Lena Horne & Gabor Szabo - Watch What Happens! (1990) 320 kbps

Tracklist

1 Watch What Happens 4:00
2 Something 3:08
3 Everybody's Talkin' 2:52
4 The Fool On The Hill 3:35
5 Yesterday When I Was Young 4:00
6 Rocky Raccoon 3:27
7 My Mood Is You 4:45
8 A Message To Michael 3:14
9 Nightwind 3:35
10 In My Life 2:52

The pairing of chanteuse Lena Horne and guitarist Gabor Szabo may seem incongruous on paper, but Watch What Happens! is an unexpected delight, capturing a soulfulness and sass largely absent from the singer's previous efforts. Producer and arranger Gary McFarland's candy-coated orchestral settings afford Horne the opportunity to step out of the elegant but often stuffy refinement of her classic LPs and let down her hair. Her vocals pirouette around Szabo's hypnotically funky guitar leads with the focused abandon of a child playing hopscotch. Keyboardist Richard Tee, bassist Chuck Rainey, and drummer Grady Tate contribute the supple grooves that highlight so many McFarland sessions, and the material is top-notch, including no fewer than three Beatles covers: "In My Life," "Fool on the Hill," and "Rocky Raccoon," the latter featuring the most purely joyful performance of Horne's career. [Watch What Happens! was originally released on Szabo's Skye Records label as Lena & Gabor in 1970.]