Keely Smith is known as the “Queen Of Swing,” and indeed she has
\nhad a long and storied career in swing and jazz vocalist, including
\ndiscovery by and a marriage to Louis Prima. Influenced by such
\nsources as Ella Fitzgerald and Nat King Cole, Smith’s work is
\nsmooth, sweet jazz; music to dim the lights and sip cocktails by.
\nOn
\nKeely Swings Basie-Style With Strings<\/i>, she sweetens up her
\nswing sound with a 22-piece string section and an 18-piece brass
\nband, and it works really well.<\/p>\n
This is the third in Smith’s ‘tribute’ series of recordings. On
\neach of them, she has done a series of songs in the style of a
\ngiven performer; not necessarily songs that they themselves
\nrecorded, but songs as they might have recorded them. This is a bit
\ntough to get your brain around in concept, but in practice it works
\njust fine; it occasionally results in combinations that seem
\ninitially odd (Count Basie does the old Motown\/James Taylor hit
\n“How Sweet It Is,” for example) but which work in execution. More
\nimportantly, Smith is having fun. Because Smith self-finances her
\nown recordings, she keeps the right to choose her songs and set up
\nthe recordings as she wants — so this is all what she wanted to
\ndo, and it shows. The joy and the love in these songs is
\npalpable.<\/p>\n
Production and engineering on the recording is flawless. The
\nbrass sound is fat and round, contrasting well with the crisp bite
\nof the string section. Smith’s vocals are a wonder in and of
\nthemselves; while it’s impolite to discuss a lady’s age, suffice it
\nto say that there’s a young woman’s fire and power in her fluid,
\nlanguid delivery. The backing musicians are all excellent.<\/p>\n
Songs of particular note include the sweet and wondrous
\n“Happiness Is A Thing Called Joe”; Smith’s take on the classic “I
\nCan’t Stop Loving You”; a unique cover of Frankie Valli’s “Can’t
\nTake My Eyes Off Of You”; and a kick-out-the-stops romp through
\n“Take The A-Train.” I also confess to being a sucker for the
\nspoken-word, announcer-style intro and outro on the record.<\/p>\n
\nKeely Swings Basie-Style With Strings<\/i> is a brilliant piece
\nof work. Fans of jazz and swing shouldn’t miss it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":26295,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[6798],"rating":[5646],"class_list":["post-37521","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-keely-smith","rating-rating-a"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37521","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37521"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37521\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=37521"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=37521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}