Jack Jones - I've Got a Lot of Living to Do

Tonight's album isn't what you think. I mean, obviously it's a Jack Jones album, but that's not what i'm really listening to tonight. I'm really listening to my all time favorite arranger blow his contemporaries out of the water.

Jack Jones is primarily known as a pop singer, but 1962's I've Got a Lot of Livin' to Do is one of his forays into big band jazz. He's great, and i really do like his voice. His output is consistently high quality (though the vocal reverb on this album is borderline obnoxious), and that means we can turn our attention to his supporting ensembles.

Three band leaders support him on this album.  Billy May only does one track (and his orchestration is booooooring), so it's really a grudge match between Pete King and Marty Paich. Paich is the winner, hands down.

My love of Marty Paich is well documented (possibly to the point of nausea), but i think you can hear the difference on this album. May's scoring makes his ensemble sound unimportant. The trumpets are always muted, the solos are haphazard, and the recording quality is noticeably muddier. The one exception is "Me and My Big Ideas."

Paich, however, is a genius at putting various subsections of the band on equal footing with the singer. At no point does any instrument just vamp for 8 bars. He never uses the band as mere accompaniment, and every single part serves a vital role in how the song unfolds.

Oh, nevermind. Go give this album a listen just because it's fun. He's a great crooner, and this whole album is highly enjoyable. I'm not ashamed to admit i like him more than Sinatra. I like Dean Martin best, but Jack Jones is a close second.

Next

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The 4 Seasons - The Genuine Imitation Life Gazette

Image
This might be my longest  album review ever. But i swear a couple times, so it's worth the read ;) How could i possibly mention Jefferson Airplane, The 4 Seasons, and Frank Zappa in the same context? Zappa said "this is rediculous" and a few years later The 4 Seasons said "you know what, Frank is right. This IS ridiculous." To which Jefferson Airplane said, "Oh. Ok. Got it." The real question is: which one is the most transgressive? Zappa said stop fighting, you look like idiots. Jefferson Airplane said i guess if love and community is a bad thing, then sure we're criminals and we'd be happy to move out into the fields and live peaceful lives without your garbage, let us go already. The 4 Seasons said hold my champagne for a moment. In 1969, The 4 Seasons released the single most ironic, acidic, extravagant, and downright befuddling album ever created, The Genuine Imitation Life Gazette. Zappa was accused of writing "shitty doo-w
Read more

Welcome to my blog, and my record collection.

This is a blog about my love of listening to albums. It started off as a nightly perusal of my dad's record collection (which sadly became mine) on my personal facebook page. Over the last two months it has become quite an enjoyable process of simply ranting about what i think is a real art form, the album. It needs a more permanent home. Some of my reviews are positive, some negative. They might not be what you expect from album reviews, but i hope you at least find them entertaining. For the most part i do very little research, and they tend to be train of thought reactions rather than calculated essays. If nothing else, know that i'm really listening to them and whether they are amazing or abysmal i want you to go listen to them too.  I'll start migrating the 60+ i've written so far over here in the next few days, and hopefully get to the point where i just start writing them here. I'd probably even take suggestions if you're just dying to know my tho
Read more

Pat Benatar - Seven The Hard Way

Image
I don't know about you, but i love Pat Benatar. Yes, that's also her debut album with the single most underrated song in the universe (My Clone Sleeps Alone) in the background, but that's just a generic non-self-titled debut album. We're jumping ahead to her 6th album, Seven The Hard Way, because that, ladies and gentle germs, is how you kalaidescope a concept. Not one, not two, not three, but 4 protien-packed layers to this metaphor. You don't really need to know the overly complicated rules of Craps to know that A) it's gambling, B) "the hard way" refers to rolling doubles, so good luck rolling two 3.5s, and C) you're going to lose, one way or another. It's a joke, but more importantly, it's Pat Benatar and the roll out is Sex As A Weapon, so the innuendo is not intended to be subtle. Wait wait wait, that's only 3, Bottle, where's 4? You're right, last but not least, side B opens with Seven Rooms of Gloom, a Holland-Dozier-Hol
Read more