Customer Rating:  
Summary: June Christie at her individual best!
Comment: Lovely Christie singing - 2 LP's and more on one disc! Superb '50's style, what more can one say, highly recommended!
Customer Rating:
Summary: Nice and Cool
Comment: This fine example of popular cool singing is very fine and agreable, although I'm not quite certain that the jazz criteria are met to the foolest extent (there are equally cool but more jazzy artists - for instance Mel Torme)... This is very good singing and quite competent orchestral playing, but on the level of lesser performances by Sarah Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald.
Great thing is that this CD brings both versions of the album; I recommend the later stereo recording; Christy seems to develop a bit between two versions.
Rugolo's arrangements are OK, but not quite to my taste.
Customer Rating:
Summary: It must be June...
Comment: Of all the great jazz ladies, June Christy is still very much a particular favourite of mine. Her singing is totally organic, straight to the point. Nothing sounds artificial or forced. Here, Blue Note Records has reissued both stereo and mono versions of her 1953 album 'Something Cool' on one great-value disc. While Christy found initial fame under the musical direction of Stan Kenton, her series of albums on the Capitol label (through to the early 1960s) acutely displayed her sublime talents as a jazz diva, and never more so than on her debut platter.
Under the guidance of Pete Rugolo and his orchestra, Christy glides through "It Could Happen to You" (in one of the greatest arrangements EVER), "Midnight Sun", "I Should Care", and "I'll Take Romance" (also memorably covered by Eydie Gorme that same year). The title track, "Something Cool" (B. Barnes), became Christy's signature song.
The original 1953 album of 'Something Cool' was a big success for June Christy and established her as a formidable talent. During the first innovations of stereo LPs, Christy went back into the Capitol studios with Rugolo to re-record the album for the stereophonic format in 1960.
Technically, there isn't much to distinguish the stereo and mono cuts of 'Something Cool'. June Christy delivers fabulous vocals on both of them, but brings a refined showmanship to the stereo version. Her rendition of "Something Cool" is a bit more calculated and smokey on the 1960 set, too.
It's so wonderful to be able to relish June Christy on both versions of her landmark debut album.
[Blue Note Records 7243 5 34069 2 9]
Customer Rating:
Summary: Two Albums over the time STEREO came into power
Comment: You HAVE to get this album not only for June Christy's great skill as a band vocalist, and for the stellar playing of the many fine jazz and studio cats who laid down these tracks (many come from Kenton. . .but don't think that this is just another Kenton album. . Christy definitely had her own album here!).
You HAVE to get this to hear what the exact same arrangements played by mostly the same performers sound like in beautiful HiFi MONO and then again in beautiful STEREO. It is a treat to your hearing faculties to compare the two. Like DAY and NIGHT. . .Night and Day. . .Hey! There's a song in that line. . .
The album is great with or without the Mono / Stereo thing. . .but I sure wish this kind of thing was done more often (compare one version of a particular recording, to a Re-recording of the same thing. It's great. By the way. . .
June Christy was an excellent singer, who became famous with Stan Kenton in the early 1950's. This album is a Concept Album, in the sense that it projects a sort of bluesy. . .boosey. . .saloon singer ethos. Christy is one who definitely lived this and sent out heartfelt sound in this arena. It is too bad that she did not avoid the ethos. But we can be happy that we have the wonderful sound of June really singing her heart out. The backing arrangements and band are second to none.
Chris Tune
Customer Rating:
Summary: The Best
Comment: I missed her when I was a little kid in the 50s. It wasn't until I lived with a woman older than me in the 1970s who was a big fan from her own high school days that I heard June Christy. My father had been a big band fan and I was pretty familiar with Ella and Sara and Billie Holiday. I thought white girl singers at the time were all Rosemary Clooney and Doris Day. Then I heard June and she took my heart away. Now, at 55, I have all her capitol records, an autographed picture from the forties, a copy of her obituary that was published in the Chicago Tribune in 1990, and I still play her records (now CDs), and they still give me that exquisite joy you get from something that is emotionally perfect. This CD is particularly good, having first the mono recordings of these songs, and then the stereo recordings, in the right order. I believe this to be one of the first real concept type albums, in the sense that it fits together remarkably well, in the order that it is in. I know there was an initial shorter release on the older vinyl. And I know there are some ep versions of this set, but I am convinced that the order of the songs as it appears twice on this CD is the order that June and Pete Rugolo put it in and meant it to be heard in. This album/CD is a story, a narrative. And you can find in it a real person. June's singing, while not technically as good as some of her contemporaries, is stunning because of the intimacy she brings to the lyrics. She is right there, actually living the song. And the arrangements are just perfect. This is one of the greatest records anybody in any genre ever made.
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