Sarah Vaughan Sings George Gershwin
This lavish reissue of Vaughan's 1957 double LP displays a Gershwin different in tone from Ella Fitzgerald's better-known one. Naturally more elastic in her interpretations than Fitzgerald, Vaughan also manages a more intimate tone perhaps better suited for the later hours of late-night listening. Hal Mooney's arrangements wisely alternate between full-blown orchestral backing and a more rhythmic emphasis, as on "I'll Build a Stairway to Paradise," which would have fit right in with the singer's string of pop hit singles. Most impressive, though, are Vaughan's intuitively touching readings of ballads like "I've Got a Crush on You," "The Man I Love," and "A Foggy Day": no matter how many recordings of them exist, these must stand near the top of the stack. The original album is augmented here by 13 incomplete takes from one of the sessions.--Rickey Wright