Records

A sloe-eyed, slow-singing Parisian lass name of Juliette Greco is currently batting a thousand with her sexy singing of ballads in the better bars along the bistro belt of Babylon-by-the-Seine. Now, on Juliette Greco (Columbia ML 5088) you can hear why the jive-happy eggheads of the international set think she is absolument le most. La Greco goes in for songs of many-leveled sophistication: the most macabre theme gets a sweet-sexy treatment -- and predictably vice versa; a screwball animal story is sung with tremendous feeling -- and then given a shrug-it-off, ludicrous ending; a ballad about the desolation of war is sung with startling insoussiance; all this in a husky voice which makes a lot of Piaf sound like a virginal conservatory soprano. A free translation of each song is supplied on the liner, to help you over the harder French.

Swingin' Zoot Sims, who's managed to retain the benign influences of Prez and Bird, comes on real strong in The Modern Art of Jazz (Dawn 1102), a collection of standards and new compositions in which he's given a hefty assist by, among others, Bob Brookmeyer. Side One gives a quick-tempo treatment to September in the Rain and the other three selections: the virtuosity and the modernity here are unimpeachable, but to our thinking the velocity sometimes exceeds the felicity. This is definitely true of the way Them There Eyes is handled on the second side but from there on out to the end it's as good as you can ask for, sure and solid and impressive. Two of Zoot's originals we especially like are Dark Cloud and One to Blow On.

Two new discs feature the British maestro George Shearing and they're about as different as can be. Velvet Carpet (Capitol T720) presents the Shearing Quintet with what is called a choir of stringed instruments. If you can't imagine Shearing lending himself to a corn-ball, schmaltzy, saccharine treatment of some perfectly respectable music, you'll have a sad widening of your horizons when you hear this one, which is tea-dance orchestral and movie-house modern, and might have suitably been subtitled: Music to Make a Silly Girl By. By contrast, the Shearing we know and admire shines through in Shearing by Request (London LL 1343), in which his wonderfully fey and original style is displayed against a rhythm accompaniment. All the numbers in this one. by the way, were recorded during or just after World War II.

Rendezvous (Bald Eagle -- no fooling -- 711) is a French biscuit featuring Claude Dauphin, the screen star, peddling bedroom banter and consumptive vocals aimed at making a lady's thyroid start pumping. Most of the time, Dauphin comes through like Pepe le Pew, that persistent, never-piqued skunk of cartoon fame, and the result is real corn à la française. Sample: "Alo, darlink ... ah, you are zo lovely to zee ... I do not want you to zink about tomorrow ... you are 'ere now ... come clozer, cherie ..."

Name your paisan: Verdi? Puccini? Mascagni? Leoncavallo? Knotty cadenza and murderous high Cs by all four of these tenor-killers are negotiated with gusto and brilliance on Mario del Monaco Operatic Recital #3 (London LL 1333), an even dozen tenor tidbits from Otello, Aïda, Cavalleria, Rigoletto, Pagliacci and Manon Lescaut. A rarity among the grand old operatic chestnuts herein is Possente amor, the brief aria usually cut from Rigoletto, and a peppy little jig it is as belted out by Signor Monaco and a bunch of boisterous spear-toters.

A throaty, slick and terribly commercial Sarah Vaughan can be heard on At the Blue Note (Mercury 20094), a tip-of-the-hat to Frank Holzfeind's Chicago jazz spa that gave Miss Vaughan (and many others) a first big boost toward the big time. This is suppposed to be a nostalgic-type LP, and the tunes are properly smooth and dreamy, if not downright seamy. Pretty ones include The Touch of Your Lips (which Sarah insists on pronouncing "lipsch"), Tenderly and I Don't Know Why. Well, we don't know why they had to stick the girl with such a punk background orchestra (conducted by Hugo Peretti), a mawkish, weeping collection of third-rate fiddle pluckers who really botch up the whole business. Gee, remember when Sarah used to sing in front of wee jazz combos?

Next to cutting classes, the three most popular sports on campus have always been quaffing, wenching and singing, and never have these three Art Forms attained a higher level of perfection than among the German Studenten of the middle ages. German University Songs (Vanguard 477) is a roaring collection of that period's boola-boolas, each a paean to the innate goodness of good beer, good buddies and big bosoms. Included are such throat-busting ballads as Der Wirten Töchterlein (The Innkeeper's Daughter) and Bier Her! as well as the little ditty Johannes Brahms filched for his Academic Festival Overture -- Gaudeamus Igitur. Everything's yodeled in German by booming baritone Erich Kunz abetted by the entire male chorus and orchestra of the Vienna Volksoper, and you couldn't ask for a more rousing, ribald and thoroughly splendid song fest. Complete texts and translations are tossed in.

A couple of discs from two competing companies invite comparison. The Music of Alec Wilder (Columbia CL 884) is best on the A side which was originally recorded as a 78 rpm album several years ago, and still makes good listening. Wilder's slick, pseudo-classical pieces include airs for bassoon, flute, cor anglais and oboe, a Slow Dance and (our favorite) a Theme and Variations: this a vaguely Baroque bit, severe and saucy, with hot interludes and solo passages for harpsichord. The reverse boasts some fascinating titles (His First Long Pants; It's Silk, Feel It!) for some less-than-fascinating musical meandering by the same smart Alec Wilder who was also roped in on Tone Poems of Color (Capitol W735), a pile of sludge mostly by composers of the Victor Young-Gordon Jenkins cut, portraying the hues of the spectrum as interpreted by the verbiage of one Norman Sickel, a radio writer whose bilious poetry appears on the sleeve. Both the Columbia and Capitol platters have a gimmick in common: they're conducted by Frank (it says here) Sinatra.

Five fine discs for the discerning: The Jon Eardley Seven (Prestige 7033) is modern jazz at its drivingest, and Jon's a master technician in trumpet equations; Drummer Man (Verve 2008) dishes up Krupa with Anita O'Day and Roy Eldridge (a trio that used to swing beautifully together in the 40s), all doing real well, but for our money Roy's vital trumpet steals the show; Piano Interpretations (Norgran 1077) presents Bud Powell who ups to his 88 and proves that notable music can be got from standards via inventive freshness and superb musicianship; Red Mitchell (Bethlehem 38) gives us that youthful bassist abetted by such sideman as Hampton Hawes, all going great guns; Vibes on Velvet (EmArcy 36064) presents Terry Gibbs in a quiet, melodic mood, the velvet being provided by five saxes which weave a background to the honied vibes, adding up to a willowy waxing which wooers would do well to keep handy for that Moment.

We heard two kinds of Bach this month. The old-fashioned sort is proferred by grand old harpsichordist Wanda Landowska on 15 Two-Part Inventions, coupled with Concerto in D Minor (Victor LM-1974). The bare bones of Bach, denuded of melody, are revealed in all their rhythmic architecture on Bach for Percussion (Audio Fidelity 1812), two fugues and two toccatas transcribed for five guys clobbering conga drums, claves, castanets, wood and temple blocks, ratchets, maracas, timbales, bongos and boobams, under the stick of Harold Glick. The result is weird: infectious and uncomfortable by turns. These boys succeed in reducing the ultra-civilized Bach to a welter of compulsive sounds more primitive than those offered by Albert Mouangue and his African Ensemble on An Adventure in Rhythm (Vanguard VRS 7032), a 10-inch LP of native songs from that big bend of Africa's west coast, the Cameroons. Unlike the Bach biscuit, this one has vocals, with such curiously cosmopolitan lyrics as Osi B'anga Moyo Mulelama (The Brother-in-Law is a Little Self-Satisfied). Both of these drum discs are great for pepping up a party or showing off your rig.