Sarah Vaughan - Crazy & Mixed Up

You want to know why her nickname was "Sassy"? Listen to this. This is the essential Sarah Vaughan, a self-produced, small-combo session from 1982, featuring Joe Pass on guitar. She picked the musicians, she picked the songs, and the result is Sassy at her purest--undiluted by slick orchestrations or studio enhancements. The atmosphere is loose and lively, Vaughan's voice at its ripest--and she's recorded nice and close so you can almost feel the warmth of her breath coming through the speakers. Her scatting scatters "Autumn Leaves" like a whirlwind, and on my favorite track ("In Love in Vain") she stretches and bends the melody as if it were saltwater taffy. --Jim Emerson Amazon.com essential recording

Great album

Sarah Vaughan's "Crazy & Mixed Up" is one of my favorite albums. In fact, if I'm ever not in the mood to practice my guitar, I usually listen to her scat on "Autumn Leaves" and get pumped up enough to practice for a few hours! This is a very inspirational CD for me. December 17, 2007

Perfection: no more, no less

What happens when one of the most talented singers in jazz is given free rein to choose music and musicians? The result is "Crazy & Mixed Up" by Sarah Vaughn, an album that she produced, which contains eight tracks that will leave you wanting more. A perfect example of the brilliance and perfection of the performances lies in "Seasons", my favorite track, where her beautiful voice is complemented by one of the most amazing piano solos you will ever hear. Simply put, "Crazy & Mixed Up" will automatically become an instant and perennial favorite that will occupy a special place in your collection and your heart. November 30, 2006

Short but "SASSY"

All you have to do is listen to the song samples to know why you need this cd in your Sarah Vaughan Collection. Only eight songs but well worth it. August 16, 2006

Completely, utterly brilliant

Among the immortal old-time jazz chanteusses (Ella, Carmen, Lady Day, Betty, Anita, Dinah, June, Jo, Nina and Sassy), many have argued that Sarah Vaughan was the best pure singer of them all, and the only one who could have been retrained to sing opera.

I agree with that consensus, and I mark this album as Exhibit "A" for that proposition.

Let's take "Seasons", my personal favorite cut on this album. Listening to this fabulous jazz ballad reminds me of watching "Citizen Kane." If you recall, Welles filmed that classic such that every shot--whether close-up or far away--was in perfect focus. And that describes Sarah Vaughan's voice as well. No matter where she is in her register, every note is as equally clear. If she's at the low end, she deepens; if she's at the high end, she covers while singing brightly; and she never scoops and never reaches. Every note--and I mean every note--is simply beautiful. Listen to "Seasons" and you'll hear what I mean. You'll hear that throughout, but this is the cut that really gets to me.

And listen to "The Island" as an example of perfect control. She does a perfect slow crescendo and a perfect slow dimuendo here, which is possible only with perfect breath control. Very few singers can pull off what Sassy pulls off here--and as a result, she turns this into one of the most exciting renditions of a love song ever.

None of this is to suggest that Ms. Vaughan is anything other than a jazz singer, however. Listen to how she swings "That's All" and scats "Autumn Leaves". Carmen and Ella never did it better than this--and that's saying one hell of a lot.

This was Ms. Vaughan's album--she produced it, and I assume, was granted the artistic freedom by Pablo (whose sound, BTW, is sensational) to pick her supporting artists. What artists! At guitar, they don't come better than Joe Pass, and check out his dizzying solo on "Leaves." On piano, the redoubtable (Sir) Roland Hanna knocks out outstanding work on "That's All" and "Seasons", and is every bit up to his reputation. The rhythm section players (Andy Simpkins--bass and Harold Jones--drums) do everything that you'd want a rhythm section grounding three giants like this to do.

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about this album, recorded in 1982, was that Sarah Vaughan had been in the business for over 40 years when it was recorded. Not only does she sound in her prime, but it's difficult to imagine her prime being better than this.

This is one of the finest vocal jazz albums out there. I'm probably telling this to people who know that already. I didn't until recently, and I'm so grateful to the friend who turned me on to this. RC

October 7, 2005

Vaughan's jazziest and most brilliant album.

Though Sarah Vaughan had many pop hits and recorded a number of songs from the Great American Songbook, she is, at heart, a jazz singer, and this is her jazziest, and, I think, best album. Choosing musicians Roland Hanna on piano, Joe Pass on guitar, Harold Jones on drums, and Andy Simpkins on bass as her backup, Sarah produced this album herself in 1982, when her control and musicianship were at their peak, her voice had taken on some of its deeper tones, and her range was enormous. These eight songs, some of them new, are among the best and most unusual tracks she ever recorded, reflecting a variety of moods and a daring in interpretation that comes from having to answer to no one in this recording.

"Autumn Leaves" is so "out there," with Joe Pass on guitar and Andy Simkins on bass and Vaughan singing scat, that it is difficult even to recognize Johnny Mercer's basic melody, and with Vaughan taking full advantage of her range and power, the song loses any sense of the saccharine sweetness so common to other recordings of it. In the David Rose song "The Island," previously unfamiliar to me, Vaughan sings very slowly with a "la-la" scat and minor tones, creating a haunting song of great mystery, full of key changes and switches from major to minor and back, until by the end she is full of passion and wailing. The "prettiest" song on the CD is "Seasons," composed by pianist Roland Hanna for Vaughan, a moody, romantic song with lush piano interpretations and long piano solo, and Vaughan singing "pure" as she thinks about family, nature, and winter, while awaiting "summer's embrace."

Ranging from ballad to swing to full-out jazz, Vaughan is at her best here, choosing every song herself and surrounding herself with musicians with whom she is comfortable and who share her interpretations. Every track here is a knockout, from the intimacy of "Love Dance" through "In Love in Vain" and "You Are Too Beautiful," for which Vaughan gives an interpretation that Rodgers and Hart would never have imagined. Of all Vaughan's albums, this is the one on which she is most truly herself--the best Vaughan album I've ever heard. Mary Whipple
July 13, 2005

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