Year: 1962/2015
Time: 36:24
File: MP3 @ 320K/s
Size: 84,8 MB
Art: Front
(3:42) 1. I Gotta Right to Sing the Blues
(2:38) 2. I Don’t Know Why
(2:49) 3. I Want to Be Happy
(2:43) 4. I Think of You
(2:58) 5. I Can Dream. Can't I?
(3:03) 6. All About Me
(1:54) 7. I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm
(4:27) 8. I Got It Bad and That Ain't Good
(2:36) 9. I'm a Dreamer, Aren’t We All
(2:26) 10. I'm Just Wild About Harry
(2:56) 11. I Don’t Want to Set the World on Fire
(3:03) 12. I'll Be Around
(1:03) 13. Reprise: All About Me
Sometimes fame and international acclaim come just a little bit too late.
When Cleo Laine was finally introduced to US audience in her 40s and everybody went mad about her & wondered why Brits were hiding what must have been national tresure, in her native UK she was well-known name for almost two decades. She worked jazz gigs with her husband John Dankworth, acted in theatre ("Flesh to a Tiger"), sung in musicals ("Valmouth") and classical work (Kurt Weill), not to mention famous weekly TV appearances ("That was the week that was") so at home she was fairly known presence - it just took a world little longer to discover her.
Which is pity because her later, much more famous work from 1970s was not as half as exciting as her 1960s recordings when voice was at its best - young Cleo in full strenght possesed one of the best voices in jazz ever, with multi-octave range, depth, feeling and sensuality I found unsurpassed. While her 1950s records showed promise, in 1960s Laine metarmophosed into first rate jazz-tigress who was passionate, sensual and seductive beyond belief. Almost all of her 1960s albums are out of print now (and that also goes for her 1964 masterpiece Shakespeare: And All That Jazz) and just occasionaly compiled, so is this one that has young Laine surrounded with big orchestra, swinging through dozen of standards and getting all sexy in ballads - one exception is old ditty "I'm just wild about Harry" from 1921. Brodway show "Shuffle along" (and later Harry Truman's 1948. campaign song) that starts with Laine mock-imitating 1920s singing style and than half-way through turning to swing. It's just slightly out of place with the rest of album but not bad in itself and it makes sense as material here is mostly pre-WW2 anyway. My favourites are ballads - what she does with old Bing Crosby/The Andrews Sisters standard "I Can Dream,Can't I?" is magnificent, same goes for Duke Ellington and his "I Got It Bad and That Ain't Good" that she always had soft spot for and recorded it several times through decades.
Everything Laine recorded in 1960s has magic dust spread all over it - no wonder this album was called All About Me as it shows her different talents and versality - when in the next decade she was catapulted into international stardom and eventually awarded with "Grammy" in 1980s, the voice was not the same anymore (still exceptional but not as elastic as here) and too many flirtings with pop have something diminished the fact what sensational jazz singer she had been at the start. Of course she would eventually return to jazz later as to make it full circle and today this is what she sings again, but these early 1960s albums for me are her best and I reccomend it to everybody as essential listening - if you want to hear Laine at her best,go for any of her 1960s albums. https://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/cleo-laine/all-about-me/
When Cleo Laine was finally introduced to US audience in her 40s and everybody went mad about her & wondered why Brits were hiding what must have been national tresure, in her native UK she was well-known name for almost two decades. She worked jazz gigs with her husband John Dankworth, acted in theatre ("Flesh to a Tiger"), sung in musicals ("Valmouth") and classical work (Kurt Weill), not to mention famous weekly TV appearances ("That was the week that was") so at home she was fairly known presence - it just took a world little longer to discover her.
Which is pity because her later, much more famous work from 1970s was not as half as exciting as her 1960s recordings when voice was at its best - young Cleo in full strenght possesed one of the best voices in jazz ever, with multi-octave range, depth, feeling and sensuality I found unsurpassed. While her 1950s records showed promise, in 1960s Laine metarmophosed into first rate jazz-tigress who was passionate, sensual and seductive beyond belief. Almost all of her 1960s albums are out of print now (and that also goes for her 1964 masterpiece Shakespeare: And All That Jazz) and just occasionaly compiled, so is this one that has young Laine surrounded with big orchestra, swinging through dozen of standards and getting all sexy in ballads - one exception is old ditty "I'm just wild about Harry" from 1921. Brodway show "Shuffle along" (and later Harry Truman's 1948. campaign song) that starts with Laine mock-imitating 1920s singing style and than half-way through turning to swing. It's just slightly out of place with the rest of album but not bad in itself and it makes sense as material here is mostly pre-WW2 anyway. My favourites are ballads - what she does with old Bing Crosby/The Andrews Sisters standard "I Can Dream,Can't I?" is magnificent, same goes for Duke Ellington and his "I Got It Bad and That Ain't Good" that she always had soft spot for and recorded it several times through decades.
Everything Laine recorded in 1960s has magic dust spread all over it - no wonder this album was called All About Me as it shows her different talents and versality - when in the next decade she was catapulted into international stardom and eventually awarded with "Grammy" in 1980s, the voice was not the same anymore (still exceptional but not as elastic as here) and too many flirtings with pop have something diminished the fact what sensational jazz singer she had been at the start. Of course she would eventually return to jazz later as to make it full circle and today this is what she sings again, but these early 1960s albums for me are her best and I reccomend it to everybody as essential listening - if you want to hear Laine at her best,go for any of her 1960s albums. https://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/cleo-laine/all-about-me/
All About Me
