Ann Hampton Callaway
The Sarah Vaughan Project
SFJAZZ, San Francisco, CA, July 16, 2015
Reviewed by Steve Murray for Cabaret Scenes
Ann Hampton Callaway is quite the performance chameleon. Her current tour includes her show Sibling Revelry with sister Liz, Jazz & Sondheim, and To Ella and Nat with Love. But if there ever was a perfect symbiotic pairing, my choice is this show featuring Callaway’s interpretations of the music of the great Sarah Vaughan.
Callaway has the tone and timbre of the later Vaughan style, the sensitive attention to lyric and the emotional showmanship to carry it off spectacularly. With great arrangements by Bill Mays and brilliant piano accompaniment from Christian Jacob, Callaway’s strong yet nuanced contralto rides the material without imitation, but with genuine respect.
“Misty” (Erroll Garner/Johnny Burke) and “Someone to Watch Over Me” (George & Ira Gershwin) feature stunning vocals and lovely arrangements. Not many people would attempt “Chelsea Bridge,” a Billy Strayhorn instrumental given an overlaid vocalese by Vaughan in 1979, but AHC is more than up to the task. A 1947 recording of “Tenderly,” with music by Walter Gross and lyrics by Jack Lawrence, is given a velvety Vaughan-esque sublime vocal. Callaway performs Antonio Carlos Jobim’s “Wave,” which Vaughan recorded in 1972, riding the wave of bossa nova popularity. She closed the set with a remarkable imagining of a proposed collaboration between Vaughan and opera singer Leontyne Price, singing Puccini’s “Un Bel di Vedremo” paired with “Poor Butterfly” (Raymond Hubbell/John Golden). It’s a showstopper, literally.
The Sarah Vaughan Project is a huge success and, thankfully, has been captured on CD (From Sassy to Divine: The Sarah Vaughan Project). It’s a great achievement by one of cabaret’s finest entertainers.
