LIVE AT CARNEGIE HALL CLEO LA

Track Listing
1. I Don't Know Why (I Just Do) / Love Me Or Leave Me
2. When I Take My Sugar to Tea
3. I'll Be Around
4. Strictly For the Birds
5. Before Love Went Out of Style
6. Soft Shoe
7. Smilin' Through
8. I Can't Give You Anything But Love
9. It's Easy to Remember
10. Play It Again Sam
11. Be a Child

Personnel: Cleo Laine (vocals); Dudley Moore (piano); Ray Brown (bass); Nick Caroli (drums).

This album is the result of two giant entertainers from the British Isles getting together in London in 1982 for a session of ballads and traditional pop. Dudley Moore was more famous, at least in the United States, for his comedic roles in a number of films. But he was a pianist and composer of no mean skills. Cleo Laine had been a singing talent of the first order since the 1950s and often performed and recorded with husband and sax player John Dankworth. Dankworth is present on one cut on this album. While Moore dashes off some nice solo work on such cuts as "When I Take My Sugar to Tea" and an Erroll Garner-like "I Can't Give You Anything but Love," it's Laine's wide-ranged, full-throated, expressive, and clear-as-a-mountain-lake voice that dominates the session. She sets the table for "I Don't Know Why I Just Do," recalling a few lines from "Love Me or Leave Me," and squeezes every ounce of feeling from "I'll Be Around." Then there's a fun, hip, overdubbed, scatting 1960 girl-singer rendition of "Before Love Went out of Style." The album's highlight track is a bluesy "Soft Shoe," where Dankworth chips in with his soprano sax and Laine and Moore engage in congenial patter. Moore's fellow rhythm section players are the inestimable Ray Brown and Nick Ceroli, which is the icing on a tasty musical cake that this album serves up.

Track Listing
1. All in Love Is Fair
2. Skip-A-Long Sam
3. Send in the Clowns
4. Least You Can Do Is the Best You Can, The
5. They Needed Each Other
6. I Loves You, Porgy
7. Until It's Time for You to Go
8. Life Is a Wheel
9. Summer Knows, The
10. Beautiful Thing, A
11. Time for Farewell, A - (bonus track)

Personnel: Cleo Laine (vocals); James Galway (flute); Tony Hymas, Don Grolnick (keyboards); Cliff Morris, Bob Rose (guitar); John Miller (bass); Roy Markowitz (drums).

Producers: Mike Berniker (tracks 1-10); Kurt Gebauer, John Dankworth (track 11).

Engineers: Mike Moran, Ed Begley (tracks 1-10); Frank Catero (track 11).

Recorded at RCA Studios B & C, New York on July 10-12, 1974 and Studio D, Sausalito, California in August 1993.

Recording information: New York, NY (07/10/1974-07/??/1993); RCA Recording Studios, Studio B&C, New York, NY (07/10/1974-07/??/1993); Studio D, Sausalito, CA (07/10/1974-07/??/1993).

Photographer: Nick Sangiamo.

Arrangers: Tony Hymas; John Dankworth.

Classic Gershwin

Track Listing
1. Any Place I Hang My Hat / It's A Grand Night For Singing / Good Morning / It's A Lovely Day Today
2. I'm Shadowing You
3. Crazy Rhythm
4. Primrose Colour Blue
5. We Are the Music Makers
6. You Spotted Snakes
7. Methuselah
8. When I Was One and Twenty
9. Sing Me No Song
10. Triboro Fair
11. You've Got to Do What You've Got to Do
12. He Was Beautiful
13. Turkish Delight
14. Never Let Me Go
15. Hoagy Carmichael Medley: Georgia On My Mind / Lazy Bones / The Nearness Of You / I Get Along Without You Very Well / My Resistance Is Low / Stardust
16. I Want to Be Happy

Personnel includes: Cleo Laine (vocals); John Dankworth (alto saxophone).

Good set celebrating the 10th anniversary of the sensational 1973 Carnegie Hall concert that was an acclaimed two-album set. Laine is a dynamic, versatile entertainer who isn't a jazz singer in strictest sense, but does possess incredible timing and a remarkable ear. Her diction and enunication are admirable, and her stylistic range includes theatrical songs, pre-rock pop, English and Scottish folk tunes, and more. ~ Ron Wynn

BEST FRIENDS CLEO LAINE & JOH

Edition Luigi Boccherini: Divertimenti - Oboe Quintets