MGM has spawned a new and highly vocal infant, name of Metrojazz Records. Of the two initial releases -- both cut under the aegis of our own Leonard Feather -- the one more likely to become a conversation piece is Sonny Rollins and the Big Brass (Metrojazz E1002). On one side of the disc the fast-soaring young tenor man is backed for the first time (and about time, too) by a big band. Arrangements and conducting were left to the capable pen and baton of Ernie (ex-Basie) Wilkins, who made unusual use of a tuba (Don Butterfield's), which plays parallel lines with the tenor. Sonny's own tune, Grand Street, boasts about as boisterously exciting a big-band sound as anything we've heard lately.
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Sexy Lena Horne, perennial audience-dazzler, turns in one more of her stylishly sophisticated, the-lady-is-a-vamp performances on Give the Lady What She Wants (Victor LPM-1879), which in this case includes sparklers (Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend), amour (At Long Last Love) and some much-needed rest (Let's Turn Out the Lights and Go to Sleep).
Chris Connor's Chris-Craft (Atlantic 1290), Peggy Lee's Things Are Swingin' (Capitol T1049) and Eydie Gormé's Showstoppers (ABC-Paramount-254) are all stunners, and worth your ear time. Chris cruises through a dozen numbers with her usual effortless phrasing; Peggy concentrates on toe-tappers with her hip brand of quivering abandon and Eydie shows everybody why she's one of the most electrifying young thrushes around today, complete with falsetto shrieks and a walloping set of pipes that can stop anybody's show. All her tunes are from Broadway musicomedies (dig especially Thou Swell and My Funny Valentine) and Eydie puts her own personal stamp of greatness on each one.
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Chatty chamber works of Shostakovich -- Quintet for Piano and Strings; String Quartets Nos. 1, 2 & 3 (Vanguard 6032 & 6033) -- display the cozy side of the contemporary Russian colossus' talents. Inventive but not abrasive, these small-scale pieces eschew the bombast of his massive symphonies, achieving their ends by intimacy and warmth, lyric curves of melody, chuckling scherzi, sweet-and-sour harmony, finger-snapping rhythm, unrelenting charm. The combos -- they are the nimble Komitas, Beethoven and Tchaikowsky Quartets -- play with precision and zest, building little crystal palaces of tone; and the quintet enjoys an extra dollop of authority with Shosty himself blowing 88.
