Oscar Peterson - The Song Is You:Best Of The Verve Songbooks (1996)

Tracklist


CD1:

1 Cheek To Cheek
2 I Ain't Necessarily So
3 Just A-Sittin' And A-Rockin'
4 What Is This Thing Called Love?
5 Prelude To A Kiss
6 Fascinating Rhythm
7 Easter Parade
8 Night And Day
9 Long Ago And Far Away
10 Tea For Two
11 The Song Is You
12 Without A Song
13 I Want To Be Happy
14 The Lady Is A Tramp
15 Blue Moon
16 Lover

CD2:

1 I Only Have Eyes For You
2 I Gotta Right To Sing The Blues
3 You Must \have Been A Beautiful Baby
4 Come Rain Or Come Shine
5 I Can't Give You Anything But Love
6 I'm In The Mood For Love
7 John Hardy's Wife
8 I Got It Bad (And That Ain't Good)
9 That Old Black Magic
10 A Foggy Day
11 I Couldn't Sleep A Wink Last Night
12 Blue Moon
13 Serenade In Blue
14 Love For Sale
15 The Song Is Ended
16 Yesterday's

Pianist Oscar Peterson has made a remarkable number of records through the years and his two songbook series for Verve (each recording features the songs of a different composer) were extensive, to say the least. During 1952-54 he cut ten albums (113 songs) and in 1959 he added nine more records (108 songs), in addition to his regular busy activities. Because these were essentially easy-listening sets with concise interpretations that always kept the melodies of the composers close by, they are not considered Peterson's greatest work but they are enjoyable in their own right. This particular two-CD set has some of the highlights from these marathon projects, most of which (the Gershwin songbooks excepted) had never been out on CD before. Peterson teams up with guitarist Barney Kessel and bassist Ray Brown on nine numbers from 1952, features Herb Ellis in Kessel's place on 13 other songs and concludes with ten selections from his 1959 trio with Brown and drummer Ed Thigpen. In all, 32 of the 221 selections are on this two-fer and, although one hopes that these projects will be completely reissued someday (which would be a mammoth undertaking), this melodic set is quite pleasing.~Scott Yanow