Bobby Troup and His Stars Of Jazz

Tracklisting:

1. Free And Easy
2. Sent For You Yesterday
3. Back In Your Own Back Yard
4. I'm Thru With Love
5. Oh! You Crazy Moon
6. Perdido
7. Take Me Out To The Ball Game
8. Is You Is Or Is You Ain't My Baby
9. As Long As I Live
10. Please Be Kind
11. Tulip Or Turnip
12. Tip-Toe Throught The Tulips With Me

Recorded in Hollywood, 1958

Review:
"During the later half of the 1950's Bobby Troup hosted a well-received television program for ABC titled The Stars of Jazz." This album actually isn't a soundtrack album collecting the best segments from the show (which spotlighted all forms of jazz, past and present); instead Troup went into the studio with a crack team of West Coast jazz musicians for a West Coast meets Swing" big band session. Jimmy Rowles took over for Troup on piano and penned eight of the lightly swinging arrangements. Shorty Rogers wrote the other four charts and joined such soloist as Benny Carter, Shelly Manne, Bud Shank, Red Norvo, and Barney Kessel. Troup was never known as a great singer but this may be his best outing as a vocalist and the session could be confused with one by Harry Connick Jr., if not by Frank Sinatra. Troup had a musician's voice" but his lightly swinging and low-key approach works perfectly on this outing and he really had a way with a lyric. This session may be hard-to-find but it's definitely worth owning and offers a great portrait of a time when jazz was popular entertainment, even if Bobby Troup's actual Stars of Jazz" TV show program deserves to be re-released on DVD".
Nick Dedina (AMG)