Beverly Kenney - Lonely And Blue

Styles: Vocal
Year: 2007
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 24:13
Size: 55,8 MB
Art: Front

(2:38)  1. Lonely and Blue
(2:53)  2. Long Lean and Lanky
(2:15)  3. Tall Dark and Handsome
(2:35)  4. Yours Sincerely
(2:03)  5. Too Late to Be Sorry
(2:11)  6. It's a Mean Old World
(2:46)  7. Too Bad
(1:59)  8. Let's Try It Again
(2:31)  9. The Stars the Night the Moon
(2:16) 10. That Pyramid Jazz

A very talented cool-toned singer from the 1950s, Beverly Kenney tragically committed suicide in 1960 when she was only 28. She only recorded a handful of albums, with Lonely & Blue being her debut. Cut around 1952 when she was 20, the ten selections were only previously available as radio transcriptions and were forgotten until very recently. Kenney, who sounds both quite young and mature in her interpretations of the lyrics, performs ten songs that were all doomed to obscurity. While "Tall, Dark and Handsome" and "Long, Lean and Lanky" cover familiar topics, "That Pyramid Jazz" is a true oddity. 

Several of the songs have ironic lyrics considering Kenney's fate, including "Lonely and Blue," "Too Late to Be Sorry," and "It's a Mean Old World." Backed by studio musicians, some of whom had been associated with Glenn Miller a decade earlier, Kenney shows a great deal of potential that would be partly realized in her much too-brief future. ~ Scott Yanow  http://www.allmusic.com/album/lonely-blue-mw0001145412

Lonely And Blue

---

Beverly Kenney - Sings For Johnny Smith

Bitrate: MP3@320K/s

Time: 30:19

Size: 69.4 MB

Styles: Jazz vocals

Year: 1955/2013

Art: Front

[2:11] 1. Surrey With The Fringe On Top

[2:35] 2. I'll Know My Love

[2:22] 3. Destination Moon

[3:11] 4. This Little Town Is Paris

[2:48] 5. Stairway To The Stars

[2:30] 6. Tis' Autumn

[2:20] 7. Looking For A Boy

[3:04] 8. Ball And Chain

[2:09] 9. Almost Like Being In Love

[2:13] 10. There Will Never Be Another Yo

[2:18] 11. Moe's Blues

[2:31] 12. Snuggled On Your Shoulder

Beverly Kenney was one of the most promising new jazz singers of the mid-'50s. Unfortunately, she did not live long and recorded just three albums as a leader. This particular CD reissue, a quartet date with guitarist Johnny Smith, pianist Bob Pancoast, bassist Knobby Totah, and drummer Mousie Alexander, is a real gem, with Kenney heard in top form. Her version of "Destination Moon" is quite delightful, and other highlights include "Tis' Autumn," "Almost Like Being in Love," "There Will Never Be Another You," and "Snuggled on Your Shoulder," even if "Ball and Chain" (a renamed "Sweet Lorraine") does not quite cut it. Beverly Kenney had great potential and deserves to be remembered today. This reissue from the Spanish Fresh Sound label is highly recommended. ~Scott Yanow

Sings For Johnny Smith

---

Beverly Kenney - Sings With Jimmy Jones

Bitrate: MP3@320K/s
Time: 34:20
Size: 78.6 MB
Styles: Jazz vocals
Year: 1956/2013
Art: Front

[2:54] 1. A Fine Romance
[2:35] 2. Who Cares What People Say
[3:05] 3. Isn't It A Lovely Day
[2:48] 4. Mairzy Doats
[3:19] 5. Nobody Else But Me
[3:05] 6. The More I See
[2:45] 7. Old Buttermilk Sky
[3:52] 8. I Never Has Seen Snow
[2:04] 9. Makin' Whoopee
[2:32] 10. The Charm Of You
[2:26] 11. My Kind Of Love
[2:47] 12. Can't Get Out Of This Mood

Beverly Kenney, one of the most interesting jazz singers of the mid-'50s, led just three albums in her brief career. This set, reissued by the Spanish Fresh Sound label, teams Kenney with pianist Jimmy Jones, four then-current members of Count Basie's band (trumpeter Joe Newman, Frank Wess on tenor and flute, rhythm guitarist Freddie Green, and bassist Eddie Jones), plus former Basie-ite Jo Jones on drums. The light but swinging backing is perfect for Kenney, who excels on such songs as "Nobody Else But Me," "A Fine Romance," "Isn't This a Lovely Day," and "Can't Get Out of This Mood." She deserves to be remembered. ~Scott Yanow

Sings With Jimmy Jones

---

Beverly Kenney - Like Yesterday

Styles: Jazz, Vocal
Year: 1959
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 26:12
Size: 67,8 MB
Art: Front

(2:15)  1. Undecided
(2:09)  2. Sentimental Journey
(2:24)  3. I Had The Craziest Dream
(1:47)  4. And The Angels Sing
(2:41)  5. More Than You Know
(1:48)  6. The Dipsy Doodle
(2:20)  7. What A Difference A Day Made
(2:05)  8. Somebody Else Is Taking My Place
(2:34)  9. A Sunday Kind Of Love
(1:38) 10. Any Old Time
(2:22) 11. Happiness Is A Thing Called Joe
(2:02) 12. Tampico

With Like Yesterday, Beverly Kenney updates a series of pop standards with a formula rooted in the archly modern sound of Eisenhower-era jazz. Experienced decades after the fact, the album boasts a timelessness that renders its basic conceits of time and place moot, especially given that the fierce intelligence of Kenney's phrasing and the sultry depth of her vocals contrast so sharply with the Doris Day stereotypes associated with the period in question. Backed by a small but exemplary supporting cast including guitarist Chuck Wayne and reedist Jerome Richardson, Kenney eschews embellishment and excess in favor of lean, taut arrangements that emphasize emotional context, Her readings of familiar songs like "More Than You Know" and "A Sunday Kind of Love" possess a startling intimacy.~Jason Ankeny http://www.allmusic.com/album/like-yesterday-mw0000529647

Like Yesterday

---

Beverly Kenney - Snuggled On Your Shoulder

Styles: Vocal
Year: 1954
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 34:50
Size: 80,4 MB
Art: Front

(2:54)  1. Tea For Two
(1:43)  2. There Will Never Be Another You
(2:44)  3. The Things We Did Last Summer
(1:54)  4. Moe's Blues
(2:48)  5. Can't Get Out Of This Mood
(1:57)  6. Surrey With The Fringe On Top
(2:15)  7. Snuggled On Your Shoulder
(2:46)  8. That's All
(2:13)  9. Ball And Chain (Sweet Lorraine)
(2:02) 10. A Foggy Day
(2:14) 11. Surrey With The Fringe On Top
(2:26) 12. Violets For Your Furs
(1:57) 13. Mountain Greenery
(4:53) 14. Almost Like Being In Love

Notes for original 2006 Japanese issue.
Beverly Kenney was born in Harrison, New Jersey on January 29,1932, and began her professional singing career in Miami Beach in 1953. The following year she joined the Dorsey Brothers band, but only remained with them for a few months before going solo again. In 1955 alone she recorded three albums, accompanied by the likes of groups led by Ralph Burns, Johnny Smith and a small contingent from Basie band for the small but prestigious Roost label. And there were appearances in a number of top clubs, like Chicago's Mister Kelly's, and on major national TV shows such as Steve Allen's. In 1957 she signed with a major label, Decca. But by 1960, it was all over. Beset by changing mass tastes in music (Kenny once wrote a song entitled "I Hate Rock and Roll"), suffering money woes, and complicated by undiagnosed manic depression, on April 16th of that year she committed suicide It is somehow fitting that issue of this previously unreleased vocal-piano set, the first "new" material by Beverly Kenney in nearly half-a-century should occur in Japan where critics and fans have long continued to revere and appreciate her.~Bill Reed

Notes for 2010 re-issue:

Whether there is a connection or not, in the ensuing years following the release of "Snuggled" and of two subsequent SSJ Records (Japan) issues of unreleased Kenney, there continues an ever-increasing interest in the singer. More surprisingly, in the West she is also starting to become something of a known musical quantity. But there is little doubt about the impact on public awareness regarding Kenney that resulted from the article by New York broadcaster Jonathan Schwartz in the November '92 issue of GQ magazine. The five songs listed as "alternate versions" appeared on Kenney's first and third (of three) Roost label recordings. These albums were followed by three more albums and a handful of singles on Decca. According to those who were around the singer at the time, the making of her third release for that outfit, Like Yesterday, was an especially trying time. She was only able to complete the sessions with the help and guidance of a psychotherapist. Shortly afterward, she took her own life.~B.R. http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/BeverlyKenney

Note: Two of these tracks, Violets for Your Furs and Mountain Greenery were never performed by the Kenney on any other recording.

Snuggled On Your Shoulder

---

Beverly Kenney - Sings for Playboys

Styles: Jazz, Vocal
Year: 1957
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 35:01
Size: 80,6 MB
Art: Front

(2:38)  1. Do It Again
(3:33)  2. A Woman's Intuition
(3:00)  3. You're My Boy
(2:07)  4. Mama, Do I Gotta?
(3:56)  5. What Is There to Say
(3:30)  6. A Lover Like You
(3:08)  7. A Summer Romance
(2:59)  8. Life Can Be Beautiful
(2:30)  9. It's Magic
(2:32) 10. You're Adorable
(3:14) 11. Try A Little Tenderness
(1:47) 12. It's A Most Unusual Day

Beverly Kenney had a tragically brief life, committing suicide in 1960 when she was just 28, probably over a broken love affair. A subtle improviser with a haunting voice and a real skill for interpreting lyrics, she had six albums released during her lifetime. Sings for Playboys, despite its lightweight title, is one of her finest efforts. Accompanied by just pianist Ellis Larkins (who doubles on celeste) and bassist Joe Benjamin, Kenney digs into a dozen songs, only five of which could qualify as standards. While she brings new life to such tunes as "A Woman's Intuition" and "Try a Little Tenderness," she performs definitive versions of such forgotten numbers as "You're My Boy," "Life Can Be Beautiful," and "It's a Most Unusual Day." The music alternates between ballads and lightly swinging pieces with Larkins being a perfect accompanist for Kenney, who is heard throughout at her most expressive. The Japanese have rediscovered Beverly Kenney during the past decade; she's long overdue for American recognition. ~ Scott Yanow  http://www.allmusic.com/album/sings-for-playboys-mw0000537914

Personnel: Beverly Kenney (vocal); Ellis Larkins (piano, celeste); Joe Benjamin (bass).

Sings For Playboys

---

Beverly Kenney - Beverly Sings, Vol. 1

Styles: Vocal 
Year: 2008
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 29:03
Size: 67,5 MB
Art: Front

(3:19)  1. Nobody Else But Me
(3:05)  2. The More I See You
(2:44)  3. Old Buttermilk Sky
(3:52)  4. I Never Has Seen Snow
(2:54)  5. A Fine Romance
(2:35)  6. Who Cares What People Say
(2:04)  7. Makin' Whoopee
(2:32)  8. The Charm of You
(3:05)  9. Isn't This a Lovely Day
(2:47) 10. Mairzy Doats

Singer Beverly Kenney remains one of jazz's great tragedies  an exquisitely nuanced stylist whose sophisticated phrasing perfectly complemented the cool jazz sensibilities of the late '50s, she committed suicide at the peak of her career and awaits rediscovery by the vast majority of the listening public. Born in Harrison, NJ, on January 29, 1932, Kenney began her career singing birthday greetings via telephone for Western Union. Ultimately she relocated to New York City, and in 1954 cut her first demo session with pianist Tony Tamburello (finally issued in 2006 under the title Snuggled on Your Shoulder). By year's end Kenney relocated to Miami, soon securing an agent and appearing at the Black Magic Room. There she was discovered by the Dorsey Brothers, spending several months on tour with their orchestra before creative differences prompted her exit. From there Kenney returned to New York, working clubs in the company of George Shearing, Don Elliott, and Kai Winding in addition to briefly touring the Midwest with the Larry Sonn Band before signing to the Roost label, which in early 1956 issued her debut LP, Beverly Kenny Sings for Johnny Smith. Come Swing with Me, a pairing with arranger Ralph Burns, followed later that same year, and in the spring of 1957 she teamed with Jimmy Jones & the Basie-Ites for her final effort for the label. Kenney resurfaced on Decca in 1958 with Sings for Playboys  her masterpiece, Born to Be Blue, soon followed, and a year later she issued her swan song, Like Yesterday. 

Critics and fellow artists were virtually unanimous in their praise of Kenney's artistry, but the emergence of rock & roll virtually guaranteed she would remain anonymous to the public at large. Tellingly, during a May 18, 1958, appearance on NBC's The Steve Allen Show, she performed an original composition titled "I Hate Rock and Roll." Friends and colleagues generally cite Kenney as a melancholy, distant figure in the final months of her life, but her suicide at age 28 on April 13, 1960, still raises myriad questions: by most accounts, she spent her last hours writing each of her parents long, heartbreaking letters at the desk in her Greenwich Village flat before consuming a lethal overdose of alcohol and Seconal, but her motivations are unknown. A 1992 GQ magazine profile by Jonathan Schwartz suggests Kenney was despondent over the dissolution of her romance with Beat Generation guru Milton Klonsky, but a subsequent investigation by fan and journalist Bill Reed casts serious doubt on this theory. While a virtual footnote in her native U.S., Kenney boasts an ever-growing cult following in Japan, where all six of her LPs have remained in print. ~ Jason Ankeny https://www.allmusic.com/artist/beverly-kenney-mn0000866783/biography

This album gathers the songs of Beverly's 1956 album "Sings With Jimmy Jones".

Beverly Sings, Vol. 1

---

Various Artists - When Love Goes Wrong: Songs for the Broken-Hearted

Styles: Jazz, Vocal
Year: 2003
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 51:26
Size: 118,8 MB
Art: Front

(3:28)  1. Billie Holiday - Good Morning Heartache
(2:26)  2. Chet Baker - Born to Be Blue
(3:36)  3. Johnny Hartman - It Never Entered My Mind
(3:11) 4. Little Jimmy Scott - Everybody's Somebody's Fool
(3:15)  5. Peggy Lee - Woman Alone With the Blues
(3:30)  6. Beverly Kenney - A Woman's Intuition
(3:42)  7. Frank D'Rone - Everything Happens to Me
(5:38)  8. Shirley Horn - I Fall in Love Too Easily
(2:40)  9. Helen Merrill - Here's That Rainy Day
(3:40) 10. Arthur Prysock - I'm Through with Love
(2:40) 11. Dinah Washington - I'm a Fool to Want You
(2:41) 12. Billy Eckstine - What Will I Tell My Heart?
(3:25) 13. Sarah Vaughan - But Not for Me
(2:14) 14. Ella Fitzgerald - Reaching for the Moon
(5:13) 15. Mel Tormé - Gloomy Sunday

Bill Maher (as in Politically Incorrect) once stated that marriage is a lot like communism--it sounds great on paper, but in reality, it doesn't work. That's a very cynical view of romance; some marriages do work, and they work well. But at the same, one can certainly understand where Maher is coming from half of American marriages, after all, end in divorce, and many couples never even make it to the alter. Those unsuccessful relationships are the focus of When Love Goes Wrong: Songs for the Broken-Hearted, a thoughtfully assembled collection of vocal jazz and torch singing that spans 1950-1997. 

The front cover boasts an illustration that recalls the classic film noir and pulp fiction of the ‘30s, ‘40s and ‘50s an attractive blonde who just blew away her lover is led away in handcuffs, while a hat-wearing hard-boiled detective (à la Dana Andrews' character in Laura) nonchalantly puffs away on a cigarette. It's the perfect cover for a compilation that paints a dark, troubled picture of romance thanks to melancholy performances by heavyweights like Dinah Washington on "I'm a Fool to Want You," Chet Baker on "Born to Be Blue" and Jimmy Scott on "Everybody's Somebody's Fool". Shirley Horn's soulful version of "I Fall in Love Too Easily" is from 1997, although the rest of the selections are from the ‘50s and ‘60s. If one wanted to nit-pick, it would be easy to complain about the fact that Verve doesn't include any versions of Billy Strayhorn's "Lush Life" (one of the darkest jazz pearls ever written). 

Also, Verve should have provided Billie Holiday's original 1946 recording of "Good Morning Heartache" instead of the 1956 version that opens this CD Lady Day sounded a lot better in 1946. Nonetheless, this generally rewarding, if imperfect, compilation is enthusiastically recommended to anyone who craves expressive, heartfelt torch singing. ~ Alex Henderson  http://www.allmusic.com/album/when-love-goes-wrong-songs-for-the-broken-hearted-mw0000663806

When Love Goes Wrong: Songs for the Broken-Hearted

---

Beverly Kenney - Born To Be Blue

Bitrate: 320K/s
Time: 36:11
Size: 82.9 MB
Styles: EasyListening
Year: 1959/2013
Art: Front

[3:33] 1. Born To Be Blue
[2:21] 2. It's A Blue World
[3:06] 3. Somewhere Along The Way
[2:19] 4. Again
[3:11] 5. For All We Know
[2:45] 6. It Only Happens When I Dance With You
[2:35] 7. Go Away, My Love!
[2:34] 8. Isn't It A Pity
[2:56] 9. Beyond The Next Hill
[2:28] 10. Where Can I Go Without You
[3:00] 11. Vanity
[2:53] 12. I Walk A Little Faster
[2:24] 13. You Couldn't Be Cuter

Born to Be Blue captures Beverly Kenney at her most intimate and compelling. Created in collaboration with arrangers Hal Mooney and Charles Albertine, the music channels the emotional depth of the blues with startling clarity, employing Kenney's deep, commanding vocals to vividly poignant effect. Mooney and Albertine forgo excess and sentimentality in favor of stark simplicity, architecting taut modern jazz contexts that shift the spotlight squarely on Kenney's vocals. Her readings of familiar songs like "For All We Know" are forged from both resiliency and vulnerability, articulating an emotional depth matched by few singers of her era. ~Jason Ankeny

Born To Be Blue

---