1953-1954

• Artist: Beryl Booker
• Rating:
• Release Date: September 18, 2007
• Type: Compilation (best of), Instrumental
• Genre: Jazz

Review

Volume two in the complete recordings of Beryl Booker as presented in the Classics Chronological Series documents the adventures of the Beryl Booker Trio with eight titles recorded for Discovery Records in Los Angeles on October 14, 1953, material from two Vogue sessions that took place in Paris during February 1954, and six selections recorded for Cadence in New York during the summer of 1954. Booker's approach to the piano recalls her contemporary Erroll Garner; like him, she was a brilliant autodidact who didn't read music. Garner and Booker exist in the same swing-to-bop-to-cool constellation with Herman Chittison, Johnny Guarnieri, Mary Lou Williams, Bud Powell, Dodo Marmarosa, Al Haig, and Ahmad Jamal. Teamed with bassist Bonnie Wetzel and drummer Elaine Leighton, Booker handled jazz and pop standards with dazzling dexterity, humor, warmth and soul. When she sang she sounded more than a little like Dinah Washington, for whom she served as accompanist at the beginning and the end of the decade; on "One for My Baby" the similarity is uncanny. Be sure and cop a listen on the two instrumental selections recorded at the second Parisian Vogue date with tenor saxophonist Don Byas. Thanks to the increasingly popular LP format, each Booker/Byas performance is a little under five minutes in duration, allowing for longer solos and a more relaxed mood than was usually possible under 78 rpm three-minute constraints. Users are warned that "Beryl Booker's Byased Blues" and "Makin' Whoopee" will immediately seep into your bones and groove you out before you realize what has happened. Those two tracks are worth double the price of admission all by themselves. ~ arwulf arwulf, All Music Guide

Tracks

Track Title	Composers	Performers	Time
Thou Swell	Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart	Beryl Booker	(3:00)
Ebony		Beryl Booker	(3:08)
Polka Dots and Moonbeams	James Van Heusen	Beryl Booker	(2:46)
That Old Gang of Mine	Ray Henderson, Billy Rose	Beryl Booker	(3:00)
Symphony	Alex Alstone, Roger Bernstein	Beryl Booker	(4:35)
Booker T.		Beryl Booker	(2:55)
An Old Piano Plays the Blues		Beryl Booker	(3:35)
One for My Baby	Harold Arlen, Johnny Mercer	Beryl Booker	(3:39)
Paris Medley: April in Paris/Paris in the Spring/The Last Time I Saw Pa	Hammerstein II/Kern	Beryl Booker	(6:30)
Cheek to Cheek	Irving Berlin	Beryl Booker	(5:04)
Makin' Whoopee		Beryl Booker, Don Byas	(4:58)
I Should Care		Beryl Booker, Don Byas	(4:39)
Beryl Booker's Byased Blues		Beryl Booker, Don Byas	(4:51)
Tenderly	Walter Gross, Jack Lawrence	Beryl Booker	(4:59)
Body and Soul		Beryl Booker	(4:47)
Night and Day		Beryl Booker	(4:04)
My Funny Valentine	Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart	Beryl Booker	(5:42)
My Ideal	Leo Robin, Richard A. Whiting, Newell Chase	Beryl Booker	(2:59)
I Don't Know Why		Beryl Booker	(3:05)

Credits

Don Byas (Sax (Tenor)), Beryl Booker (Piano), Beryl Booker (Vocals), Elaine Leighton (Drums), Bonnie Wetzel (Bass), Anatol Schenker (Liner Notes)