At Mister Kelly's

Never thought I'd be entering my feedback on a 1950s live Sarah Vaughan album into a mobile phone app, but here we go. What to say? Good if you like this stuff, a headache it not. 'Honeysuckle Rose' is great. I really quite enjoyed this tasteful little set.

6/10

Sarah has wonderful control of her voice. I enjoyed it quite a bit when she messed up and was able to throw it into the song without really interrupting the flow at all. Pretty. Favorite track: "Willow Weep For Me"

Impressive sound quality for a live album. Not really my sound but a nice vibe.

Why is every album from the 50s so good!? This has a despicably good vibe holy shit. 5

Loved the live recording, beautiful voice.

Fallout vibes

nu prea mi-a placut

Jazzy as fuck 10/10

10th November 2021 Listened throughout the day on my phone while having a chilled one. Liked this, bit of smooth jazz singing and I liked the way she scatted over saying she didn't know the words. Reminded me of an early Amy winehouse.

This is good jazz with a good voice. It doesn't even sound live. Yeah, this is solid.

Someone else described this album as the warmest blanket on the coldest day, and I really felt that

Very competent but also very boring live vocal jazz. Apparently one song is very funny? Lots of laughter after each line. Didn't get that. 4/10

Interesting live show

great album the vocals sound a little weird at times but the jazz is just awesome 9/10

Some ok, some annoying

I was let down by the couple times she said she didn't know the words and then filled the space with scatting or talk-singing. Plus I didn't like how her lower range sounded.

Still not into jazz but I enjoyed her wit and the audience interaction. Really appreciate that it was “off the floor” and they kept the improvisations and mess ups in tact. Fave songs “September In The Rain” “Honeysuckle Rose”

This is the sort of jazz I would enjoy in a club or restaurant. 3.5/5

Ms Sarah Vaughan sings songs from the great American song book. Utterly captivating voice, terrific jazz band backing.

Restaurant music

First off, the improvised humor during the second song (Willow Weep For Me) and throughout the last song (How High The Moon) put a smile on my face. It was enjoyable to hear an artist just rolling with it in a live performance. And honestly, if you weren't paying close attention, I think it would just roll by you as a listener as well. It's a testament to how clean, tight and yet how fluid Sarah Vaughan and the Trio are across this album. Everything about this album felt in perfect balance, which I find especially remarkable given it's a recording of a live performance. Sarah's vocals are an enchanting blend of smooth, pitch perfect and with a touch of smokey rasp. She carries every tune perfectly and doesn't overly-adorn, preferring instead to be straight to the point. And sitting just below the canopy of the vocals is the remarkably stout trunk that is the backing trio. Their performance was equaly clear, concise and beautiful. All told, it's a lovely album, made more special by the candor and simplicity that comes from the stripped down production of recording a live performance.

She's got an incredible voice, and some of the songs are really great, but it all blends together after awhile. Best track: How High the Moon

1957 - Vocal Jazz

pretty fun!

Great album to listen to . Her voice is amazing.

In the Right conditions could be a great listen. Couldn’t handle it at the gym though.

Lovely classic

Good voice but not for me.

Perfect Sunday morning listening

Kelly’s Hero

woah her voice

Not my cup of tea

Too old for my ears

Was I charmed by the old-timey crowd noise from intimate club setting and Sarah's ad-libbing on 'Willow Weep For Me'? Sure. Do I sometimes enjoy a bit of smooth jazz and pretend to be sophisticated? You betcha. Can I separate this album from all the other smooth jazz albums? And will I revisit it? Probably not, on both counts. My loss, I'm sure.

New one for me, though I think I recognise Willow Weep For Me. Really enjoyable and, like The Who's Live at Leeds, the live album gets across how much fun Vaughan is having. Incredible voice. Will play again. I must check whether she is touring the UK any time soon...

The chillest way to start the day. Beautiful.

3.5 beautiful voice

Ya like jazz? I like jazz.

Nice wee live set

This made me feel fancier than I looked. Anyway, jazz is a sore spot for me. Her voice was smooth and the instrumentals were overall pretty solid, but the vocalizations and improvisation and general melodic makeup of the tracks - I'm still lost on how to truly enjoy those.

That was fantastic and intimate in all the ways that the best jazz joints are.

I was impressed.

interesting

Nice voice!

meh, way too jazzy for me, plus cheating because live

“At Mister Kelly’s” by Sarah Vaughan (1957) As live albums go, this one’s not bad, and of course jazz vocalist Sarah Vaughan is stellar. A somewhat haphazard collection of great songs by great songwriters is exquisitely performed by Vaughan, backed by understated piano, soulful double bass and beautifully restrained drums (although one of the backing guys occasionally and annoyingly hums throughout). The recording quality and the mix are better than one might expect. And the audience at Chicago’s Mr. Kelly’s is well behaved (they were warned that they were being taped). Under-rehearsed and nicely improvisational, these songs engage the listener, who can’t help but to ‘lean in’ to the synthesis between the composition and the performance. It captures an essential element of jazz. Sarah Vaughan’s voice is great. Her stylings are fresh and her tonal quality is superb. She hits impossible intervals with precision and apparent ease. In her diction, there’s a slight but persistent lisp (listen to end of the word “stars” on “Stairway to the Stars”) but hey, this ain’t the Met. Major flubs (in “Willow Weep for Me” and “How High the Moon”) are pulled off with humor and panache. She sings, “according to that [the lyrics sheet] I’m through, but they’re still playin’, so I’ll keep on singin’”. I laughed out loud; so did the audience and so will you. It completely blew the melancholy mood of the song (“Willow Weep for Me”), but what are you gonna do when you’ve already bumped a mic stand, the audience is staring nervously at you and the tape machine is rolling? This album is an artifact of a fine piece of entertainment that makes me wish I’d been there. 3/5

Great voice and her ability and ease with improvisation makes her talent obvious. Jazz is not usually my thing but I like this

if you like lounge music, this is for you

Great voice.

Easy listening jazz

Smooth vocals, especially impressive that this is Live. Really adds to the date and character of it. I am not normally a fan of live albums, but this one really works for it. It's smooth and filled with an extreme amount of character.

Live jazz from the 50s. I was pretty put off by her forgetting the lyrics all the time - the MC's intro says its being recorded and she'll use a lyric sheet, and yet... numerous times she forgot. Bit weird and unprofessional at any gig, let alone one being recorded that the singer would not know the songs?? Anyway the actual music was fine, she has a nice voice, though not as nice as Ella or Nina. Not a big jazz listener and wouldn't pick this up again.

Sehr schönes Jazz-Album! Trifft eher meine Hörgewohnheiten :)

Gut aber nicht unvergesslich

great vocal jazz, and a great backing band to boot

Para una jazz session estaría bien, pero para escuchar 20 canciones de este estilo tiene que ser en un momento en el que apetezca. Yo no he sido capaz de acabar el disco, aunque he de decir que tiene buen estilo y voz.

Me gusto, 4/5

Beautiful voice here. Nice collection of standards performed pretty much perfectly. Not really a fan personally of this kind of thing even though it's easy to admire the talent. Also I don't generally like live albums. I think the Spotify version linked here is only half of the album. Full album is here: spotify:album:4HXhOHapnfYAFUuQqBWQ3L Kinda messed up of the emcee to call her out for performing with lyric sheets...

Great voice overlaying smooth jazz that makes for a relaxing evening. That's all there is to it. Songs aren't particularly noteworthy. Standard music and lyrics. Recording pretty good, though there are some hiccups here and there for being a live recording.

30. De certa forma, todos nós fomos hoje, entre o fumo e os chapéus de coco, artistas registados da Mercury Recordings. MotA: Willow Weep For Me "The leaves of brown came tumbling down"

I thought the set list had a good flow, I've rarely heard scat that's legit. Some great love songs. A nice time capsule.

Put on a tux. Pour a scotch. Light a cig. Would listen to this anytime.

Wholesome. Intimate.

Didn't finish, but very easy listening and beautifully aranged

Not my usual thing but good

Love the intro. This type of music always brings back Fallout 3 memories, really nice. The improv jokes etc on Willow Weep for Me and How High the Moon are brilliant, gives a really strong sense of the atmosphere and the confidence she had as a performer. Overall really enjoyed it.

Smooth, dinner music. Late night perhaps

Rating: 7/10 Best songs: Just one of those things, Stairway to the stars

Nice and beautiful voice Songs were a little less 7/10

She's got a beautiful voice. It's just not a style of music that does anything for me.

I'm not a fan of jazz.

Precioso. Te sentís adentro del bar tomándote algo y escuchando esa belleza. La voz ella es tremenda. Los graves me fascinan. Willow Weep For Me, Honeysuckle Rose, Just a Gigolo y How High The Moon me parece los mejores temas del disco. No sé si esta última canción es así originalmente pero me parece gracioso que diga que no recuerda la letra del tema. Pienso que (sin descubrir América) dejó para el final los mejores temas. ¿Lo escucharía nuevamente? Lo escucharía mil veces más. 8/10 ludomatics.

Lo que más me gustó de este disco es como te posiciona en un club chiquito en los 50’s. No hay nada mas que decir. Es jazz y es en vivo, no falla casi nunca.

Estuvo bien. Me gustó mucho que en el primer tema hayan grabado la introducción 3/5

Live albums should not be on this list. It's an rather generic jazz album by singer Sarah Vaughan. Nothing wrong, nothing remarkable about it (Why is it on this list).

Good intro to Jazz for me. You can really get a sense for her personality, and what it was like to be at the show.

Brilliant

Chouette découverte. Album plaisant pour travailler.

Elle et Tom Waits aurait formé un duo à faire pâlir les Chevaliers du Fiel.

i love live albums. nice music, nice voice, goes really well with the last album i got lol (sinatra & jobim). it got a bit boring at some point and its not even long? but it was nice.

false

This album is like the smoothest cup of coffee and the warmest blanket on the coldest day.

I’m in love

Not my thing

I love jazz- so pretty and relaxing to listen to. Sarah has a lovely voice and this is a really solid album. I'd never heard of her before, but I would love to add her into my rotation with Ella and Billie.

sympa, j'ai particulierement apprécié le moment où Tom Waits fait irruption dans la salle de concert, et invective Sarah d'un "eh qu'est-ce que tu fais" avec un accent toulousain prononcé

assez joli voix mais chiant sinon instrumentalement pauvre Fav : dur à en retirer une du lot, les deux dernières passent mieux

This album takes you back to a time when lounge singers and dinner clubs were an actual option. Vaughan's voice rises and swoons as she weaves a spell capturing the magic of an era.

Well, I'm a fan of Sarah Vaughan, but not of live albums. She is possibly my favourite vocalist of the big band era, so I gave this an honest chance. It's pretty cool. But I'd still rather listen to her studio recordings. I don't get anything from the MC introducing, or the crowd coughing, or Sarah and the band messing up one of the tracks. On the closing track, "How High the Moon", she sings (without breaking her stride) "Ella Fitzgerald does this song real crazy", then does a kind of impression of Ella's scat singing. Now there's something cool that you wouldn't hear in the studio I guess. Her voice sounds great as always, and the original concise selection of 9 tracks is strong. (All the reissues more than double this number. Will we ever get away from the early CD era mentality of "cram as much bonus stuff on the disc as possible"?) Overall, this is probably a 3.5 from me, but I will round it up to 4 given that none of Sarah's studio material seems to appear in the 1001 list (which by the way is a fucking travesty given how many redundant picks of post-1960 white male rock music they managed to fit in).

The voice is very good but the songs are just pretty boring. Also, live recordings as always make the music worse.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcEKtVZ0XX4&t=3 this is all i could picture listening to this album.

Loved practically everything about this. The old-timey recording nature of this live performance (I imagine in a smallish lounge at Mister Kelly's) gives this such an intimate feel. Moments like the man introducing Sarah Vaughan and cracking a joke about all the attendees being "Mercury recording artists," the artist joking about messing up a song and the crowd laughing around her, and the small talk and glasses clinking in the background really make you feel like you're a part of the performance. I typically enjoy instrumental jazz more, but she's got a great voice that really captivated me for the entire album Saved: September In The Rain, Be Anything But Darling Be Mine

Saved Prior: None Off Rip: None Cutting Edge: None Overall Notes: She's obviously very talented. I hate to use the phrase "I'm too young to really enjoy this", but I'm too young to really enjoy this. Wouldn't turn this off, but wouldn't ask someone to turn it on either.

What a voice! And what a performance!

De kleine details zoals het lachende publiek wanneer een microfoon omvalt of de aankondiging aan het begin geven dit album extra diepte.

Gezellig album, niet al te speciaal

nah not for me

Very nice!

lovely voice. had never heard of her before...fun

Dece

.

AND IT'S LIVE! I actually think it's pretty cool. Mister Kelly is a bit of a nonce though.

The album's alright but if Sarah Vaughan thinks she can hang her hat at mine, she's got another think coming.

What a voice!

nah, not for me. Lasted 8 songs. It's nice like, but just boring.

Beautiful voice, not really my style of music but her talent is amazing.

6.5/10

3.7 - Starts with an audibly nervous announcer informing the audience that tonight's performance will be recorded and that everyone should relax, which sets a fun on-edge tone to the evening. By the end of the second track, the singer has fallen off her chair and laughingly improvises a line, "I've fouled up this one really well..." She comes back with intense ferocity on the next track "Just One of Those Things." Vaughan's voice is a marvel. She improvises all the lyrics on "How High the Moon", with some solid scatting thrown in, which rounds out a frenetic, sometimes off-kilter, but assured performance.

5

Espectacular voz. Bohemio e inspirador.

false

Jazz. Canta muy bien. Un 3.

Would have absolutely loved to have seen her in person! The end of "willow weep for me" in this particular cut was funny as all get up!

Nicht für mich

Smokey 'n' smokin'. Too bad Spotify's version has glitches, like a bad digital transfer. Will look for a physical copy of it, or at least a lossless digital one.

This is unbelievably good.

Meh. 5/10

false

i wanted to like it more. a simple jazz sound with nice classic vocals. however, the vocals were clearly the focus, but didn't really hold any passion for me. it also seemed over vocalized and playful in a gimicky way. I honestly would have preferred David Lee Roth's version of Just a Gigolo.

Lovely, lively listen.

That was quite enjoyable. I liked her voice, and I liked the smoothness of it. I mean, this is sort of where the idea of “smooth” jazz came from, right?

jazz! voice! smoky club vibes.

1.75

What. A. Voice.

her voice is smooth like honey and the album as a whole has a serene peacefullness over it

Loved the second track. Sarah Vaughan's vocals exposed all the flaws in modern R&B vocals.

3 stars pleasant enough, not my bag tho

2.5 not my thing

This sounds ancient and is real one trick pony jazz. Was gonna give it a 3 but it started to annoy me by halfway through so 2/5.