The Mills Brothers & Count Basie - The Board Of Directors & Annual Report (1998) FLAC

Tracks

The Board of Directors
1. (Up A) Lazy River
2. I May Be Wrong But I Think You're Wonderful
3. Release Me
4. I Want To Be Happy
5. Down, Down, Down
6. The Whiffenpoof Song
7. I Dig Rock And Roll Music
8. Tiny Bubbles
9. December
10. Let Me Dream
11. April In Paris
Annual Report
12. Gentle On My Mind
13. Cherry Point
14. You Never Miss The Water Till The Well Runs Dry
15. The Glow Worm
16. Sent For You Yesterday (And Here You Are Today)
17. Sunny
18. I'll Be Around
19. Cielito Lindo
20. Blue and Sentimental
21. Every Day


Although they were contemporaries dating back to the 1930s, the Mills Brothers and Count Basie's band did not perform together on record until the late 1960s, when they cut these two albums in less than a year. Both are characteristic efforts combining songs associated with each group of artist with recent hits by others. Of course, the remakes of songs like "(Up A) Lazy River" and "The Glow-Worm" work better than "Gentle on My Mind" (mistakenly credited to Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II instead of John Hartford!) and, yes, "I Dig Rock and Roll Music." As usual, it's the supposedly timely material that sounds dated, while the old favorites remain timeless. Nevertheless, this is an excellent match-up that should have been tried earlier and more often.

William Ruhlmann