Dinah Washington - Dinah Jams (1972 US EmArcy Mercury Mono Reissue Vinyl LP)

Dinah Washington - Dinah Jams | Vinyl LP - 1972 US EmArcy/Mercury Mono Reissue (MG 36000, Masterdisk cut)

The producer Bob Shad had one clever idea for this date: bring a live audience into the studio. In Hollywood in August 1954 he set Dinah Washington in front of what was essentially the Clifford Brown and Max Roach quintet, Brown on trumpet with Harold Land, Richie Powell, George Morrow and Roach, then added Clark Terry and Maynard Ferguson so there were three trumpets in the room, along with Herb Geller and Junior Mance. What follows is a proper jam. "Lover Come Back To Me" runs close to ten minutes and "You Go To My Head" past eleven, both built on rounds of solos, the three trumpeters egging each other on while the crowd calls back. In between come the ballads, and Brown's muted playing behind Washington on "No More" is one of the record's quiet high points. Washington, blues to the core, never once gets crowded out.

The date caught the Brown and Roach band near its short-lived peak. Less than two years later, in June 1956, both Clifford Brown and Richie Powell died in a car crash on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, which makes Dinah Jams one of the better documents of a group that barely got started. It has stayed a favourite of collectors who want Washington in a live jazz setting rather than the pop hits that came later.

This is the 1972 United States reissue on EmArcy and Mercury, catalogue MG 36000, a mono pressing in the second cover design with magenta jacket printing, lacquers cut at Masterdisk and cover photography by William Claxton.