I Am Music Carmen McRae feat. Dizzy Gillespie

• 1A Letter For Anna-Lee05:01
• 2The Trouble With Hello Is Goodbye03:45
• 3Faraway Forever03:21
• 4I Ain't Here03:28
• 5You Know Who You Are05:19
• 6I Have The Feeling I've Been Here Before05:56
• 7Who Gave You Permission03:14
• 8Like A Lover05:57
• 9I Never Lied To You03:19
• 10I Am Music04:19
• Total Runtime43:39

Info for I Am Music

Carmen McRae really opens up on this sweet 70s set for Blue Note – expanding past the traditional jazz of her roots, and even some of the groovier work of her Atlantic years – into a sweeping, contemporary sound that's all adult, all the way! The vibe is great – in the same sophisticated, soulful territory as Marlena Shaw's recordings for Blue Note during the same stretch – yet also couched in those unmistakable McRae vocals – always with a crisp edge, even in the mellowest moments – a unique sound that no other singer can touch. The set was produced by Roger Kellaway – who also arranges, along with Dave Grusin and Byron Olson – all of whom give Carmen a set of sweeping larger backings that make for a fairly majestic album – on titles that include 'I Am Music', 'I Never Lied To You', 'Like A Lover', 'Who Gave You Permission', 'A Letter For Anna Lee', 'You Know Who You Are', and 'I Ain't Here'.

Carmen McRae, vocal
Roger Kellaway, piano (on tracks 4,5)
Dave Grusin, Fender Rhodes, ARP (on tracks 1,8)
Frank Collett, keyboards
John Gianelli, bass
Spider Web, rums (on tracks 1,8)
John Guerin, drums
Dennis Budimir, guitar
Emil Richards, percussion
The Morgan Ames Singers, background vocals
Ian Underwood, ARP programer
Erno Neufeld, violin
Gerri Vinci, violin
Alan Harshman, viola
Ed Lustgarten, cello
Jules Chaikin, conductor

Recorded April 1975 at United / Western Studios, Los Angeles, Calif.
Engineered and mixed by Matt Hyde
Mastering by Wally Traugott
Produced by Roger Kellaway
Executive Producer: George Butler

Digitally remastered

Carmen McRae
Even almost a decade after her death in 1994, Carmen McRae remains an institution unto herself. Born in Harlem, she studied piano as a child and her parents encouraged her to go classical, but the world of jazz and what she called the Great American Songbook was beckoning. For a time she also wrote songs, and as a teenager she came to the attention of one of the power couples of the jazz world, piano star Teddy Wilson and composer Irene Kitchings Wilson. Through their influence, one of McRae’s early songs, "Dream of Life", was recorded by Teddy Wilson’s longtime collaborator Billie Holiday.

Unfortunately, this early success did not immediately lead to a career as writer or performer. By the late Forties she was well known among the young modern jazz musicians who gathered at Minton’s, Harlem’s most famous inside after-hours joint, but her talent seemed doomed not to reach out beyond that world until 1953. It was while working in Brooklyn that she happened to come to the attention of a tiny independent record label, and thankfully the records she made for that concern happened to fall on the ears of Decca’s Milt Gabler, one of the great talent scouts in the history of jazz.

Her five-year association with Decca (and its brother label, Kapp Records) served both to make her a bona fide singing star and to yield what would ultimately prove to be the most consistently excellent series of recordings of her entire forty-year career. These twelve LPs, indeed, rank among the greatest vocal records of all time. McRae is simultaneously cool and cutting-edge sharp, relaxed and swinging, putting over all manner of material in all manner of settings. These range from trios (none better than that led by pianist Ray Bryant on After Glow) or her own piano (By Special Request) to swinging big bands (led by Tadd Dameron on Blue Moon, Ralph Burns on Torchy, or Ernie Wilkins on Something to Swing About), a full-sized string orchestra (Book of Ballads, When You’re Away), and experimental jazz groups boasting such unusual accoutrements as accordion (By Special Request) and cello (Carmen for Cool Ones). She also tackles such unusual subjects for a jazz singer as, on Mad About the Man, the songs of Noël Coward, and, on Birds of a Feather, songs about our feathered friends.

This isn’t to imply that the remaining thirty years of her recording career were anything less than wonderful. As the years wore on, she developed an increasingly world-weary attitude in her singing. Contrastingly, the freshness and vitality of these, her earliest notable recordings, is remarkable. These tracks announced the coming of a major new artist, one whose light would be hidden under a bushel no more, and nearly fifty years later they retain their power. (Will Friedwald, Excerpted from: Carmen McRae’s Finest Hour)

This album contains no booklet.