Modartt user forum » Pianoteq user forum » Video of Sarah Vaughan singing "Somewhere Over the Rainbow"
Ran across this and had to share it. She's in perfect form and makes it look easy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uR1GYQzf8zY
The pianist, I learned from one Reezekeys on Keyboard Corner, is Ronnel Bright, who appears to have played on many albums. An interview about his experiences is here:
My favourite female singer back in my teenage years of the fifties, Ella was good but not as smooth and as laid back as Sarah.
I am somewhat blase about modern female singers with their whining tremelo voices, when having heard it all before and much much better.
Very little interest in jazz at all, when I talk to younger people here in Atlanta, let alone jazz singing. I doubt that many would know who Sarah Vaughan is. They would recognize BIllie Holiday, I think. But they would prefer Beyonce. On the other hand, there is Adele, whom I have heard only briefly, and admire in a distant way (since I have heard little of her). Not sure if she has covered many standards.
On a very different note--More surprisingly, most of the kids (under 30?) that I speak with don't know who Grace Slick is, and hesitate over Janis Joplin. I mention "White Rabbit" or "Summertime" and get a blank stare. Regardless of what one thinks of the singers, I don't know how anyone could not know of them. Another sign that radio is dead, perhaps.
I wish I knew what the vocal mic was. A Neumann U47 would be the obvious guess, but it's hard to know, since she was touring and may have had to rely on whatever the house had. Can U47's be placed above the singer, far enough away to be off-camera, but still able to catch her midrange and below? She often raises her head to reach towards the mic, but sometimes doesn't, but the low notes come through.
Can't hear the other instruments as being well-recorded, and at some points, I think that the engineer was riding the sliders on her mic, which may be why the low notes come through even when she isn't singing up to the mic. In any case, the sound on her vocal is wonderful--captures her range and subtlety. On the other hand, the mic might not matter much. She would probably have sounded almost as good on any mic.
And I just love the way that she comes in right on beat at 1:53. She hits that beat, instead of letting another beat fall, and then floats the line into several sustained notes. From what I've read about these sessions, there were loose arrangements, but no rehearsed sections. Obviously, she had played with the band a lot, and she had probably sung the song hundreds of times, but she was improvising.