{"id":163,"date":"2021-03-30T18:16:32","date_gmt":"2021-03-30T18:16:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sohothedog.com\/previnjazz\/?page_id=163"},"modified":"2021-04-12T20:05:37","modified_gmt":"2021-04-12T20:05:37","slug":"1959-2","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.sohothedog.com\/previnjazz\/1959-2\/","title":{"rendered":"1959"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Singers and sea changes.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-text-color has-background has-dark-gray-background-color has-dark-gray-color is-style-wide\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em><strong>Helen Humes<\/strong><\/em>&nbsp;(Contemporary, 1960) (recorded January-February 1959)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">At the time of this recording, Helen Humes was a veteran several times over: a big-band swing chanteuse (with Harry James and Count Basie), a blues shouter, a consummate ballad singer, a rhythm-and-blues doyenne. It all turns up on this loose and sundry gem of an album, with a band led by Benny Carter and (on most of the tracks) a&nbsp;reunion of the Previn-Vinnegar-Manne trio&nbsp;in the rhythm section. Humes sounds great. Carter gets to&nbsp;display&nbsp;his trumpet chops.&nbsp;Many of the numbers hover pleasantly between small-group clarity and jam-session fizz. Along the way, you can hear all manner of alternate-universe Previns,&nbsp;from the Previn who somehow landed in&nbsp;a&nbsp;Basie-esque&nbsp;band (\u201cYou Can Depend on Me\u201d) to the Previn who settled into the Kansas City R&amp;B scene (\u201cTrouble In Mind,\u201d close to a straight-out rocker) to the Previn who updated and deconstructed trad jazz for a Cold War audience (\u201cAin\u2019t Misbehaving,\u201d&nbsp;complete with an incongruously torrential solo). On the ballads (\u201cAmong My Souvenirs\u201d\u2014with Mel Lewis taking over from Manne\u2014and, especially, \u201cStar Dust\u201d), Previn sounds so at home that he might as well be playing from an easy chair.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed aligncenter is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube contain-video wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Helen Humes - &#039;Tain&#039;t Noody&#039;s Biz ness If I Do (Full Album)\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/VoCh7Pn0LA8?start=812&#038;feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">With only a couple of exceptions, Previn stays in the background, but&nbsp;Humes brings out&nbsp;his&nbsp;attentive, judicious best as an accompanist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-text-color has-background has-dark-gray-background-color has-dark-gray-color is-style-wide\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Diahann Carroll and the Andr\u00e9 Previn Trio:&nbsp;<em><strong>Porgy and Bess<\/strong><\/em>&nbsp;(United Artists, 1959) (recorded early 1959?)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em><strong>Diahann Carroll \/ The Andre Previn Trio<\/strong><\/em><strong>&nbsp;<\/strong>(United Artists, 1960) (recorded early 1959?)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The making of the film version of&nbsp;<em>Porgy and Bess<\/em>&nbsp;was a legendary minefield even by Hollywood standards. Ira Gershwin had jealously guarded the&nbsp;work&nbsp;from producers for a quarter-century before relenting and handing the reins to veteran producer Samuel Goldwyn, who must have immediately realized the Pyhrric nature of his victory. Goldwyn promptly found himself squeezed between the demands of Gershwin and his wife and the deep suspicions of black performers over the suitability and dignity of the material. The experience drove Goldwyn out of the&nbsp;movie&nbsp;business. It helped drive Rouben Mamoulian\u2014who had directed the original productions of the opera, but&nbsp;nevertheless&nbsp;was fired by Goldwyn mere weeks into filming\u2014out of the&nbsp;movie&nbsp;business.&nbsp;The final product received mixed reviews, and, once Goldwyn\u2019s 15 years of rights to the material expired, became so hard to see that rumors spread that Ira Gershwin had actually ordered Goldwyn to destroy all the available prints. Previn, hired to arrange and conduct the score, was one of the few people to escape the project relatively unscathed: he and Ken Darby shared an Oscar for their efforts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Diahann Carroll had played Clara in Goldwyn\u2019s&nbsp;<em>Porgy<\/em>&nbsp;but,&nbsp;at Goldwyn\u2019s behest,&nbsp;her singing was dubbed by&nbsp;soprano Loulie Jean Norman, which must have been a real insult to a singer of Carroll\u2019s caliber.&nbsp;As Previn scholar Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric D\u00f6hl <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/43784648\">has noted<\/a>, Goldwyn\u2019s reverence for the material, both asserted from within and imposed from without, led him to fill the soundtrack with classical singers in order, as D\u00f6hl puts it, to \u201corient the aesthetic emphasis of the sound towards opera.\u201d That might be why Carroll and producer Jack Lewis wanted to tilt away from the source toward jazz. With&nbsp;Previn\u2019s trio with Mitchell and Capp alternating&nbsp;with one featuring Joe Mondragon on bass and Larry Bunker on drums,&nbsp;it\u2019s much as one might imagine a \u201cmodern jazz interpretations of\u201d&nbsp;<em>Porgy and Bess<\/em>,&nbsp;though perhaps more well-behaved and determinedly tasteful&nbsp;than, say, Bill Potts\u2019 1959 album&nbsp;<em>The Jazz Soul of Porgy &amp; Bess<\/em>, played by a band including Art Farmer, Bob Brookmeyer, and Bill Evans (and featuring liner notes by Previn). Still, Previn and Carroll do their best to add&nbsp;their own sort of&nbsp;texture, Carroll with some growl and fry around the edges of her silky voice, Previn with some hard-bop-blues framing devices. (Otto Preminger, Mamoulian\u2019s replacement, had pushed Previn to jazz up Gershwin\u2019s score&nbsp;<em>\u00e0 la&nbsp;<\/em>Preminger\u2019s earlier&nbsp;<em>Carmen Jones<\/em>, but Goldwyn overruled him; maybe Previn found a place for his rejected sketches.) Previn and Carroll were probably too intrinsically smooth to ever knock, say, Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong\u2019s&nbsp;<em>Porgy<\/em>&nbsp;from its pedestal, but the high points\u2014Previn\u2019s jaunty harpsichord on \u201cI Got Plenty o\u2019 Nuttin,\u201d a fine, late-night-on-the-bandstand \u201cI Loves You Porgy,\u201d and Carroll\u2019s Olympic-class insinuations&nbsp;on \u201cIt Ain\u2019t Necessarily So\u201d\u2014are worthwhile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed aligncenter is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube contain-video wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"It Ain&#039;t Necessarily So\" width=\"533\" height=\"400\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/I_E-FpCfOz8?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Their second album gathers a group of standards both familiar and half-forgotten, along with a couple of Previn-Langdon originals. (One&nbsp;personal benefit of&nbsp;Previn\u2019s&nbsp;burst of&nbsp;collaborations&nbsp;with singers around this time was&nbsp;to get&nbsp;his songwriting efforts some extra public attention.) The trio with Mitchell and Capp is on duty throughout. And, on the whole, it\u2019s a more satisfying collection than the&nbsp;<em>Porgy<\/em>&nbsp;album. Carroll gets to be a straight-up jazz singer, and she\u2019s very, very good, mixing something of Dinah Washington\u2019s dirty-martini, high-proof saltiness&nbsp;with Carmen McRae\u2019s&nbsp;meticulous melancholy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed aligncenter is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube contain-video wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Glad To Be Unhappy\" width=\"533\" height=\"400\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/M2r2tE8Mg6E?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Previn\u2019s playing alternates between the impish (juggling riffs on \u201cI Should Care,\u201d he nearly twirls himself off the stage, while&nbsp;his Johnny-one-note solo on \u201cThe Party\u2019s Over\u201d is downright goofy) and the wistful, even bringing in some celesta on his own two songs (especially effective on \u201cChange of Heart,\u201d one of Previn\u2019s most elegant pop&nbsp;disquisitions). Previn and Carroll seem to be on the same stylistically-fluent,&nbsp;slyly&nbsp;self-aware wavelength. I kind of wish they had worked together more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-text-color has-background has-dark-gray-background-color has-dark-gray-color is-style-wide\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em><strong>Andr\u00e9 Previn Plays Songs by Jerome Kern<\/strong><\/em>&nbsp;(Contemporary, 1959) (recorded March 1959)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Previn\u2019s second solo outing for Contemporary feels a shade less spontaneous than his Vernon Duke collection, but makes up for it in brilliance and even daring. The more familiar songs get etude-like treatments: \u201cLong Ago and Far Away\u201d winding in and around castanet-like cascades of crushed seconds, \u201cOl\u2019 Man River\u201d floating along on determinedly unusual, fathoms-deep re-harmonizations. \u201cA Fine Romance\u201d is an especially white-knuckled ride, Previn\u2019s motivic deconstruction dancing along an up-tempo razor\u2019s edge, his improvising orbiting one increasingly obstinate riff with increasingly off-kilter conceptions.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed aligncenter is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube contain-video wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"A Fine Romance\" width=\"533\" height=\"400\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/5aAMoq8MZjQ?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Previn advocates for the comparative rarities\u2014\u201cSure Thing,\u201d \u201cThey Didn\u2019t Believe Me,\u201d \u201cGo Little Boat,\u201d ballads all\u2014with rich, restrained eloquence. The solo albums continue to be perhaps the best anthologies of Previn\u2019s abilities. It\u2019s easy to hear echoes of other approaches: Peterson, Garner, Cy Walter, Don Shirley. It\u2019s hard to imagine many other pianists being able to do all of it, often all at the same time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-text-color has-background has-dark-gray-background-color has-dark-gray-color is-style-wide\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Andr\u00e9 Previn &amp; His Pals:&nbsp;<em><strong>West Side Story<\/strong><\/em>&nbsp;(Contemporary, 1960) (recorded August 1959)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>West Side Story<\/em>&nbsp;must have presented a particular challenge to any would-be&nbsp;jazz versions: the score\u2019s jazz elements, while highly stylized,&nbsp;project a formidable profile, putting any reinterpretation in danger of coming off as either obvious or perverse. That Previn, Mitchell, and Manne manage to&nbsp;sidestep&nbsp;that trap is already impressive. If the&nbsp;<em>Gigi<\/em>&nbsp;album was, in part, a series of hat tips to other pianists, here Previn seems to be getting deeper into the songs\u2019 DNA with some surprising compositional contrafactuals. What if Duke Ellington had written the \u201cJet Song\u201d? What if Harold Arlen had written \u201cTonight\u201d? What if Fats Waller had written \u201cCool\u201d? What if, say, Neil Hefti had written \u201cGee, Officer Krupke\u201d for the Basie band?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed aligncenter is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube contain-video wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Gee, Officer Krupke!\" width=\"533\" height=\"400\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/sYmF-o66ymY?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What might have been jokey proves liberating: Previn is freed up to re-examine the musical elements on their own terms, and the result is some of the best improvising he ever put down on record.&nbsp;The show albums were, on the whole, a mixed (though always diverting) bag, but this one might be the best. It\u2019s the most sheer fun of the albums since that first&nbsp;<em>My Fair Lady<\/em>&nbsp;outing, and it surpasses it in musical richness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Still, against the backdrop of the ongoing ferment in jazz, it\u2019s an album\u00a0and a concept\u00a0that feels noticeably safe. Previn and company recorded<em>\u00a0West Side Story<\/em>\u00a0in the same year that<em>\u00a0<\/em>Miles Davis made\u00a0<em>Kind of Blue<\/em>, Charles Mingus made <em>Mingus Ah Um<\/em>,\u00a0and\u00a0Ornette Coleman made\u00a0<em>The Shape of Jazz to Come<\/em>.\u00a0On its own, the album is a delight: witty, stylish, charming, sparkling\u2014all of Previn\u2019s hallmarks. In context, it\u2019s an early sign that Previn\u2019s dedication to his hallmarks will leave him increasingly out of step with the rest of jazz.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It was also the last&nbsp;trio outing&nbsp;with Manne.&nbsp;Previn was finishing up his obligations to Contemporary and increasing his touring\u2014again, in partial support of his burgeoning classical-performing ambitions. Manne, meanwhile, was focused on his non-stop stream of studio work and his own ambition to own a jazz club (realized, in 1960, with the opening of Shelly\u2019s Manne-Hole). Previn and Manne would remain connected through the film-music world, and&nbsp;would&nbsp;still occasionally work together. In his memoir, Previn would call Manne \u201cincomparable\u201d and \u201cfearless\u201d and his \u201cclosest friend among the jazz players.\u201d But the three-year run of the Friends and the Pals was over.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-text-color has-background has-dark-gray-background-color has-dark-gray-color is-style-wide\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Dinah Shore and Andr\u00e9 Previn:&nbsp;<em><strong>Dinah Sings, Previn Plays\u2014<\/strong><\/em><em><strong>Songs in a Mid-Night Mood<\/strong><\/em>&nbsp;(Capitol, 1960) (recorded June-August 1959, March 1960)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Dinah Shore:&nbsp;<em><strong>Somebody Loves Me<\/strong><\/em><strong>&nbsp;<\/strong>(Capitol, 1959) (recorded September 1959)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The second one first:&nbsp;<em>Somebody Loves Me<\/em>, with orchestral accompaniments arranged and conducted by Previn, is mostly, in the context of this survey, a reminder that, yes, Previn was still maintaining a busy career providing (little-R and big-R) romantic ambience for studio orchestras. The album, all standards, hardly strays from its formula of plush, strings-and-woodwinds frames for Shore\u2019s down comforter of a voice. There\u2019s a few passing curveballs\u2014the introductions to \u201cSomething to Remember You By\u201d and \u201cI Only Have Eyes for You\u201d stretch out some parallel harmonies in an almost Britten-esque way before settling into their soft, cinematic sweep. But even the exception, a bit of piano-and-rhythm scene-setting and a half-chorus of Previn solo on the title song, which closes out the album, is still just seasoning on what remains a string-heavy track.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Dinah Sings, Previn Plays<\/em>&nbsp;is more intriguing.&nbsp;Recorded over three&nbsp;sessions (one with just Previn accompanying,&nbsp;the other two\u2014separated by nearly a year\u2014with the Previn-Mitchell-Capp trio), it\u2019s all torchy and subdued, but with definite blues-and-bop accents. It might have been called&nbsp;<em>Dinah Shore Sings Jazz<\/em>\u2014except Shore barely alters her&nbsp;pure, finely-drawn approach at all. (I was amused that&nbsp;where&nbsp;Shore most wrinkles the sheets, as it were,&nbsp;is&nbsp;for the heteronormative, you\u2019ll-learn-to-cook-and-love-it admonishments of \u201cSleepy Time Gal.\u201d) So what we have is, essentially, some reasonably serious instrumental jazz combined with easy-listening vocals. And, except for the couple of songs where Shore takes the \u201cmid-night mood\u201d a little too literally and undersings to a fault, it works really, really well:&nbsp;Shore takes the largely straightforward road while Previn scuffs up the texture in his darting-in-and-around-the-beat style.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed aligncenter is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube contain-video wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"It Had To Be You - Dinah Shore &amp; Andre Previn\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ZpamweSI9mg?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It\u2019s a hint, maybe, that Previn\u2019s approach didn\u2019t change all that much, either.&nbsp;Previn\u2019s detractors would sometimes complain that his jazz was, more or less, easy-listening music with rhythm, but records like this show how it might be more useful to think of his easy-listening music as&nbsp;jazz&nbsp;<em>without<\/em>&nbsp;rhythm, or at least without jazz\u2019s&nbsp;strong and predominant&nbsp;rhythmic drive. It helps explain why his easy-listening albums tend to be&nbsp;more interesting than most others. (<em>Dinah Sings, Previn Plays<\/em>&nbsp;is one of the few Previn albums to be reissued later with bonus tracks that weren\u2019t on the original release, indicative of how much material was either re-recorded or left on the cutting room floor for this project\u2014an unusual experience for Previn, based on what I\u2019ve been able to glean about his recording sessions.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-text-color has-background has-dark-gray-background-color has-dark-gray-color is-style-wide\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Julie London:&nbsp;<em><strong>Your Number Please<\/strong><\/em>&nbsp;(Liberty, 1959) (recorded August-September 1959)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Julie London recorded with so many West Coast jazz figures\u2014Barney Kessel, Jimmy Rowles, Red Callender, Buddy Collette, Al Viola, the list goes on\u2014that it\u2019s a little surprising it took this long for her and Previn to cross paths. Not that this is any showcase for the West Coast style: Previn may sneak some discreet piano into a couple of numbers, but his arrangements largely hew to the&nbsp;<em>Somebody Loves Me<\/em>&nbsp;pattern. The surfaces are impeccable, but Previn\u2019s contribution does, perhaps, feel a little hemmed in by London, who remains more ensconced than usual in her breathy, world-weary, close-miked siren mode. Among the less expected moments: some sharp-flavored strings on \u201cOne For My Baby,\u201d a bit of operatic flair in \u201cThey Can\u2019t Take That Away From Me,\u201d and a sweet-and-sour arrangement of \u201cMakin\u2019 Whoopee\u201d in which Previn and the orchestra seem just a little bit more in on the joke than the star.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed aligncenter is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube contain-video wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Makin&#039; Whoopee (Remastered)\" width=\"533\" height=\"400\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/8_YTDU9ofuo?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-text-color has-background has-dark-gray-background-color has-dark-gray-color is-style-wide\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Betty Bennett with the Andr\u00e9 Previn Trio:&nbsp;<em><strong>I Love to Sing<\/strong><\/em>&nbsp;(United Artists, 1959) (recorded autumn 1959?)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In his liner notes for this album, Gene Lees offered some reproof to critics and fans (and, one could imagine, Ralph Gleason\u2019s this-isn\u2019t-really-jazz notes for Bennett\u2019s last album) over the way they pigeonhole singers\u2014words that could well apply to Previn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote blockquotecustom is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>If the singer is bad or just so-so, the aficionados will let the \u201cpopular music\u201d world have him. But if he\u2019s good, and they like him, they will claim him as their own, and as a \u201cjazz singer.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">(Lees\u2019 utopian conclusion: there\u2019s no such thing as a \u201cjazz singer\u201d\u2014just good singing or bad singing.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">After a sabbatical to raise her and Previn\u2019s children, Bennett had returned to the stage, first on tour with Benny Goodman (\u201cWhat a cruel man,\u201d she <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jazzwax.com\/2011\/07\/interview-betty-bennett-part-2.html\">recalled<\/a>) and then in clubs with small groups. This album, in addition to its being a testament to professional amicability (Bennett was working not only with Previn, her ex-husband, but, on a few tracks, Conte Candoli, whom she had left for Previn), nicely preserves much of that two-drink-minimum atmosphere. The \u201cTrio\u201d is a little bit of a fiction: Red Mitchell and Buddy Clark trade off on bass, Irv Kottler and Stan Levey on drums. But the sense of a cohesive evening out is well-realized, with a smart selection of standards and a handful of medley transitions to maintain the momentum. Bennett, essentially a female crooner\u2014clear tone, careful breath control, and canny use of the microphone\u2014is in great form, and Previn\u2019s playing is lithe and loose. Plenty of highlights to choose from: a beguiling take on \u201cOver the Rainbow,\u201d a quick-hit version of \u201cAll At Once\u201d that nicely captures Lorenz Hart\u2019s defiantly romantic worldliness. But I\u2019ll go with \u201cLove Isn\u2019t Born (It\u2019s Made),\u201d a nimble, saucy Arthur Schwartz-Frank Loesser apertif that was new to me.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed aligncenter is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube contain-video wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Love Isn&#039;t Born (It&#039;s Made) by Betty Bennett\" width=\"533\" height=\"400\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/FPhu7Wqkf2k?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-text-color has-background has-dark-gray-background-color has-dark-gray-color is-style-wide\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Elmer Bernstein and the Swinging Bon Vivants:&nbsp;<em><strong>Paris Swings&nbsp;<\/strong><\/em>(Capitol, 1960) (recorded October 1959)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Bernstein <a href=\"https:\/\/elmerbernstein.com\/articles\/the-man-with-the-jazzy-sound\/\">later called<\/a> this Capitol Records bid to gain a foothold in the exotica category a \u201creally dumb idea,\u201d but it\u2019s a stylishly, entertainingly dumb idea. He runs a handful of cosmopolitan standards and a few French-titled originals through a Gallic-jazz filter, and the result is a bubbly, modish good time, light as a meringue and crisp as a&nbsp;<em>cro\u00fbton.&nbsp;<\/em>The musicians are uncredited on the original release, but it\u2019s definitely Previn and Mitchell and Manne, with Larry Bunker on near-ubiquitous vibraphone. (The internet claims Ted Nash on reeds and Barney Kessel on guitar\u2014sounds right to me\u2014and I would hazard a guess that it\u2019s Pete Candoli on trumpet, only because Bernstein used him on a number of other projects.) It\u2019s a long way from the resplendent grit of&nbsp;<em>Blues and Brass<\/em>, but everyone\u2019s still sharp. And Bernstein\u2019s quintuple-time fascination remains intact in a nifty rewrite of \u201cAutumn Leaves.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed aligncenter is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube contain-video wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Autumn Leaves\" width=\"533\" height=\"400\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/VEe0wvmdej0?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-text-color has-background has-dark-gray-background-color has-dark-gray-color is-style-wide\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Andr\u00e9 Previn, Gerry Mulligan, Carmen McRae, and others:&nbsp;<em><strong>The Subterraneans<\/strong><\/em><strong>&nbsp;<\/strong>(dir. Randal MacDougall; MGM, 1960) (recorded August, September, December 1959, January, February 1960)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Four years after Bernstein\u2019s success with&nbsp;<em>The Man with the Golden Arm<\/em>,<em>&nbsp;<\/em>Previn finally got the chance to write his own jazz film score, for MGM\u2019s Arthur Freed-produced adaptation of Jack Kerouac\u2019s novel of life among the Beats. Any suspicions one might have regarding the man behind&nbsp;<em>Easter Parade<\/em>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<em>Gigi<\/em>&nbsp;shepherding a movie about postwar disaffected Bohemian youth would be well-founded; even if Freed and director Randal MacDougall\u2019s original cut was further compromised by MGM executives, the project was probably doomed from the start, already out-of-date by the time of its 1960 release, incompatibly conventional in its structure and visual grammar, and seemingly deaf to the tonal peril of having heightened, Kerouac-esque argot read out loud by good-looking actors. And did they change the character of Mardou from a half-black, half-Cherokee siren to a French free spirit played by Leslie Caron? Do you really need to ask? (In his study <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hup.harvard.edu\/catalog.php?isbn=9780674013117\">Blows Like a Horn<\/a><\/em>, scholar Preston Whaley, Jr. makes the case that the film\u2019s irreconcilable contradictions make it a more fascinating critical artifact than either intended or remembered, at least.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The music, though? The music is great. Previn\u2019s orchestral cues are wonderfully brash and moody, big-city melodrama at its finest. (The main theme, \u201cWhy Are We Afraid?\u201d\u2014with lyrics, unused in the film, by Dory Langdon\u2014deftly threads the film-scoring needle: immediately recognizable but continually beguiling.) And Previn and Freed did not mess around in bringing to the screen the jazz that is integral to the book. All kinds of terrific players get heard, and get screen time, and get listed in the opening credits. Gerry Mulligan has a role as a saxophone-playing hipster priest handing out free spaghetti; later in the film, he appears in a quintet with Art Farmer, Buddy Clark, Russ Freeman, and Dave Bailey. The Previn-Mitchell-Manne trio also performs on-screen and then backs up Carmen McRae for a song. Since it\u2019s an Arthur Freed production, both numbers are Freed\u2019s\u2014McRae sings a lightly-updated version of \u201cCoffee Time,\u201d written with Arthur Schwartz, while the trio essays the Freed-Nacio Herb Brown chestnut \u201cShould I.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed aligncenter is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube contain-video wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Andre Previn and Others - The Subterraneans Original Soundtrack\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/2nv71jCVLKw?start=1193&#038;feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Conveniently, Previn had recorded \u201cShould I\u201d for&nbsp;<em>Previn at the Piano<\/em>, his debut album, back in 1947, allowing for comparison. The command of touch and dynamics is the same; just about everything else is vastly different.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed aligncenter is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube contain-video wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Andr\u00e9 Previn \u2013 Should I?, 1947\" width=\"533\" height=\"400\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/zy_BLo0thgI?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">(Just one more thing about the film: the Kerouac stand-in, played by George Peppard, was originally envisioned as a role for Dean Martin. Dean Martin!)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-text-color has-background has-dark-gray-background-color has-dark-gray-color is-style-wide\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Andr\u00e9 Previn \/ David Rose:&nbsp;<em><strong>Like Blue<\/strong><\/em>&nbsp;(MGM, 1960) (recorded Autumn\/Winter 1959?)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The follow-up to&nbsp;<em>Secret Songs for Young Lovers<\/em>&nbsp;is of a piece with its predecessor, though, if you listen close, here and there the formula yields diminishing returns\u2014the string arrangements feel a little more deliberately smoothed-out (or, alternately, over-intricate), and Previn\u2019s piano more deliberately spiky and strenuous in its jazz accent. Still, for every dubious track (Previn\u2019s playing on \u201cBetween the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea,\u201d for instance, is so self-consciously busy as to strain coherence), there\u2019s one in which the odd-couple vibes relax into something wry and insouciant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed aligncenter is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube contain-video wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Andre Previn &amp; David Rose - Like Blue [Stereo, 1959]\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/z7LeKZTOSvk?start=1726&#038;feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Two of Previn\u2019s originals from&nbsp;<em>The Subterraneans<\/em>&nbsp;turn up here. The jazz waltz \u201cLike Blue\u201d was clearly the album\u2019s hoped-for hit single, but it\u2019s a more tangled tale than \u201cLike Young,\u201d better off with the clarity and ensemble of a smaller group, perhaps. But \u201cWhy Are We Afraid?\u201d (here called \u201cThe Blue Subterraneans\u201d in keeping with the album\u2019s musical color scheme) again proves durable in a variety of guises. And the album itself was another hit, reaching #25 on the Billboard charts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This record also kicks off what will be a string of Previn albums with \u201clike\u201d in the title, as the record industry runs the association with \u201cLike Young\u201d into the ground. So it\u2019s worth relating a story that Previn liked to tell, about meeting Ira Gershwin around the time \u201cLike Young\u201d was climbing the charts, with Gershwin offhandedly remarking to Previn, \u201cShouldn\u2019t it be \u2018<em>As<\/em>&nbsp;Young?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sohothedog.com\/previnjazz\/interlude-on-classical-music\/\">\u2190 <em>Previous:<\/em> <em>Interlude: On Classical Music<\/em><\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sohothedog.com\/previnjazz\/1960-2\/\"><em>Next: 1960<\/em> \u2192<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Singers and sea changes. Helen Humes&nbsp;(Contemporary, 1960) (recorded January-February 1959) At the time of this recording, Helen Humes was a veteran several times over: a big-band swing chanteuse (with Harry James and Count Basie), a blues shouter, a consummate ballad singer, a rhythm-and-blues doyenne. It all turns up on this loose and sundry gem of &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sohothedog.com\/previnjazz\/1959-2\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;1959&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-163","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sohothedog.com\/previnjazz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sohothedog.com\/previnjazz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sohothedog.com\/previnjazz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sohothedog.com\/previnjazz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sohothedog.com\/previnjazz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=163"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.sohothedog.com\/previnjazz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/163\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":457,"href":"https:\/\/www.sohothedog.com\/previnjazz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/163\/revisions\/457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sohothedog.com\/previnjazz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}