The companion CD to our live show, Too Hot for Words pays tribute to the Great Ladies of Swing, women who wrote the book on the swing & jazz style of singing popularized in the 1930s and 1940s. Singers like Ella Fitzgerald, Ethel Waters, Billie Holiday, Lee Wiley, and Mildred Bailey, whose unforgettable recordings of favorites such as “A-Tisket, A-Tasket,” “Dinah,” “You Go to My Head,” “Looking at You” and “Concentratin’ on You” (among others!!) were simply marvelous. Rather than try to recreate the originals, we used a great hot band and group vocals to give the songs a more contemporary flavor, while holding true to the classic jazz tradition. And our audiences were delighted!
Actually, it was the Too Hot for Words show that led us to a Jazz Cruise gig (to the Caribbean, what a blast!) and then the tour of Germany that produced With Thee I Swing, a wonderful live CD recorded in Hamburg for the Nagel-Heyer Label. It was an exciting time: my first Jazz Cruise, and my first European tour, in the fall of 1997. It took us almost two more years to complete and release the CD of Too Hot for Words, in the summer of 1999. It turned out to be an appropriate title!
“The way Terry Blaine and Mark Shane go about presenting this tribute is as fascinating as the tribute itself… that these two are musical soulmates is very evident.”
— Dave Nathan, Jazz News
TRACKS:
A-Tisket, A-Tasket
Dinah
Looking at You
Too Hot for Words
My Very Good Friend the Milkman
It’s You
A Ship Without a Sail
The Joint is Jumpin’
Concentratin’ on You
You Go to My Head
My Mother’s Son-in-Law
I’m No Angel
You Meet the Nicest People in Your Dreams
It’s Easy to Remember
Repeal the Blues
Goodnight My Love
Released August 1999 (Jukebox Jazz, JJZ-9904CD & CS)
Terry Blaine, Vocals
Mark Shane, Piano
Russell George, Bass
Ed Metz Jr., Drums
Tom Desisto, Guitar
Ed Polcer, Cornet
Allan Vaché, Clarinet
Harry Allen, Tenor Sax
Joel Helleny, Trombone
Tom Artin, Trombone
Produced by Tom Desisto
Executive Producer: Cynthia Becker
Music Arranged by Mark Shane
Vocal Arrangements by Mark Shane, Terry Blaine & Tom Desisto
Recorded and mixed at The Edison, NYC
Engineer: Gary Chester
Assistant Engineers: Yvonne Yedibalian, Jim Murray
Additional Recording & Digital Editing
at Two Pie Are Music, Woodstock, NY
Engineer: Tom Desisto
Mastered at ARF! Digital, NYC
Engineer: Alan Silverman
Photography: Dion Ogust
Art Direction: Charles Sands
Jukebox Jazz Logo: Lisa Maxwell
Hair: Lisa Mayone
Liner Notes: Terry Blaine