw Today
2 The Lady Is A Tramp
3 My Ship
4 No Where
5 Guess I'll Hang My Tears Out To Dry

Side B
1 A Sleeping Bee
2 The Meaning of the Blues
3 I Only Have Eyes For You
4 Trouble Is A Man
5 Quiet Nights

Recorded in San Francisco in November 1965

[MRL 387] Carmen McRae - I Want You

1. The Night Has a Thousand Eyes
2. Too Good
3. Don't Ever Leave Me
4. Sweet Georgia Brown
5. And I Love Him
6. In Love in Vain
7. Fooling Myself
8. The Shadow of Your Smile
9. My Reverie
10. Winter in May

Compiled from Alfie [Mainstream S-6084] & Haven't We Met? [Mainstream 56044] sessions except for #8 from Woman Talk Live at the Village Gate [Mainstream S-6065]


Carmen McRae - Vocals

Ray Beckenstein (f)
Phil Bodner, Leon Cohen, Charlie Mariano, Stanley "Champ" Webb (f, af, pic, cl, as, ts, o)
Shelly Gold (f, af, cl, o)
John Bello, Burt Collins, Mel Davis, Bernie Glow, Jimmy Maxwell, Jimmy Nottingham (t)
Wayne Andre, John Messner, Charles Small, Bill Watrous, Chauncey Welch (tb)
Ray Alonge, Dick Berg, Jim Buffington, Earl Chapin (frh)
Don Butterfield (tu)
Paul Faulise, Tony Studd (bt)
Barry Galbraith (g, elg)
Joe Puma (g)
Paul Breslin, Aaron Davis, Richard Davis, Victor Sproles (b)
Norman Simmons (p)
Eugene Bianco, Margaret Ross (hrp)
Archie Freedman, Mel Lewis, Frank Severino, Ed Shaughnessy (d)
Jose Mangual (bo)
Doug Allan, George Devens, Phil Kraus (per)
Adriana Broone, Fred Buldrini, Peter Buonconsiglio, Max Cahn, Norman Carr, Bernard Eichen, Arnold Eidus, Leo Kruczek, Walter Legawiec, Charles Libove, Carmel Malin, Joe Malin, Marvin Morganstern, David Nadien, George Ockner, Gene Orloff, George Polikian, Raoul Polikian, Max Pollikoff, Aaron Rosand, Tosha Samaroff, Michael Spivakowsky, Jack Zayde (vn)
Al Brown, Harold Furmansky, David Mankowitz, Emanuel Vardi (vl)
Maurice Brown, Alla Goldberg, Charles McCracken, George Ricci, Harvey Shapiro, A. Sophos (cll)

http://www.carmenmcraediscography.com/carmenlps.html

[MRL 352] Carmen McRae - In Person

Original release on TIME


Carmen McRae
In Person
Mainstream MRL 352
September 27 & October 13, 1962
September 2 & 21, 1963

Carmen McRae (vocals)
Norman Simmons (piano)
Victor Sproles (bass)
Stewart Martin (drums)

Side One
1. Sunday
2. What Kind of Fool Am I?
3. A Foggy Day
4. I Left My Heart in San Francisco
5. I Didn't Know What Time It Was

Side Two
1. Let There Be Love
2. This Is All I Ask
3. Thou Swell
4. It Never Entered My Mind
5. Make Someone Happy

This album was first issued by Shad's TIME label under the title Live at Sugar Hill
The following notes were taken from the Carmen McRae website:

"Most critics praise Carmen McRae: Live at Sugar Hill as a milestone in her career…This was the first album, Norman Simmons thought, on which Carmen’s true personality blossomed. She did exactly what she wanted. No one handed her songs and told her what to do with them. It had happened often that record companies asked her to record songs she had never seen before going into the studio, and she didn’t really feel familiar enough with them. But Bobby Shad of Mainstream was the Artists and Repertoire man for Live at Sugar Hill. He allowed Carmen to hire her own musicians and to choose her own songs and plan every moment of the recording. She sounded more relaxed and natural than ever before on records, talking and rapping with audiences. The album captured the style she had achieved in clubs when she nurtured her loyal following."

- LESLIE GOURSE, from Carmen McRae, Ms. Jazz


allaboutjazz.com review
by Samuel Chell

This overlooked on-location session from 1963 reveals, perhaps more than any other recording, why Carmen McRae at the time deserved to complete the dominating triumvirate in which Ella Fitzgerald's and Sarah Vaughan's places were always secure. In the 1970s the marketplace would often hamstring her choice of material and settings, and in the 1980s the years of smoking began to have a noticeable effect on the breath-stream that once sustained her enviable instrument. On this occasion, however, she retains the warm and supple vocal quality of her 1950s Bethlehem and Decca recordings while realizing all of the dramatic potential that always made her second to none as an interpreter of lyrics.

For an immediate demonstration of McRae's strong suit go right to Rodgers and Hart's poignant meditation on loneliness, "It Never Entered My Mind." Listen to her phrasing and elocution, especially the second time around on the bridge—"And now I even have to scratch my back myself." No singer can mine a word like "scratch" for its full onomatopoeic value like McRae, clawing her way right into the listener's defenseless psyche. And on "Thou Swell" she makes the song's last word—"grand"—sound like an Art Blakey press roll launching the first instrumental solo.

But juxtaposed with the phonetic abrasives and incisive attacks is a soft and seductive quality capable of taking a "man's song" like Gordon Jenkins' haunting "This Is All I Ask" and making it incontrovertibly her own: "soft-spoken men, speak a little softer..." She growls and scratches, then suddenly allows her tones to melt into a warm, purring vibrato (which would later desert her), while taking full advantage of a full-throated vocal range extending from low C to the second G above middle C.

The program is exemplary in terms of content and pacing—flag-wavers taken at blazing speed ("Thou Swell," "Foggy Day"), mid-tempo scat ("Sunday," "Let There Be Love") and, above all, ballads inviting the kinds of acting skills that Sinatra always brought to what he called "suicide songs." Besides poetic insights, the program elicits sheer visceral reactions to an irresistible groove stemming as much from the featured soloist's instincts about time and phrasing as the rhythm section's firepower.

Whether a song qualifies as a standard or not, McRae demonstrates how even lesser material, when interpreted by a performer who is both a complete musician and a gifted dramatic actress, can be raised to the level of timeless art. The pristine audio of this 2008 Spanish import, moreover, allows the listener to catch the subtle rhythmic and harmonic communication between the singer and her responsive bassist, Victor Sproles.

It's a short set (35 minutes) and no doubt some listeners will balk at the cover charge. In that case, take a look at one of several fine anthologies or at another 2008 reissue that's almost as good as Sugar Hill—the misleadingly titled Carmen McRae: The Great American Songbook (Warner Special Markets UK)—or at a surprisingly strong late session including tenor saxophonist Clifford Jordan, Any Old Time (Denon, 1986).

[MRL 338] Carmen McRae - Carmen's Gold

MUSICIANS on tracks from Second To None:
Phil Bodner, Shelly Gold (f, af, cl, o),
John Bello (t)
John Messner, Charles Small, Chauncey Welch (tb)
Ray Alonge, Dick Berg, Jim Buffington (frh)
Tony Studd (bt)
Barry Galbraith (g)
Richard Davis, Victor Sproles (b)
Norman Simmons (p)
Eugene Bianco (hrp)
Archie Freedman (d)
George Devens, Phil Kraus (per)
Adriana Broone, Fred Buldrini, Peter Buonconsiglio, Max Cahn, Norman Carr, Bernard Eichen, Walter Legawiec, Carmel Malin, Joe Malin, Marvin Morganstern, David Nadien, Raoul Polikian, Max Pollikoff, Tosha Samaroff, Jack Zayde (vn)
Al Brown, Harold Furmansky, David Mankowitz, Emanuel Vardi (vl)
Maurice Brown, Alla Goldberg, Charles McCracken, George Ricci (cll)


MUSICIANS on tracks from Haven't We Met:
Phil Bodner, Leon Cohen, Charlie Mariano, Stanley "Champ" Webb (f, af, pic, cl, as, ts, o)
Burt Collins, Mel Davis, Bernie Glow, Jimmy Maxwell, Jimmy Nottingham (t)
Wayne Andre, Bill Watrous (tb)
Ray Alonge, Dick Berg, Jim Buffington, Earl Chapin (frh)
Don Butterfield (tu)
Paul Faulise, Tony Studd (bt)
Barry Galbraith (g, elg)
Aaron Davis, Richard Davis (b)
Norman Simmons (p)
Margaret Ross (hrp)
Mel Lewis, Ed Shaughnessy (d)
Doug Allan, Phil Kraus (per)
Bernard Eichen, Arnold Eidus, Leo Kruczek, Charles Libove, David Nadien, George Ockner, Gene Orloff, George Polikian, Aaron Rosand, Tosha Samaroff, Michael Spivakowsky, Jack Zayde (vn), Charles McCracken, George Ricci, Harvey Shapiro, A. Sophos (cll)

1 Alfie
2 Who Can I Turn To
3 The Music That Makes Me Dance
4 Gentleman Friend
5 It Shouldn't Happen to a Dream
6 Love Is a Night Time Thing
7 Because You're Mine
8 Cloudy Morning
9 Limehouse Blues
10 Blame It on My Youth



Billboard Nov. 13, 1971 review

[MRL 309] Carmen McRae - Carmen McRae

CARMEN MCRAE
Mainstream, 1966

MRL 309
LP 12”
MUSICIANS: Victor Sproles (b), Norman Simmons (p), Stu Martin (d)

1. Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most (Fran Landesman, Tommy Wolf) 6:15
2. Bye Bye Blackbird (Mort Dixon, Ray Henderson) 4:46
3. Solitude (Duke Ellington, Ed DeLange, Irving Mills) 3:19
4. I'm Gonna Laugh You Right Out Of My Life (Joseph McCarthy Jr., Cy Coleman) 3:02

SIDE TWO
1. MEDLEY: Long Before I Knew You (Betty Comden, Adolph Green, Jule Styne)
Just In Time (Jule Styne, Betty Comden, Adolph Green) 6:02
2. 'Round Midnight (Bernie D. Hanighen, Thelonious Monk, Cootie Williams) 4:42
3. I Got It Bad And That Ain't Good (Duke Ellington, Paul Francis Webster) 3:16
4. My Ship Is Coming In (Kurt Weill, Ira Gershwin) 3:14

info from http://www.carmenmcrae.com/carmenmcrae1966.htm