Lee Wiley - Sings Irving Berlin (1952/2023) [Official Digital Download 24/96]

Surprisingly (and temporarily) employed by Mitch Miller at the major label Columbia Records, Lee Wiley followed up the stunning Night in Manhattan with two further 10" LPs recorded in the late fall of 1951 and released simultaneously in 1952, discs that took off from her celebrated songbook albums for the Liberty Music Shop label back in 1939-40. At that time, she had devoted collections to George and Ira Gershwin, Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, and Harold Arlen. Now, she addressed Vincent Youmans and Irving Berlin. Unlike Night in Manhattan, which featured Bobby Hackett, Joe Bushkin, and a string section for accompaniment (and unlike the Liberty Music Shop albums that featured a small jazz band), the Youmans and Berlin LPs used a double-piano backup from Stan Freeman and Cy Walter. For the Berlin album, Wiley made sometimes surprising choices of eight compositions from the songwriter's vast catalog, ranging from 1922's non-production song "Some Sunny Day" to 1946's "I Got Lost in His Arms," from Annie Get Your Gun. Among the unsurprising inclusions were two tunes associated with a major Wiley influence, Ethel Waters, who introduced both "Heat Wave" and "Supper Time" in 1933's As Thousands Cheer. And Wiley equaled Waters' versatility on the contrasting tones of those two very different songs. Less expected were relative obscurities like the sprightly "Some Sunny Day" and "How Many Times," while "Fools Fall in Love," a 1940 composition from Louisiana Purchase, was almost completely forgotten a decade later. The selections made for an album of varying moods on which Wiley worked well with the pianists, who were given plenty of room and used it to emphasize the 1920s feel of Berlin's tunes (even when they dated from the 1930s and '40s). The collection was hardly a definitive portrait of the songwriter, but it did give a sense of the breadth of his talent, as well as that of the singer.

TRACKLIST

1. Lee Wiley - How Deep Is The Ocean (How High Is The Sky)
2. Lee Wiley - Some Sunny Day
3. Lee Wiley - I Got Lost In His Arms
4. Lee Wiley - Heat Wave
5. Lee Wiley - Soft Lights And Sweet Music
6. Lee Wiley - Fools Fall in Love
7. Lee Wiley - How Many Times
8. Lee Wiley - Supper Time



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