My Nights With Susan, Olga, Albert, Julie, Piet & Sandra

Albert Hammond has been writing hit songs for over fifty years. This is not to just to say that it has been fifty years since his first hit. This is to say that there has not been a single decade in which Albert has not written multiple hits songs since he scored his first hit with “Little Arrows” at the age of 24. His songs have been responsible for the sale of over 360 million records worldwide including over 30 chart-topping hits. Many of his most beloved songs, like “The Air That I Breathe” and “When I Need You,” have become hits multiple times with various artists, decade after decade.

Exotic and Latin albums were big deals in the 1950s and early '60s, and singers as diverse as Dean Martin, Lena Horne, and Peggy Lee were recording with castanets and bongo drums. Peggy Lee was so successful at the style that she cut two albums of light pseudo-Latin jazz in 1960. Like Peggy Lee, Julie London combined a restrained vocal approach with jazz phrasing and a cool attitude with icy sex appeal. But while London had Lee's stripped-down musical approach, she just didn't share her unrelenting rhythmic vocal drive or her innate feeling for exotic rhythms. It doesn't help that London is paired with arranger Ernie Freeman, who was usually better at crafting Nashville and soft rock style charts than Latin jazz arrangements. This isn't a bad album - London sounds casual and confident throughout - but it is a rather bland one, and isn't blandness what these types of exotica albums are supposed to be fighting against…

Recorded 1967-1969. Only covers fill up this album (but this was a usual thing back then), a good deal coming from Motown (after all Brian emerged from the British Rhythm'n Blues crowd), others from folkies (Dylan, Nyro and Donovan) and other rockier groups (the Doors), but the whole state of the art is accommodating and arranging the tracks to fit the Trinity mould. This is done mostly with good studio musicians guesting in on the three-man unit's (and their diva) solid base. Auger, drummer Thacker and bassist Ambrose do provide a good background for Jools, but don't shine much like in their excellent Befour album, but there is some good brass arrangements on some of these tracks.

One in a long series of Julie London records, this set features the sultry but subtle singer on a dozen standards, each of which she dedicates to a different male singer. No dates or personnel information are given other than the LP stating that Andre Previn arranged for the backing orchestra. Although not essential, this is a worthwhile set, with London adding sensuality to such songs as "Learnin' the Blues," "When I Fall in Love," "The More I See You," and "Angel Eyes."