Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Carmen McRae - Birds of a Feather ft. Ben Webster (Decca 1958)



Yes, there's a concept on the loose here -- all the songs are about birds. Fortunately, there are plenty of good songs on the subject, and it's not so narrow that all the focus hinges on birds themselves. Add horn men Ben Webster and Al Cohn to McRae's enigmatic, dark contralto voice and you get the general idea.

1. Skylark
2. Bob White (Whatcha Gonna Swing Tonight?)
3. Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square, A
4. Mister Meadowlark
5. Bye Bye Blackbird
6. Flamingo
7. The Eagle and Me
8. Baltimore Oriole
9. When the Red, Red Robin Comes Bob, Bob, Bobbin' Along
10. Chicken Today and Feathers Tomorrow
11. When the Swallows Come Back to Capistrano
12. His Eye Is on the Sparrow


Personnel: Carmen McRae (vocals); Barry Galbraith, Mundell Lowe (guitar); Al Cohn, Ben Webster (tenor saxophone); Irwin "Marky" Markowitz (trumpet); Dick Berg, Fred Klein, Donald Corrado (French horn); Don Abney (piano); Don Lamond, Todd Sommer, Nick Stabulas (drums).

Liner Note Author: Burt Korall.

Recording information: New York, NY (08/04/1958-08/08/1958).

Director: Ralph Burns.

Arrangers: Milt Gabler; Ralph Burns.

9 comments:

d3lta said...

http://lix.in/-94c741

Glenn said...

I don't know how I missed this site for so long. Immediately downloaded the Carmen McRae.

I have not been able to open it with the password listed in prior postings. It is the only password I have found.
pw: itsartolie

Beautiful site otherwise.

Glenn

Anonymous said...

dear d3lta:
I can´t find the password for this cage of birds!
Could you please?
thanks and i can see that your blog has plenty of tresuries.
jl

Anonymous said...

check newest post out for pw

htg said...

d3lta,

Carmen McRae - Birds is offline. Any chance of a re-up?

Thanks

Anonymous said...

new link

http://lix.in/-8e1a7b

htg said...

d3lta:

Thank you much for reporting.

Carmen sounds great on this release. I especially like Nightingale and Flamingo.

Ronaldo Benvenga said...

Please, give me the password -Carmen McRae

Anonymous said...

for pw look at disclaimer on bottom of page