What is your favorite Carmen McRae album?

I have Carmen Sings Monk and Lover Man (the Billie Holiday tribute album) and love them both. What should I pick up next?

• I prefer any of her live albums over the studio recordings.

• The albums on ATLANTIC, such as The Sound of Silence. The cover sucks (below), but the songs and her singing -- WOW! Gloomy Monday, MacArthur Park. And a gorgeous version of a song I used to hate: Stardust.

  http://img12.nnm.ru/8/4/f/6/5/1669ccfa898866c74d34f36097b_prev.jpg

• Try this:

  http://www.amazon.com/Sound-Silence-Portrait-Carmen-McRae/dp/B00005KHFT/ref%3Dsr_1_1%3Fs%3Dmusic%26ie%3DUTF8%26qid%3D1354823872%26sr%3D1-1%26keywords%3Dcarmen+mcrae+sounds+of+silence

• Her version of "The Sound of Silence" is cringe-inducing. "Stardust" is nice. And no one should sing "MacArthur Park." Ever. It should have never been written.

• It's not MacArthur Park - it's another Jimmy Webb song labeled "MacArthur Park."

• Oh Carmen, my favorite jazz singer piano player of all time. I must have owned 50 albums, some were reissues and compilations. My favorite was the double Great American Song book album. I think she is the most underrated jazz singer of her time. I love them lady low notes

• I love just about everything she ever did. She and Sarah Vaughan were the best. I have always liked Ella too, but in my opinion, Carmen and Sarah had her beat in the voice department.

• And they were close fiends and drug-booze buddies too.

• She was a great force, a great supporter and friend of many talents. She had a wonderful instrument, and was deeply grounded in jazz and in her craft. But for me she always was self-consciously presenting, pushing it. "Now I'm singing, but my mind is on a lot of things as I do it." A staginess and vague inauthenticity - sometimes the price of intelligence - creeps in. I want to love her music, but I just can't.

• I'm thinking I like her earlier work best. For instance, this is better than sex:

  http://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DwtevmqLG5lE

• [R10] I wonder what year that is from, very early Carmen.

• It's from 1955 or thereabouts, I believe.

• Love to hear her version of "Baltimore Oriole"

  Anonymous%20

• I like "Sarah - Dedicated to You," Carmen's tribute album to Vaughan.

• R9, you must mean Carmen's later years when she broke up each syllable of each word in every song WAY too much. I have no idea what she thought she was doing. One of my favorite vocals of Carmen's, and she's singing it with a cold. I never quite 'believe' the singer singing this song - Blame it on My Youth - but I believe Carmen:

  http://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3Dd-De4NJ6LNk%26feature%3Dfvst

• who???????????????????????????????????????????????

• And has anyone mentioned that Carmen gay? She wasn't out, not really. R16, you might want to learn who she was. That is, if you like good singing.

• My favorite Carmen McRae: Alfie, 1964 Gentleman Friend, 1964 Return To Me, Baja Session I'm Always Drunk In San Francisco, The art of CM

• Nice video:

  http://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DbJaD09M5Iko

• R16, hope you don't think you're amusing. You're just ignorant. Must be the eldergay faggot.

• Until he died Miles Davis insisted that McRae was the greatest of the great female jazz vocalists. I don't compare them--I love Ella, Billie, Carmen, and Sarah for different reasons. What I have always said about Carmen is that there is a brooding intelligence there that at its best shines light into corners of a song that you never thought existed. Listen to her version of "Alfie." When you are pick up your jaw from the floor and move on with the rest of her recordings.

  ranger

• [R9] I guess there is something wrong with me. What you describe about her broken vocals is exactly what I enjoyed, it was the subtle tension. Then I also like Shirley Horn.

• whatever one has Funky Sensation

  can%20you%20feel%20it%3F

• I'm not sure if it's a compilation, but I love every track on "Here To Stay".

• I agree with R14..."Sarah, Dedicated To You" is incredibly good. I've had it since it first came out and still listen to it frequently.

• ALFIE:

  http://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3D5ozYKIWfRpQ

• R21, one can learn a lot by comparing Sarah's vocals to Carmen's. For instance, in Carmen's vocal of I'm Gonna Laugh You Right Out Of My Life, she's sad and reflective. In Sarah's vocal of the same song, she's laughing at him.

• The Sarah Vaughan tribute was her last album, correct?

• I discovered that I really love several songs from her self-titled debut album from 1954 with the Mat Matthews Quintet and the Tony Scott Quartet; and from Torchy! (1955) and Bittersweet (1964).

  OP

• Can we talk about the fact that Carmen was a big lez?

• [R30] Not an issue that is worth talking about but go ahead and talk about it to yourself