Keely Smith, born in 1932, is primarily a jazz-tinged big band singer. Known for her partnership and Vegas act with then-husband Louis Prima during the 1950s, she has had a long career that is still going today; her 2001 disc Keely Sings Frank Sinatra<\/i> was nominated for a Grammy. <\/p>\n
The second part of her career began in the early 1960s when, after divorcing Prima, she joined the Reprise label with such pop icons as Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr. as stablemates. Reprise proved to be a good match for Smith, who produced some fine music for a label that at the time concentrated on vocals. She even married legendary Reprise producer Jimmy Bowen. <\/p>\n
Yet The Essential Capital Collection<\/i> focuses on the music recorded before that point. It is a 27 song collection of this early material, which is strongest on the ballads that fit Smith’s clear soprano voice, like \u201cStormy Weather\u201d and \u201cYou Go To My Head.\u201d<\/p>\n
The old standard \u201cFools Rush In\u201d is slowed way down and the cadence is changed and emerges as one of the better cuts on the album. \u201cThe Birth Of The Blues\u201d is an excellent example of jazz swing, which is now a dying art form. Two rare gems are duets with Frank Sinatra; \u201cNothing In Common\u201d and especially \u201cHow Are Ya Fixed On Love\u201d show Smith pushing Sinatra vocally as few singers have been able to do. <\/p>\n
The Essential Capitol Collection<\/i> does have some problems. \u201cThat Old Black Magic,\u201d which won a 1959 Grammy award for Prima and Smith and is their signature song, now sounds very dated. Also, while Smith can sing uptempo songs, there is a sameness to many of them.<\/p>\n
The Keely Smiths of the world, singers who began their careers as big band singers and have not strayed too far from this original musical style, are a vanishing breed. While some of The Essential Capital Collection <\/i>may seem antiquated and may be a little too long, it is both a testament to the genre and a fine collection of a talented singer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":28877,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[6798],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-40377","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-keely-smith","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40377","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\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40377"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40377\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28877"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=40377"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=40377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}