Saturday, November 13, 2004:
Nancy Wilson -- The Real Me
Nancy Wilson is a vocalist who started recording in the 1950s, mostly in jazz; she's cut a record with Cannonball Adderley and appeared in concert with Nat King Cole and other big names in jazz, but she's also released pop and soul albums. She has a strong voice and a nice range, and she's well known in jazz circles for both her recordings and her work with NPR on Jazz Profiles.
I found her record Now I'm a Woman in a highly disorganized collection, for $1; it's out of print and about 80% top notch. Here are a couple of rare tracks from it--numbers 2 and 4 from side two.
"Lonely, Lonely" is a bit of soft jazz about loneliness (but you guessed that already); the vocals are quite nice but I wonder why they settled on a mix that swallows the second L. It's a good song but for my money, "The Real Me" is the star of the record.
"The Real Me" is a breakup song, but it's not the kind of sad messy breakup that has you sleeping in and then getting up to sit staring into your coffee--Wilson is exuberant about her sudden freedom; it's her chance to find herself. She knows it'll take some work to put her heart back together but she's eager to start; and she sounds fiery enough to take a trip around the world while she's working on it. I know I shouldn't play the "sounds like" game on this one because there are so many possible answers--vocalists who I'm guessing influenced Wilson, and who Wilson influenced. (And if I listened to her show more often I wouldn't have to guess at all.) But she does sound eerily like Dinah Washington in a few places. And that's not a bad thing.
The sleeve tells me these tracks were arranged and conducted by Bobby Martin, but doesn't list all the musicians, assuring me instead that "they were pros to a man ... the creme de creme of Hollywood." Right then. Well, the album seemed a decent place to document the lineup, for people interested in such things.
I've seen mention of a Blue Note compilation of female jazz vocalists that has "The Real Me" on it, but I've been unable to track it down (the page mentioning it was a forum, and the poster didn't know the CD title either. No, allmusic.com isn't helping).
free Amazon.com download (Christmas music)
and another free Amazon.com download (Christmas music)
Nancy Wilson's NPR show
Nancy Wilson
Nancy Wilson -- Lonely, LonelyNancy Wilson -- The Real Me
Nancy Wilson is a vocalist who started recording in the 1950s, mostly in jazz; she's cut a record with Cannonball Adderley and appeared in concert with Nat King Cole and other big names in jazz, but she's also released pop and soul albums. She has a strong voice and a nice range, and she's well known in jazz circles for both her recordings and her work with NPR on Jazz Profiles.
I found her record Now I'm a Woman in a highly disorganized collection, for $1; it's out of print and about 80% top notch. Here are a couple of rare tracks from it--numbers 2 and 4 from side two.
"Lonely, Lonely" is a bit of soft jazz about loneliness (but you guessed that already); the vocals are quite nice but I wonder why they settled on a mix that swallows the second L. It's a good song but for my money, "The Real Me" is the star of the record.
"The Real Me" is a breakup song, but it's not the kind of sad messy breakup that has you sleeping in and then getting up to sit staring into your coffee--Wilson is exuberant about her sudden freedom; it's her chance to find herself. She knows it'll take some work to put her heart back together but she's eager to start; and she sounds fiery enough to take a trip around the world while she's working on it. I know I shouldn't play the "sounds like" game on this one because there are so many possible answers--vocalists who I'm guessing influenced Wilson, and who Wilson influenced. (And if I listened to her show more often I wouldn't have to guess at all.) But she does sound eerily like Dinah Washington in a few places. And that's not a bad thing.
The sleeve tells me these tracks were arranged and conducted by Bobby Martin, but doesn't list all the musicians, assuring me instead that "they were pros to a man ... the creme de creme of Hollywood." Right then. Well, the album seemed a decent place to document the lineup, for people interested in such things.
I've seen mention of a Blue Note compilation of female jazz vocalists that has "The Real Me" on it, but I've been unable to track it down (the page mentioning it was a forum, and the poster didn't know the CD title either. No, allmusic.com isn't helping).
free Amazon.com download (Christmas music)
and another free Amazon.com download (Christmas music)
Nancy Wilson's NPR show
Labels: jazz, out of print, vocal
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