Sarah Vaughan - Sarah Vaughan (1967 Japanese Mercury Mono LP)

Vinyl: EX
Sleeve: VG+
Obi: VG+

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Sarah Vaughan - Sarah Vaughan | Vinyl LP - 1967 Japanese Mercury Mono (SM-7252(M), Victor Company of Japan, Ltd.)

• Vaughan's most celebrated small-group recording, made in December 1954 for EmArcy with Clifford Brown on trumpet, Paul Quinichette on tenor, Herbie Mann on flute, Jimmy Jones on piano, Joe Benjamin on bass and Roy Haynes on drums; Bob Shad produced; Ernie Wilkins arranged.
• One of the few records in the jazz vocal canon where the instrumentalists match the singer, Brown in particular — he died eighteen months after this session, aged twenty-five, and these are among his finest documented performances outside his own leader dates.
• 1967 Japanese Mercury mono pressing (SM-7252(M)), manufactured by Victor Company of Japan, Ltd.; earlier than the better-known 1971 Nippon Phonogram pressing and on a different manufacturer; carries the Swing Journal Seal of Approval.

Sarah Vaughan recorded this album in December 1954 for EmArcy, the Mercury subsidiary that Bob Shad had assembled specifically to record jazz. She was thirty years old. The group Shad put around her was not backing-band material: Clifford Brown was already regarded as the leading hard bop trumpeter; Paul Quinichette, known as "the Vice Pres" for his Lester Young influence, was a regular Jazz at the Philharmonic participant; a young Herbie Mann played flute on most tracks; Roy Haynes drove the rhythm section. Nine standards, arranged by Ernie Wilkins, including "Lullaby of Birdland," "April in Paris," "September Song" and "Embraceable You." The last is performed with the rhythm section only, horns silent, Vaughan's voice unadorned against Jones's piano and Benjamin's bass. It is the emotional centre of the record. Brown's solos across the other tracks are built, shaped and restrained in the manner that distinguished his playing from every other trumpet voice of the period.

EmArcy MG-36004 was the label's fifth release. The album was later reissued under the title Sarah Vaughan with Clifford Brown to make the trumpet presence explicit to buyers unfamiliar with her catalogue. Original copies of any pressing in collectable condition are uncommon. This 1967 Japanese Mercury mono pressing (SM-7252(M)) predates the 1971 Nippon Phonogram pressing by four years and carries the Victor Company of Japan manufacturing credit and the Swing Journal Seal of Approval.