Enoch Light & The Light Brigade

Percussion Galore !!...by the master of "Stereo" Recording's.... Command Records and of course not forgetting "Enoch Light & The Light Brigade !!!.....


Enoch Henry Light (18 August 1905, in Canton, Ohio – 31 July 1978, in Redding, Connecticut) was an American classically trained violinist, danceband leader, and recording engineer. As the leader of various dance bands that recorded as early as March 1927 and continuing through at least 1940, Light and his band primarily worked in various hotels in New York. For a time in 1928 he also led a band in Paris. 
At some point his band was tagged "The Light Brigade" and they often broadcast over radio live from the Hotel Taft in New York where they had a long residency. Through 1940, Light and his band recorded for various labels including Brunswick, ARC, Vocalion and Bluebird. Later on, as A&R (Artists and Repertoire) chief and vice-president of Grand Award Records, he founded his own label, Command Records, in 1959. Light's name was prominent on many albums both as musician and producer.
Light is credited with being one of the first musicians to go to extreme lengths to create high-quality recordings that took full advantage of the technical capabilities of home audio equipment of the late 1950s and early 1960s, particularly stereo effects that bounced the sounds between the right and left channels (often described as "Ping-pong recording"), which had huge influence on the whole concept of multi-track recording that would become commonplace in the ensuing years. Doing so, he arranged his musicians in ways to produce the kinds of recorded sounds he wished to achieve, even completely isolating various groups of them from each other in the recording studio. The first of the albums produced on his record label, Command Records, Persuasive Percussion, became one of the first big-hit LP discs based solely on retail sales. His music received little or no airplay on the radio, because AM radio, the standard of the day, was monaural and had very poor fidelity. Light went on to release several albums in the Persuasive Percussion series, as well as a Command test record.....( Info Edited From Wikipedia )

1.Your The Top
2. Somebody Loves Me
3. Blues In The Night
4. Perhaps Perhaps Perhaps
5. Love For Sale
6. Fascinating Rhythm

1. S'Wonderful
2. Mood Indigo
3. Ain't Misbehavin'
4. The Man I Love
5. Song Of India
6. Mad About The Boy

    4. Perhaps Perhaps Perhaps

Ruth Olay

There is some fine use of Stereo in some of the tracks on this fine singer !!...she swaps from left to right speaker during the songs !

Ruth Olay (born San Francisco 1924-) is a jazz singer with Hungarian ancestry who was born in San Francisco, the daughter of a Rabbi and a professional chorister mother. Moving to Los Angeles while still an infant, Olay became a fixture in Hollywood's nightclub scene in the late 1940s and through the 1950s and early 1960s.....The daughter of a lapsed rabbi and an opera singer, Ruth Olay is quite an idiosyncratic vocalist. There is definitely an operatic quality to her voice (and she also had classical piano training), yet her style is still swinging and jazzy. 

Ruth Olay is one of the many talented jazz vocalists who enjoyed a long and varied career on America's cabaret and night club scene and she made a handful of great recordings during the LP era. Presented here for your listening pleasure are the LPs "Easy Living" which features the arrangements of the renowned Jerry Fielding and his orchestra.

This is a must have for fans of the jazz vocalists.

1. Just a Sitting And A Rocking
2. Hurry Hurry
3. Tess's Torch Song
4. Nocturne For The Blues
5. Undecided
6. Easy Livin'

1. Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans
2. Never Do
3. Now You Know
4. Blue Prelude
5. Sometimes I Feel Like A motherless Child
6. I Wanna Be A Friend Of Yours

   2. Never Do

Mavis Rivers

Mavis Chloe Rivers (19 May 1929 – 29 May 1992) was a Samoan and New Zealand jazz singer. She was born in Apia, Samoa in 1929, as one of thirteen children to a musical family.
In 1955 she moved to the United States. She married Glicerio Reyes "David" Catingub, a Filipino singer and bass player, in that year, and they had two sons, Matt, a musician and arranger, and Reynaldo. She died in 1992 due to a stroke after a concert in Los Angeles.

Jazz vocalist Mavis Rivers recorded for Reprise, Capitol, and Vee-Jay in the early '60s before making a surprising comeback in the early '80s. Also known for being the mother of Matt Catingub, Rivers was born in 1929 in Apia, Upolu, Western Samoa, and moved to Pago Pago (American Samoa) after the Pearl Harbor bombing. She joined her father's band as a vocalist and entertained troops stationed in Pago Pago. Then, once WWII ended, her family relocated again, moving to New Zealand, where she continued singing. She experienced some success as a vocalist in New Zealand and soon decided to move to the States. After a brief stay in Salt Lake City, UT, she ended up in Los Angeles, CA, where she worked as a secretary during the days and a nightclub singer during the nights, playing with a Hawaiian band that featured her future husband, bassist David Catingub.
By the end of the '50s, she'd scored a recording contract with Capitol Records and debuted with the Take a Number LP (1959), which was arranged and conducted by Nelson Riddle. More records followed: Hooray for Love (1960, Capitol), arranged and conducted by Jack Marshall; The Simple Life (1960, Capitol).

In the early '80s, she returned to singing, appearing on two of her son's albums: Matt Catingub's My Mommy and Me (1983, Sea Breeze) and Hi-Tech Big Band (1984, Sea Breeze). In addition, she released a solo album of her own during this sudden period of activity, It's a Good Day (1983, Delos). In 1990, she contributed to her son's I'm Getting Cement All Over Me album, and then unfortunately suffered from an untimely fatal stroke on-stage in 1992, bringing her singing career to a close.

        Artist Biography by Jason Birchmeier

Mavis Rivers has been described by many of her peers as one of the world’s greatest female jazz singers, and she attracted an international following among jazz purists. Frank Sinatra is said to have described her as the ‘purest voice’ in jazz, comparing her to Ella Fitzgerald. 

1. Walkin' By The River

2. Give Me The Simple Life

3. Early Autumn

4. In The Cool Cool Of The Evening

5. Far Away Places

1. Home

2. At Sundown

3. Spring is Here

4. Get Out And Get Under The Moon

5. Try A Little Tenderness

6. It's A Great Feeling

   2. Give Me The Simple Life

Matt Monro

Matt Monro (born Terence Edward Parsons, 1 December 1930 – 7 February 1985) was an English singer who became one of the most popular entertainers on the international music scene during the 1960s and 1970s. Known as The Man with the Golden Voice, he filled cabarets, nightclubs, music halls, and stadiums across the world in his 30-year career. AllMusic has described Monro as "one of the most underrated pop vocalists of the '60s", who "possessed the easiest, most perfect baritone in the business". His recordings include the UK Top 10 hits: "Portrait of My Love", "My Kind of Girl", "Softly As I Leave You", "Walk Away" and "Yesterday" (Originally by The Beatles). He also recorded several film themes such as "From Russia with Love" for the James Bond film of the same name, "Born Free" for the film of the same name and "On Days Like These" for The Italian Job.

In 1957 Monro released Blue and Sentimental, a collection of standards. Despite the album's critical acclaim, Monro languished among the young male singers trying to break through at the end of the 1950s.

Before too long, however, pianist Winifred Atwell heard his voice and recommended him to her own recording company, Decca, who signed him. She also helped choose his new name, Matt Monro. Matt coming from Matt White, a journalist friend, and Monro was Atwell’s father’s first name. 

1. You Always hurt The One You Love
2. A Cottage For Sale
3. That Old Feeling
4. The One I Love
5. Dancing With Tears In My Eyes
6. What Can I Say After I Say I'm Sorry

1. Do You Ever Think Of Me
2. Gone With The Wind
3. Once In A While
4. I Cried For You
5. My Old Flame
6. Memories Of You.

   4. I Cried For You

Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell

Tammi Terrell (born Thomasina Winifred Montgomery; April 29, 1945 – March 16, 1970) was an American recording artist, best known as a star singer for Motown Records during the 1960s, most notably for a series of duets with singer Marvin Gaye.


In early 1967, Motown hired Terrell to sing duets with Marvin Gaye, who had achieved duet success with Mary Wells and Kim Weston as well as having recorded duets with Oma Heard. During recording sessions, Gaye would recall later that he did not know how gifted Terrell was until they began singing together. At first the duets were recorded separately. For sessions of their first recording, the Ashford & Simpson composition, "Ain't No Mountain High Enough", both Gaye and Terrell recorded separate versions. Motown remixed the vocals and edited out the background vocals, giving just Gaye and Terrell vocal dominance. The song became a crossover pop hit in the spring of 1967, reaching No. 19 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 3 on the R&B charts and making Terrell a star. Their follow-up, "Your Precious Love", became an even bigger hit. At the end of the year, the duo scored another top ten single with "If I Could Build My Whole World Around You".The song's B-side, the Marvin Gaye composition "If This World Were Mine", became a modest hit . Gaye would later cite the song as "one of Tammi's favorites". All four songs were included on Gaye and Terrell's first duet album, United, released in the late summer of 1967. Throughout that year, Gaye and Terrell began performing together and Terrell became a vocal and performance inspiration for the shy and laid-back Gaye, who hated live performing. 


You're All I Need is the second studio album by soul musicians Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell, released in August 1968 on Motown-subsidiary label Tamla Records. Highlighted by three hit singles written by Nickolas Ashford and Valerie Simpson (who composed two of the four hit songs on the first Gaye/Terrell duets LP, United), You're All I Need was recorded throughout 1966 and 1967 and features two Top 10 Billboard Hot 100 hits, "Ain't Nothing Like the Real Thing" and "You're All I Need to Get By". You're All I Need was the two singers' final collaboration effort, as Terrell would become ill following recording, before succumbing to a brain tumor in 1970.
 After recording You're All I Need, Tammi Terrell collapsed onstage while performing with Gaye at the Hampden–Sydney College homecoming in Virginia. She was later diagnosed with a brain tumor, and could no longer record nor perform live. 
     (Info Edited From Wikipedia )

1. Ain't Nothing But The Real Thing
2. Keep on Lovin' Me
3. You're All I Need To Get By
4. Baby Don't Cha Worry
5. You Ain't Livin' Till You're Lovin'
6. Give In You just Can't Win

1. When Love Come Knocking At My Heart
2. Come On And See Me
3. I Can't Help But Love You
4. That's How It is
5. I'll Never Stop Loving You Baby
6. Memory Chest

   4. Baby Don't Cha Worry

Betty Carter

Betty Carter (born Lillie Mae Jones; May 19, 1929 – September 26, 1998) was an American jazz singer known for her improvisational technique, scatting and other complex musical abilities that demonstrated her vocal talent and imaginative interpretation of lyrics and melodies. Vocalist Carmen McRae once remarked: "There's really only one jazz singer—only one: Betty Carter.

The 1960s became an increasingly difficult time for Carter as she began to slip in fame, refusing to sing contemporary pop music, and her youth fading. Carter was nearly forty years old, which at the time was not conducive to a career in the public eye. Rock and roll, like pop, was steadily becoming more popular and provided cash flow for labels and recording companies. Carter had to work extremely hard to continue to book gigs because of the jazz decline. Her marriage also was beginning to crumble. By 1971, Carter was single and mainly performing live with a small group consisting of merely a piano, drums, and a bass. The Betty Carter trio was one of very few jazz groups to continue to book gigs in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
   ( Info Edited From Wikipedia )

Scott Yanow, writing on Allmusic.com gave 'Round Midnight two and a half stars out of five. Yanow commented of Carter in this period: "Her chance-taking style and unusual voice were mostly ignored and it would not be until the late '70s that she was finally 'discovered.' ...Her style was a lot freer than it had been in her earlier records but was still more accessible than it would be. Her repertoire" at the time "was already becoming eclectic."

An interesting early album from Betty Carter – less jazz than some of her later work, but with a bit more of an edge than some of her ABC recordings. The album's got sort of an arranged sophisticated jazz style – in the mode of 60s work by Esther Phillips or Dinah Washington – and Betty handles some wonderful material with a dark edge, like "Two Cigarettes In The Dark", "Nothing More To Look Forward To", "Round Midnight", "I Wonder", "Who What Why Where When", and "The Good Life", all done in a sorrow-drenched style that's incredibly compelling, and a very different side to Betty's career. ( Info Edited 1996-2020, Dusty Groove, Inc. )

1. Nothing More To look Forward To

2. Who What Why Where When

3. Heart And Soul

4. Call Me Darling

5. When I fall in love

1. Round Midnight

2. I Wonder

3.Theme From Dr Kildare

4. The Good Life

5. Everybody's Somebody's Fool

6. Two Cigarettes In The Dark

   3. Heart And Soul

Lynn Hope

If you like the saxophone then have a listen to this no nonsense virtuoso of the instrument just some great melodious playing that doesn't venture far from the actual melody of the songs !


Lynn Hope, also known as El Hajj Abdullah Rasheed Ahmad, (September 26, 1926 – February 24, 1993) was an American jazz and blues tenor saxophonist..He was born in Birmingham, Alabama, United States. Hope was noted for his instrumental remakes of established pre-rock pop anthems. Hope joined King Kolax's band when he graduated from high school in Birmingham during the 1940s. After converting to Islam, he became noted for wearing a turban or fez....Hope signed with Miracle Records in 1950, but the contract proved invalid. He moved to Premium Records, where he recorded "Tenderly," a song that was later picked up by Chess Records. Hope recorded often for Aladdin Records between 1951 and 1957, doing such reworked standards as "September Song" and "Summertime." These numbers were often performed with little or no melodic embellishment or improvisation; however the B-sides sides were often up tempo blues or jump tunes. "Tenderly" earned Hope his only hit in 1950, reaching number eight on the US Billboard R&B chart and number 19 on the pop music chart.

Hope recorded his last sessions for King in 1960, but then seemingly left the music industry.

Lynn Hope was one of the “screamers,” the wild r&b saxophone honkers whose horns helped beget rock and roll. He strode up and down bar tops blowing his horn, bent over backwards and wailed, jumped from the bandstand and paraded through his crowd, worked each room he played until it was ready to explode.

1. Tenderly
2. Rose Room
3. Body And Soul
4. Sands Of The Sahara
5. Blue And Sentimental
6. Shockin'

1. Oo Wee
2. A Ghost of A Chance
3. Full Moon
4. Little Landslide
5. Stardust 
6. Juicy

   
   1. Tenderly

Kitty White

We have had a vocal session earlier with this classy singer !!...she now tackles some folks songs and it just shows how a brilliant singer she was going from "jazz" standard songs to folk songs with no effort at all...well worth a listen to !!

1. Sourwood Mt
2. Leather Winged Bat
3. If I Had A Ribbon Bow
4. Ten Thousand Miles
5. Three Ravens
6. West Wind

1. Love Is Like A Mountain
2. Fare Thee Well
3. Chicken Road
4. Dark As A Dungeon
5. Poor Wayfaring Stranger
6. Hammer Man

   3. Leather Winged Bat

Aretha Franklin

Here's a Lady that will sadly be missed !! "The Queen Of Soul"

Aretha Louise Franklin (March 25, 1942 – August 16, 2018) was an American singer, songwriter, pianist, and civil rights activist. Franklin began her career as a child singing gospel at New Bethel Baptist Church in Detroit, Michigan, where her father C. L. Franklin was minister. At the age of 18, she embarked on a secular musical career as a recording artist for Columbia Records. While Franklin's career did not immediately flourish, she found acclaim and commercial success after signing with Atlantic Records in 1966. Hit songs such as "Respect", "Chain of Fools", "Think", "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman", "I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You)", and "I Say a Little Prayer", propelled her past her musical peers. By the end of the 1960s, Aretha Franklin had come to be known as "The Queen of Soul".

1. Hey Now Hey
2. Somewhere
3. So Swell When You Are Well
4. Angel
5. Sister From Texas

1. Mister Spain
2. That's The Way I feel About Cha
3. Moody's Mood
4. Just Right Tonight

   2. Somewhere

James Last & Orchestra

JAMES LAST Paintings (1979 Japanese-only 10-track LP - Mr Last entertains with renditions of Jean Michel Jarre's Equinoxe Part 5 & Frank Mills' Music Box Dancer alongside his own compositions.

James Last (German born Hans Last; 17 April 1929 – 9 June 2015), also known as Hansi, was a German composer and big band leader of the James Last Orchestra. Initially a jazz bassist (Last won the award for "best bassist" in Germany in each of the years 1950–1952, his trademark "happy music" made his numerous albums best-sellers in Germany and the United Kingdom, with 65 of his albums reaching the charts in the UK alone. His composition "Happy Heart" became an international success in interpretations by Andy Williams and Petula Clark.

Last is reported to have sold an estimated 200 million albums worldwide in his lifetime figures vary widely, for example British Hit Singles & Albums (2006) reports 100 million at that time, of which 80 million were sold by 1973 - and won numerous awards including 200 gold and 14 platinum discs in Germany...His album This Is James Last remained a UK best-seller for 48 weeks, and his song "Games That Lovers Play" has been covered over a hundred times.

1. Music Box Dancer
2. All Of a Sudden
3. Summertime
4. Children of Sanchez
5. Photographs

1. Paintings
2. Equinoxe Part 5
3. Fool
4. Gonna Make The First Time Last
5. Good Night Tokio

   1. Music Box Dancer