The Hi-Los (2)

THE HI-LOS - CHERRIES & OTHER DELIGHTS (1992)

1. Life Is Just A Bowl Of Cherries
2. My Sugar Is So Refined
3. April Snow
4. The Lady In Red
5. Lulu's Back In Town
6. Lazy Afternoon
7. I Could Write A Book
8. Georgia On My Mind
9. Fascinatin' Rhythm
10. Rockin' Chair
11. Small Fry
12. Indiana
13. You Must Have Been A Beautiful Baby
14. Down By The Sally Gardens
15. Little Grass Shack

Personnel: Clark Burroughs (tenor, tenor saxophone); Don Shelton (tenor); Bob Morse (baritone); Gene Puerling (bass voice); Bob Morse (baritone saxophone).

THE HI-LOS - SUDDENLY IT'S THE HI-LOS/HARMONY IN JAZZ (1999)

1. Swing Low, Sweet Chariot
2. Life Is Just a Bowl of Cherries
3. Deep Purple
4. My Sugar Is So Refined
5. Brahms' Lullaby
6. The Desert Song
7. Stormy Weather
8. I Married an Angel
9. Tenderly
10. Down the Old Ox Road
11. Love Walked In
12. Basin Street Blues
13. Fascinating Rhythm
14. Small Fry
15. Love Locked Out
16. The Lady in Red
17. Some Minor Changes
18. Then I'll Be Tired of You
19. Moon-Faced, Starry-Eyed
20. Of Thee I Sing
21. Goody Goody
22. (Back Home Again In) Indiana
23. Dancing on the Ceiling

Thanks to exposure via television's "Nat King Cole Show," the Hi-Lo's 1957 Columbia debut, SUDDENLY IT'S THE HI-LO'S, proved to be the group's commercial breakthrough, a somewhat surprising distinction given that it's also their most eclectic and challenging effort to date. Reuniting with conductor Frank Comstock, the Hi-Lo's continue to challenge the formal limitations of the group harmony aesthetic--their vocals go up, down, and side-to-side, yet Gene Puerling's arrangements are unerring, walking the tightrope between chaos and control with absolute assurance. However, for all its flights of fancy SUDDENLY IT'S THE HI-LO'S remains a human and heartfelt affair, never substituting acrobatics for emotion. Renditions of perennials like "Life Is Just a Bowl of Cherries," "Stormy Weather," and "Love Walked In" are both innovative and immediately accessible.

HARMONY IN JAZZ surveys material from across the Hi-Lo's five-year tenure with Columbia, the creative zenith of their distinguished career--moreover, two-thirds of the tracks pair the group with arranger Marty Paich, whose jazz credentials and sensibilities perfectly complemented the quartet's own ambitions. While the Hi-Lo's always resisted attempts to pigeonhole their music, it's clear that their preference for syncopation and penchant for swing brought them closer to jazz than any other idiom, and Paich enhances the formula, recruiting a series of top-flight West Coast session players to lend the performances additional energy. The Hi-Lo's responded with the most soulful and sophisticated performances of their career, reinventing chestnuts like "Fascinatin' Rhythm" and "Dancing on the Ceiling" from the inside out.