Winter 2000
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Rosemary Clooney and Duke
Ellington: Blue Rose
Columbia/Legacy (CK
65506), US, 1999
Reviewed by Bill Reed; Los Angeles
In 1986, Rosemary Clooney told the Los Angeles Times’ Leonard
Feather, "Blue Rose was just reissued in Japan because my
Concord things are doing so well there." The "things" Clooney
was referring to, of course, were her (then) nine albums for the Northern
California-based jazz label, nearly all of which were devoted to the Great
American Songbook. In 1977, on the occasion of her first album in the
series, which has since become an annual event, one critic wrote, "Her
career now appears to be entering a period of greatness." The same
could have been said of Blue Rose, made twenty years earlier.
On the first track of Blue Rose, Hey Baby, it takes nearly
two minutes for Clooney to make an entrance, with the way prepared for
her by baritone saxophonist Harry Carney’s sinuous soloing. When Clooney
finally does make the "scene," the effect is, in the immortal
words of Linda Richman, "like butter." Clooney provocatively
sighs, Hey baby… and it is to die for. We have definitely left
the land of Botcha Me, one of the singer’s many 1950s hits (mostly
novelty numbers), far behind.
Clooney’s appearance at the halfway point of Hey Baby is an acknowledgment
of her years as a "girl singer" during the waning days of the
big band era. Too, it signals that Blue Rose is not just another
by-the-books outing by one of Columbia Records’ house canaries. Two Ellington
compositions of equal rarity, Grievin’ and I’m Checkin’ Out
– Goombye reinforce that Ellington and Clooney are not playing by
the rules of standard commercial recording. Without question, Blue
Rose is an uncompromising collaboration between one of our finest
singers, and the sui generis Ellington.
Throughout the greater part of a decade-long stay at Columbia, Clooney's
sessions were overseen by the brilliant, but mercenary, producer Mitch
Miller. It was he who was mostly responsible for saddling the pride of
Maysville, Kentucky with the oft-times unbearable material with which
she bestrode the charts in the 1950s. Things like This Ole House,
Sailor Boys Have Talked to Me in English, Too Old to Cut the
Mustard, and, well, you get the picture. Of course, there was the
occasional quality tune like Hey There, and sessions with Harry
James and Benny Goodman. Still, Blue Rose came as a revelation:
It’s the "one album I’m proud of," the singer told critic Feather
in 1986. It is pride well taken.
Two other two major female Columbia cash cows of the period also recorded
priceless, peerless valedictories similar to Clooney’s: For Jo Stafford
it was Jo + Jazz (1960), with most of the Ellington band but minus
Ellington, and for Doris Day, Duet (1962), accompanied by the Andre
Previn trio. Most would agree these albums represent the threesome’s finest
work during their lengthy tenures at the label, before all three were
swept out the door to make way for the big changeover to "kid music."
Perhaps for reasons of Ducal ego, Ellington tended to steer clear of singers with strong personalities; still, there were exceptions: Blue Rose (along with Black, Brown and Beige, his collaboration with gospel great Mahalia Jackson) is one of them. Not bad for a recording project where the singer and the band were a continent apart. With due respect to the techno-wizardry on Natalie Cole’s multiple Grammy-winning 1991 Unforgettable, Clooney and Ellington were achieving similar but even more astonishing results thirty-five years earlier.
Ellington sent his longtime collaborator Billy Strayhorn to California to work on the songs with Clooney; the Ellingtonian alter-ego then went back to New York to do the charts, the band recorded there (and perhaps some in Chicago, according to the new liner notes) in January, 1956, then Strayhorn returned to the West Coast the following month, stood in the recording booth and cued Clooney while she overdubbed the vocals.
The overall effect is seamless; so much so, you can almost hear Ellington’s
and Clooney’s and footsteps as they depart the recording studio after
the session for a post-midnight champagne supper. Clooney later recalled
that Strayhorn coached her to pretend that she was merely singing along
at home to the sound of Ellington on the radio. The bi-coastal plan of
attack was necessitated by doctor's order that a pregnant Clooney remain
close to her Beverly Hills home. Originally, the geographic aspect was
to be part of the promotion plans for the recording, which was originally
titled "Inter-Continental." Finally, however, it was feared
that the novelty of overdubbing might scare off buyers and Blue Rose
was substituted.
Along with the deferred-pleasure opening of Hey Baby, but a few
of many other felicities contained here are a Sophisticated Lady,
which Clooney transforms into a wistful inner monologue, instead of the
usual cautionary tale; the overdubbed unison vocal that opens Mood
Indigo, wherein Clooney takes minimal melodic liberties that not even
Ellington himself could find fault with; the nonsensical Goombye,
which Clooney invests with total verisimilitude; the lovely wordless vocal
on the title number, composed especially for the occasion by the maestro;
and Passion Flower, the album’s lone instrumental, featuring a
keeper of a solo by saxophonist Johnny Hodges (did he commit any other
kind?).
In short, Blue Rose goes a long way toward explaining why songwriter
Alan Bergman once remarked, "Rosemary never overwhelms a song. She
is always true to the melody. Singers should have it in three places –
the heart, the head, and the pipes. Rosemary does."
Disregard Columbia/Legacy’s claim on its outer packaging that Blue
Rose is "available on CD for the first time" with this new
release – at least three other digitized versions have been issued over
the past decade. It has been available for a few years on a superb Mobile
Fidelity sound lab CD. (The disadvantage of that edition is its vertiginous
price, plus the fact that it fails to include two bonus tracks, Just
A-Sittin’ and A-Rockin’ and If You Were in My Place, which
were released in the 1950s on a 45 r.p.m. EP). A 1990 French Sony CD,
and a 1998 Clooney boxed set by the German label Bear Family, both distributed
in the States, and both including the bonus tracks, also spring to mind.
The new Legacy release is a master recording from studio tapes (as was
the Mobile Fidelity version), reproduces the original cover art, and includes
extensive notes by the ubiquitous Will Friedwald. One slight quibble:
Friedwald describes Hey Baby as a new composition written "explicitly
for Miss Clooney." One suspects, though, that this is the same Hey
Baby written and recorded by Ellington in 1946, but not issued until
many years later.
There are certain recordings so classic – like the Louis Armstrong Hot
Fives and Sevens – they remain in the catalog year in, year out. Rosemary
Clooney’s 1956 collaboration with Duke Ellington is one such album. Maybe
not always in print in its land of origin, but somewhere. Now, it’s good
to have Blue Rose available Stateside in this deluxe edition.
Tracks:
1. Hey Baby (Ellington)
2. Sophisticated Lady (Mills, Parrish, Ellington)
3. Me and You (Ellington)
4. Passion Flower (Strayhorn)
5. I Let a Song Go Out of My Heart (Mills, Nemo, Redmond, Ellington)
6. It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing) (Mills, Ellington)
7. Grievin' (Strayhorn, Ellington)
8. Blue Rose (Ellington)
9. I'm Checkin’ Out – Goombye (Strayhorn, Ellington)
10. I Got it Bad (and That Ain’t Good) (Ellington, Webster)
11. Mood Indigo (Ellington, Mills, Bigard)
12. If You Were in My Place (What Would You Do?) (Ellington, Nemo, Mills)*
13. Just A-Sittin’ and A-Rockin’ (Ellington, Gaines, Strayhorn)*
* – bonus tracks not on original LP
Original album CL 872, produced by Irving Townsend. Recorded January 23 and 27, 1956 (Ellington), and February 8 and 11, 1956 (Clooney). Originally released May 21, 1956. Reissue produced by Didier C. Deutsch, Charles L. Granata and Darcy M. Proper for Columbia/Legacy.
Clooney’s official Concord Records site:
Columbia/Legacy site
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