I’ll Take New York

New York comedy and cabaret singer-cum-jazz vocalist Donna Brooks is heard here on her third recorded outing for the Dawn label, and her first true full-length. Recorded in 1956, the smoky, sultry-voiced Brooks has a delivery that is a dead cross between Billie Holiday and Dinah Washington. With a fronting band of a generic piano trio, Brooks is nonetheless a fine interpreter of modern jazz song. Here she covers the Kaye/Mossman classic "Full Moon And Empty Arms," Mel Torme's "A Stranger In Town," Rodgers and Hart's "I Didn't Know What Time It Was," Cole Porter's "You'd Be So Nice To Come Home To," and the Martin & Blane nugget "An Occasional Man," and infuses them with a beautifully haunting femme fatale quality, with a perfect ear for nuance and color, and stunning pronunciation and articulation…

Nicki Parrott started her career in her native Australia before jazz took her to New York in 1994. Since then she has become a true world traveler as one of the top vocal stars of jazz as well as a consummate bass player…

Franks’ Wild Years emerged in 1987. Between the subtitle Un Operachi Romantico in Two Acts, the album title’s callback to the Swordfishtrombones character, and the presence of “Frank’s Theme,” the record could be viewed as an account of Frank’s misadventures. But Waits is a born three-card monte man, so that could all be obfuscation.

Tony Scott & Bill Evans - A Day In New York (1957) {2CD Set, Fresh Sound FSR-CD 333 rel 2003}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 770 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 312 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 61 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1957, 2003 Fresh Sound Records } FSR-CD 333
Jazz / Cool / Bop / Modal Music / Piano / Clarinet

Tony Scott led several small groups of various sizes during the month of November 1957, resulting in three separate LPs being issued by Seeco, Carlton, and Perfect without duplicating any of the 24 tracks. This Fresh Sound two-CD set collects everything recorded during these sessions. Scott's core group features pianist Bill Evans (not long after he was discharged from military service), either Milt Hinton or Henry Grimes on bass, and drummer Paul Motian. In addition to his powerful clarinet, Scott plays a potent baritone sax on six selections.