My Fair Lady (Shelly Manne album)

1956 studio album by Shelly Manne

My Fair Lady

Studio album by

Shelly Manne

Released| 1956
Recorded| August 17, 1956
Studio| Contemporary Records (Los Angeles)
Genre| Jazz
Length| 35:56
Label| Contemporary Records
C 3527
Producer| Lester Koenig
Shelly Manne chronology
| More Swinging Sounds
(1956)  | My Fair Lady
(1956)  | Li'l Abner
(1957)

|
|

André Previn chronology
| Collaboration
(1955)  | My Fair Lady
(1956)  | Double Play!
(1957)

|
|

Professional ratingsReview scores

Source| Rating
AllMusic| [1]
The Rolling Stone Jazz Record Guide| [2]
The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings| [3]

My Fair Lady, recorded by "Shelly Manne & His Friends" and released in 1956 by Contemporary Records, is the first album ever made consisting entirely of jazz versions of tunes from a single Broadway musical.[4] It was an instant hit and became one of the best-selling jazz albums of its day.[5]

## Origins

[edit]

Shelly Manne & his Friends* (*André Previn and Leroy Vinnegar): modern jazz performances of songs from My Fair Lady, as the full name appeared on the 12-inch LP jacket (Contemporary Records C3527), was begun when drummer Shelly Manne, pianist André Previn, and bassist Leroy Vinnegar assembled on August 17, 1956, in the Contemporary studios in Los Angeles to produce an album of jazz versions of miscellaneous show tunes. (The three, having already recorded together as "Shelly Manne and His Friends", had some experience performing as a trio.)

Previn and Manne were exchanging ideas with producer Lester Koenig, who suggested they do some tunes from the current Broadway musical My Fair Lady.[6] Manne and Previn were so impressed with the Lerner and Loewe songs for the show, that they decided to record more of them. They ended up filling the entire album with My Fair Lady tunes. Koenig brought in the complete score, and that evening Manne and Previn, between them, worked out the arrangements and recorded the entire album in one session, with Vinnegar providing the third "very important musical voice in the trio."[7]

Lively and appealing, and clearly aimed at popular taste, the music also showed some daring, in the vein of the experimentation that was a factor in much West Coast jazz in the 1950s.[8] Previn, with considerable musical training, and having composed several film scores himself, was able to suggest certain technical modifications to the harmony and other aspects of the music. Manne, as the date's leader, provided suggestions of his own, for example to treat what was a fast number in the show as a slow ballad instead. The final number, "I Could Have Danced All Night", was given a Latin touch, with Manne even adding the sound of a tambourine. "There was a total thing going back and forth," as Manne later put it.[9]

The sound was recorded by Roy DuNann, later recognized as one of the great recording engineers.[10]

## Legacy

[edit]

The result of that session was an unexpectedly successful album, generally cited as the most successful jazz album up to that time, or at least one of them.[11]

After that success, the combo, sometimes under Manne's name, other times under Previn's, as "André Previn and His Pals", recorded numerous other treatments of Broadway musicals in the next few years (the first with Vinnegar on bass, the rest with Red Mitchell, who took over the bass chair when Vinnegar left the group to pursue other musical opportunities), including Li'l Abner (1957), Pal Joey (1957), Gigi (1958), Bells Are Ringing (1958), and West Side Story (1959), all issued on the Contemporary label.

Shortly after the Manne hit with My Fair Lady had shown what could be done in this vein, that musical received whole-album treatment by other jazz artists. Billy Taylor and Quincy Jones brought out My Fair Lady Loves Jazz in 1957, and this was followed by albums of My Fair Lady music by Nat King Cole (Nat King Cole Sings My Fair Lady) ; Wild Bill Davis; Dick Hyman with Ruby Braff; Oscar Peterson (The Oscar Peterson Trio Plays "My Fair Lady"); and others.

Manne himself worked with arranger John Williams to present a different treatment of the musical in 1964, first issued as My Fair Lady with the Un-Original Cast, and later reissued as My Fair Lady Swings. This album was based on arrangements thoroughly worked out in advance, and some of the tunes were sung by Jack Sheldon and Irene Kral.

## Track listing

[edit]

All tunes by Frederick Loewe. (Lyrics of the original songs were by Alan Jay Lerner.)

1. "Get Me to the Church on Time" - 4:11
2. "On the Street Where You Live" - 5:37
3. "I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face" - 3:21
4. "Wouldn't It Be Loverly" - 5:31
5. "Ascot Gavotte" - 4:17
6. "Show Me" - 3:40
7. "With a Little Bit of Luck" - 6:01
8. "I Could Have Danced All Night" - 3:00

## Personnel

[edit]

Shelly Manne & His Friends

* Shelly Manne \- drums, leader
* André Previn \- piano
* Leroy Vinnegar \- bass

Technical

* Lester Koenig \- producer
* Roy DuNann - recording engineer

## Notes

[edit]

1. ^ AllMusic review
2. ^ Swenson, J., ed. (1985). The Rolling Stone Jazz Record Guide. USA: Random House/Rolling Stone. p. 130\. ISBN 0-394-72643-X.
3. ^ Cook, Richard; Morton, Brian (2008). The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings (9th ed.). Penguin. p. 935\. ISBN 978-0-141-03401-0.
4. ^ Gordon, p. 143. Gordon gives the year as 1957, but this is certainly an error. The album cover and other sources give it as 1956.
5. ^ Gordon, pp. 142-43. See also Brand, p. 87.
6. ^ Though this musical became the longest-running Broadway musical of its day, it had at this time been running on Broadway for only five months.
7. ^ Brand, p. 87.
8. ^ Gordon, p. 143.
9. ^ Quoted in Gordon, p. 143.
10. ^ See the comments by Thomas Conrad in his April 2002 article in Stereophile magazine. (See external links, below.)
11. ^ See Yanow; also Brand, p. 87, and Gordon, pp. 142-43.

## References

[edit]

* Brand, Jack. Shelly Manne: Sounds of the Different Drummer (Discography and filmography by Bill Korst) (Percussion Express, 1997)
* Gordon, Robert. Jazz West Coast: The Los Angeles Jazz Scene of the 1950s (Quartet Books, 1986)

## External links

[edit]

* Yanow, Scott. "My Fair Lady: Review" (allmusic Web site)
* Conrad, Thomas. "The Search for Roy DuNann" (April 2002; Stereophile Web site)

* v
* t
* e

Shelly Manne

Studio
albums|

* The Three & The Two (1954)
* The West Coast Sound (1955)
* Swinging Sounds (1956)
* More Swinging Sounds (1956)
* Shelly Manne & His Friends (1956)
* My Fair Lady (1956)
* Li'l Abner (1957)
* Concerto for Clarinet & Combo (1957)
* The Gambit (1958)
* Bells Are Ringing (1958)
* Shelly Manne & His Men Play Peter Gunn (1959)
* Son of Gunn!! (1959)
* The Proper Time (1960)
* Shelly Manne & His Men Play Checkmate (1961)
* Sounds Unheard Of! (1962)
* 2-3-4 (1962)
* Empathy (1962)
* My Son the Jazz Drummer! (1962)
* My Fair Lady with the Un-original Cast (1964)
* Manne–That's Gershwin! (1965)
* Sounds! (1966)
* Jazz Gunn (1967)
* Perk Up (1967)
* Daktari (1967)
* Outside (1969)
* Mannekind (1972)
* Essence (1977)

Live
albums|

* At the Black Hawk 1 (1959)
* At the Black Hawk 2 (1959)
* At the Black Hawk 3 (1959)
* At the Black Hawk 4 (1959)
* At the Black Hawk 5 (1959)
* Ruth Price with Shelly Manne & His Men at the Manne-Hole (1961)
* Live! Shelly Manne & His Men at the Manne-Hole (1961)
* Boss Sounds! (1966)
* Alive in London (1970)
* French Concert (1977)

Soundtracks|

* Young Billy Young (1969)

Discography

* v
* t
* e

My Fair Lady by Frederick Loewe and Alan Jay Lerner (Lerner and Loewe)

Characters|

* Eliza Doolittle

Source|

* Pygmalion (1913 play) by George Bernard Shaw
* Pygmalion (1938 film) by George Bernard Shaw adapted by W. P. Lipscomb and Cecil Lewis

Films|

* My Fair Lady (1964 film)
* The Opening of Misty Beethoven (1976)
* Galatea [ru] (1977)
* Man Pasand (1980)

Albums|

* My Fair Lady (1956 Broadway cast recording)
* My Fair Lady (1956 Shelly Manne album)
* My Fair Lady (1958 Oscar Peterson Trio album)
* My Fair Lady (1959 London cast recording)
* Nat King Cole Sings My Fair Lady (1963 album)
* My Fair Lady (1964 film soundtrack)
* My Fair Lady Loves Jazz (1964 Billy Taylor album)
* The Great Songs from "My Fair Lady" and Other Broadway Hits (1964 Andy Williams album)

Musical numbers|

* "Wouldn't It Be Loverly? "
* "With a Little Bit of Luck"
* "The Rain in Spain"
* "I Could Have Danced All Night"
* "On the Street Where You Live"
* "Get Me to the Church on Time"
* "I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face"

Television|

* "My Fair Laddy"
* "One If by Clam, Two If by Sea"
* Selfie

Related|

* The Street Where I Live

Authority control databases |

* MusicBrainz release group
* 2

|

*[v]: View this template
*[t]: Discuss this template
*[e]: Edit this template