Frank Laine (2)

FRANKIE LAINE & MICHEL LEGRAND - REUNION IN RHYTHM (1959)

1. Too Marvelous for Words
2. Forget the Time
3. September in the Rain
4. You're Just My Kind
5. I Would Do Anything for You
6. Lover, Come Back to Me
7. Blue Moon
8. The Love of Loves
9. Dream a Little Dream of Me
10. Baby, Just for Me
11. I'm Confessin' (That I Love You)
12. Marie

REUNION IN RHYTHM brings Laine and Legrand together a second time for a jazzy album of standards (in English). Laine sings the oft-omitted introductions to each of these songs as well as second choruses when they appear. There are many more brilliantly haunting lyrics to BLUE MOON, for instance, than many music fans may be familiar with. Laine is in fine voice on both albums, and swings the standards with confidence and style (jazz being his first love) and Legrand's arrangements are innovative, daring, and brimming with energy and life.

FRANKIE LAINE & BUCK CLAYTON - JAZZ SPECTACULAR (1955)

1. S'posin'   
2. Stars Fell On Alabama   
3. Until The Real Thing Comes Along   
4. My Old Flame
5. You Can Depend On Me
6. That Old Feeling       
7. Taking A Chance On Love       
8. If You Were Mine       
9. Baby, Baby All The Time       
10. Roses Of Picardy       
11. You'd Be So Nice To Come Home To

Though he shared the same urban musical background as other band singers of his generation (he was a mentor to Anita O'Day), Frankie Laine enjoyed a unique success in the 1950s with highly dramatic (and heavily orchestrated) "cowboy" songs, including film and TV themes like "High Noon" and "Rawhide." He may have been closer to his real roots and affinities on this 1956 venture into jazz, with a comfortable collection of more-conventional pop tunes and an all-star band led by the superb trumpeter and Count Basie veteran Buck Clayton. Whatever his enthusiasm for the project, though, Laine isn't a jazz singer in any usual sense of the term, rather a good pop singer with an ability to emphasize lyrics in a distinctive, almost conversational way that creates an immediate bond with his audience. That relaxed yet precise diction makes the opening "S'posin'" particularly successful, but elsewhere his vocals serve essentially as pleasant frames for some excellent solos by Clayton, tenor saxophonist Budd Johnson, and special guest trombonist J.J. Johnson. --Stuart Broomer