Sammy Davis Jr. - Live At The Cocoanut Grove, 1963
Sammy Davis could do it all.....sing.....dance.....comedy.....musician , actor.....he was a multi-talented artist who simply had it all !
Live At The Cocoanut Grove captures Sammy at the height of his career in 1963 (originally a double vinyl set) with support of a wonderful orchestra ...the Dick Stabile Orchestra conducted by George Rhodes who also doubles on the piano over the course of the evening.
The 18 tracks on this recording are a mix of slap-stick comedy and crooning with some pretty cool interpretations of classic songs. There are certainly parts of this concert that by today standards will sure seem vintage and dated as Sammy does his impersonations of movie starts and singers of the past......Cagney, Sinatra, Nat King Cole....and while all this is going on there is some pretty cool music happening too.
What I love about this album is that it really feels improvised a lot and really moves along as if I was there listening to this for the first time live. Johnny Mendoza gets a spotlight too along the way with a duet to a crooning version of "What Kind Of Fool Am I" interpreting it totally different than as Sinatra made famous. Drummer Michael Silva gets his percussion solo too along the way as Sammy winds out the evening with a ten minute jam session.
Sonically this album was nicely transferred to CD by Rhino but there are definitely some source limitations you will notice....sound drops off and some tape crackles and some warbles but nothing to make this less enjoyable IMHO....in fact I think the imperfections make this recording feel a lot more vintage than not to be honest.
The 18 tracks on this recording are a mix of slap-stick comedy and crooning with some pretty cool interpretations of classic songs. There are certainly parts of this concert that by today standards will sure seem vintage and dated as Sammy does his impersonations of movie starts and singers of the past......Cagney, Sinatra, Nat King Cole....and while all this is going on there is some pretty cool music happening too.
What I love about this album is that it really feels improvised a lot and really moves along as if I was there listening to this for the first time live. Johnny Mendoza gets a spotlight too along the way with a duet to a crooning version of "What Kind Of Fool Am I" interpreting it totally different than as Sinatra made famous. Drummer Michael Silva gets his percussion solo too along the way as Sammy winds out the evening with a ten minute jam session.
Sonically this album was nicely transferred to CD by Rhino but there are definitely some source limitations you will notice....sound drops off and some tape crackles and some warbles but nothing to make this less enjoyable IMHO....in fact I think the imperfections make this recording feel a lot more vintage than not to be honest.
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