Thanks for suggestion, really nice!
Hi Craig, I thought about you and your great list of female vocalists last night. One to add to your list is the newest by Melissa Errico I Can Dream, Can’t I? (Qobuz / Apple Music). The presence of her voice is phenomenal, but even better is her work with pianist Tedd Firth. It is some of the best accompanying I’ve ever heard and a fantastic full piano sound that adds serious value. For some terrible reason, I was unfamiliar with Ms. Errico, but it might be because she is more associated with Broadway than jazz recording. But her interpretations of these songs is really wonderful. The title track and “But Beautiful” really stood out in my first time through.
Thanks bunches! I’ll pull it up on Qobuz and give it a listen tonight. Much appreciated. It also reminds me that I never got around to posting the other two female vocalist lists I have - the ones that are really nice recordings, if not exactly startlingly real-sounding. The problem is those lists are much, much longer than the “best” list I put up already, and are likely to take a lot longer.
The only thing that might have made the Errico recording better would be if her voice was a bit wider in the soundstage - I get it - she’s a soloist, but even in an intimate concert, sound spreads a bit.
As for your lists, the more the merrier I say. Maybe with those “lesser” lists, you don’t need to have the album covers - just the list with basic information - even that’s optional - artist and album is probably enough for those of us used to searching.
I’ll keep that in mind. It won’t happen for at least a couple of weeks though - we’ll be on vacation.
Hope you have a great time on vacation.
I listened to A Drum Thing last night. It’s funny but I assumed this might be a recording I’d add to the topic I started about How a Great System Improves Drum Sounds. But in this case, my great system totally REMOVED the drum sounds! Kidding of course. Seriously, it really is a great recording. It’s the second recording in as many days with something interesting going on in the piano sound. Back when I was in professional recording in the 1980s, the standard best practice was to use two microphones - one for lower strings, the other for upper. In general we’d pan left and right to some degree, but I used to joke that doing that made the piano sound 15 feet wide on the soundstage. So I would generally prefer the piano to be to one side or the other and spread a little. But in this recording, I’m not sure how they did it, but the piano feels very present and very stereo, but I couldn’t identify a right-left spread. If anything, it feels more truly THREE-dimensional in its sound. And the bass is also captured and reproduced beautifully and treated in a real equal as opposed to accompanying instrument, if that makes sense. Either way, thanks for the suggestion.
Oh yeah, owning that is a classic requirement to be considered an audiophile. My brother who has been an audiophile 5 times longer than me said when he attended audio shows back in the 90s/early 2000s, every room was playing something by Diana Krall. I also read about a high-end stereo store somewhere in California with a sign on the door NO DIANA KRALL. But the overplaying is warranted - the recordings are great, and the Live in Paris might be the best. My favorite of hers is the 2015 album Wallflower which won a Grammy for Best Engineered. Everything about it is wonderful, but what kills me is the strings. Her duet with Michael Buble on “Alone Again, Naturally” gets several plays a year for me.
Thank Al Schmitt (RIP) for how good this sounds.
Michael Buble recordings are also stellar
I’ve had that on CD and LP for several years. Always a fun listen. I especially like “I Love Being Here with You,” with her nod to mentor Ray Brown.
If you like this album, you might enjoy “Crescent” from this duo as well!
First track is a favorite!
Hi David. I have to admit that I’ve never been a huge fan of Buble, but I’m also a snob when it comes to male singers who’ve tried to fall in the tradition of Sinatra, Torme, Bennet, etc. There are things by Buble and Harry Connick that do a fairly good job. But once I heard Seth MacFarlane (originator of Family Guy), Buble fell even lower. But that is not at all to say I’ve paid as much attention to him as I should have. Do you have any recordings of his you’d really recommend from an audio-priority perspective?
I get what you mean. I’ve always been a little picky about singers working in that Sinatra/Tormé/Bennett style too. A lot of modern singers can sound a little too polished for my taste. I’ve generally liked Harry Connick Jr. more than Bublé because he feels a little more natural and musical to me.
That said, I do think Bublé has some recordings that are really well done from a sound-quality perspective. The first one I’d recommend is Call Me Irresponsible . It has a warm, smooth sound with great orchestral recording quality. “Me and Mrs. Jones” and “Dream” are especially good late-evening listening tracks.
I’d also recommend Crazy Love . The production is very clean and spacious, and it sounds excellent on a good stereo system. “Georgia on My Mind” and “Cry Me a River” stand out for me.
Some tracks on To Be Loved are also worth hearing if you don’t mind a little more modern production style.
For Connick Jr., I still really enjoy We Are In Love , Blue Light, Red Light , and Come By Me . Those recordings have a warmth and ease to them that works really well on a good system, especially for relaxed evening listening.
A few other male vocalists I’ve found consistently rewarding from both a musical and recording-quality standpoint are Johnny Hartman, Nat King Cole, Johnny Mathis, and Gregory Porter. I also think a lot of the classic Sinatra Capitol recordings still hold up amazingly well sonically.
You’ve definitely made me curious about Seth MacFarlane though. I haven’t really listened to him yet, but now I’m planning to check him out.
Hey, thanks for the reply, and the Buble recommendations - I’ll give them a shot. As for my “problem” with modern singers, I think it’s mostly that there was a kind of cultural “feel” at that time that’s hard to duplicate, and that feel penetrates into the phrasing, enunciation, attitude, sound, etc.
Anything I’ve heard by MacFarlane is quite good, and quality recordings. But the two tracks that have stood out to me for Sinatra-level musicianship are his version of “Laura” from his first album Music Is Better Than Words (Qobuz / Apple Music), and his version of “The Christmas Song” from Holiday for Swing (Qobuz / Apple Music). Apparently the Christmas Song was done when they needed a few more minutes so he and the pianist went in and recorded it in one take.
I do see there are some other albums of his I haven’t heard yet.
Hey David. Sometimes it takes a while, but I do get around to things (sometimes). I listened last night to Buble’s Call Me Irresponsible. How in the world did you get in my head to figure out the exact buttons to push to convince me that THIS GUY IS GREAT? I was just telling a friend about the recording and he agreed that maybe some of our misgivings about Buble are rooted in thinking maybe he’s just “not up to the hype” of being another Sinatra. And that might be true still, but in this recording I heard sides of him that establish his uniqueness. And the audio added a lot to that - incredible presence. To my ears they might have mixed him a bit too loud, but that’s pretty typical (and understandable) for an album featuring a singer. The more I hear featuring the Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra, the closer I get to their being one of my top-faves as far as a big-band. My modern “go tos” are Gordon Goodwin (RIP) Big Phat Band, The WDR Big Band, the Danish Radio Big Band, and anything by Maria Schneider. But I think the C-HJO is one of the top few for vocal accompaniment. And what a wonderful soundstage - I really love it when I feel like I’m part of the band, not just in the audience - reminds me of my days as a mediocre big band trumpeter. I guess maybe one of the things I’ve had trouble with - from my snobby Sinatra ears - is whether a younger sensibility can work in this genre. I think this album does a great job of putting that prejudice to rest.
I’ll close with this question: why do I seem to have this prejudice for male singers when I don’t for female? I can remember only once where I turned my nose up at a younger female singer “not in her league” and that was the set of Linda Ronstadt albums with Nelson Riddle (and now I need to go back and listen to them again adding in my audio quality interests). But when I hear young lady singers approaching this genre, I love it. Maybe it has something to do with that heterosexual thing?
Most of us have a built-in Sinatra filter when it comes to male singers, myself included. Every male vocalist who enters this territory gets measured against that standard, whether you mean to do it or not. That’s a pretty high bar.
What seems to have happened with Call Me Irresponsible is that you stopped comparing Bublé to Sinatra and started listening to Bublé. That’s when the album opens up. The Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra gives him a great setting, and his own strengths come through—his phrasing, personality, and ability to connect with a song.
Female singers may get a freer pass because we aren’t automatically running them through the same Sinatra comparison. We hear them as themselves from the start. With male singers, they first have to survive the Sinatra test.
That track—and perhaps the entire album—didn’t convince you that Bublé is another Sinatra. It may have convinced you that he doesn’t need to be.
Where the hell did you get to be so smart? Seriously, you hit the Sinatra nail on the head. When I was in college, I worked in public radio and produced jazz programs. I loved jazz, but didn’t know a lot about it at first, so one night I asked on the air whether there might be someone out there interested in working with me. A guy called and my life was changed forever. Not only is he amazingly knowledgable about jazz, his musical interests spread pretty wide and best of all, he’s an incredible teacher. I learned so much from him about swing, the role of composition vs. improvisation, how to listen to any kind of music. We’re still good friends.
One thing he taught me, which took some getting used to: I’m very interested in culture, so when I encountered someone like Charlie Parker or Frank Sinatra, I immediately wanted to integrate their cultural circumstances into understanding them - Parker’s drug use, Sinatra’s ties to organized crime (which has pretty much been debunked). Those elements are certainly interesting, but Bill taught me to begin by focusing entirely on the music they created, that it can actually be subconsciously racist to look primarily at jazz culture - is the music itself not valuable enough to stand on its own? Do we begin an appreciation of Bach by studying German baroque culture? It certainly had an impact, but Bach’s music stands on its own as a Rembrandt painting does.
It sounds like you’ve got a good head on your shoulders if you can set me straight about what might be going on with the influence of Sinatra. One thing Bill taught me about him, which I think might be his best trademark for phrasing and swing is that he actually sings very “square” rhythmically, but when juxtaposed against a swinging band like Basie, it swings even more. Seth MacFarlane does that pretty well, and I’m thinking Buble does too - more listening ahead.
Thanks, but I can’t really claim any special insight there. It’s simply an observation that was pointed out to me at some point. I’m mostly just passing it along and trying to listen closely enough to hear it for myself. It’s one of those things that seems obvious once someone points it out.