For the new year, I’m starting a new series of posts sharing some of my favorite albums that I seldom hear mentioned these days. In this first post of this series, I’m taking a look back with three albums from June Christy, who was best known for her work in the cool jazz genre.
June Christy was born Shirley Luster in Springfield, IL in November 1925. She began her singing career in 1938, but her success began in 1945 when she was chosen as a vocalist for the Stan Kenton Orchestra replacing Anita O’Day. With the new job, she also changed her name to June Christy, and began singing some gigs on her own. Her real solo career, which lasted more than 20 years and 30 albums, began in 1954 when she released her first album, Something Cool.
Reviewing Her Albums
Let’s start with Road Show, featuring Stan Kenton, June Christy. Originally released as two LPs, it’s still available on CD. Starting in September of 1959, Christy began a five-week road tour of 38 performances called the “Road Show”. The all-star billing included Stan Kenton and his orchestra, June Christy and The Four Freshmen. Capitol recorded highlights on October 10 at Purdue University in Lafayette, IN, and released them as Volumes 1 and 2.
Christy sings on six songs on Volume 1 and three on Volume 2. This live recording is remarkable for its lifelike sound; while the CD, on the other hand, has a tendency to get very strident. Thank goodness the recording engineers resisted showing off what stereo could do by putting the instruments in one channel and vocals in the other or some other unrealistic stunt common to early stereo recordings. Instead, you get a beautiful soundstage. Another thing I’m thankful for is that they leave in some of the talking between vocalists giving the recording more of a sense of a live performance.
The recording also features The Four Freshman, and I especially enjoyed their acapella numbers. These two LPs are a very nice introduction to June’s beautiful voice.
The song “Something Cool” was written by Bill Barnes and first release in 1954 on Christy’s debut album Something Cool. This album represents her start in working with arranger Pete Rugolo and his orchestra. It was with him that she recorded the songs for Something Cool.
This album has been issued and reissued in a number of different versions. The original was a 10” record which contained seven songs, then the following year when LP format was more readily available there were four more newly recorded songs added to the original. Five years later with many of the same players and the same set list, the album was re-recorded in stereo. The one I own is the Cisco 180 gram mono LP reissue.
The album contains several of my favorite songs from the American Songbook. I particularly enjoyed her performances of the title song, “I’m Thrilled,” “Midnight Sun,” and “I’ll Take Romance”.
June’s Got Rhythm may be my favorite of her albums. Most of Christy’s popular albums feature her cool-toned vocals backed by an orchestra. June’s Got Rhythm is an exception. On this recording, she worked with a jazz set that included trumpeter Ed Leddy, trombonist Frank Rosolino and her husband Bob Cooper on tenor sax and oboe.
As she would say, this album is a much more intimate jazz sound. My favorite cuts are “Rock Me to Sleep,” “The Gypsy in My Soul,” “Easy Living,” “Blue Moon,” and “All God’s Children Like Music”. This is a wonderful album, and it’s not that hard to find on CD or vinyl on line.
The Cool School by June Christy is a very different recording from the above albums. “Something Cool” was recorded in 1954, and “Cool School” is from 1961 and is stereo. Still, this album is more complex and interesting than some of her albums even though it’s a collection of children’s music. But don’t let that fool you, it’s a children’s album for adults, The Cool School is neither overly sentimental or childish. The songs are performed with a directness that is refreshing. I found this to be a really fun listen and a great recording. Thus, it comes highly recommended.
Stay tuned for the next installment in this series, where I’ll take a look back at the work of the legendary jazz vocalist and pianist, Blossom Dearie.
Did she ever perform with Bob Hope in a USO tour during WWll ?
Someone else may know more, but looking on the Web, she was a bit young for WWII. She did do USO shows in both Korea and Vietnam.