Record of the Day: June Christy, “Something Cool”

June Christy
“Something Cool” (Capitol Jazz CD 724353406929)

An iced drink (very necessary on these hot days) stands out on the cover of the album, one of the classics
in the field of vocal jazz.
Shirley Luster, alias Sharon Leslie, alias June Christy is one of the greatest interpreters of the cool jazz genre, an unforgettable solo voice in Stan Kenton’s orchestra, a musician with whom she had a symbiotic musical relationship for nine years, embodying in her crystalline voice and distant, almost cold figure the refined timbres that the bandleader’s arrangements proposed to listeners, clearly differentiating herself from the style of Anita O’Day who had preceded her in the lineup.

In 1954 June embarked on a solo career which, although never reaching very high sales peaks (with the exception of
the album we are talking about today) always remained at an excellent level of quality thanks also to the collaboration with the great arranger Pete Rugolo, who tailor-made for Christie’s voice scores in pastel colors that highlighted the refinement of her phrasing and her ability to evoke strong and contrasting feelings using small nuances, without melodramatic excesses.

“Something Cool”, released in 1954 as an EP, is perhaps the album where June’s vocal beauty and Rugolo’s writing ability achieve the best results. The melancholy of the title track finds in Christie a perfect interpreter of the solitude in which the song’s protagonist moves, whose desperation appears even more accentuated by the apparent nonchalance of the interpretation. The same expressive ability is found in titles such as “Midnight Sun”, “Lonely House” and “I Should Care” of which June offers us one of the definitive versions.

The advent of the 33 rpm long-playing record pushed the singer to record four more songs to adapt to the new format; the new version remained for a long time in the charts of best-selling titles in those years.
When Stereo revolutionized the recording industry again, Capitol asked Rugolo and Christie to re-record the entire album using the new technology, which June did with absolute technical perfection even if the feeling of the original edition was probably not achieved; today it is finally possible to listen to and compare the two versions on this excellently remastered CD.

Carlo Boccadoro, composer and conductor, was born in Macerata in 1963. He lives and works in Milan. He collaborates with soloists and orchestras in different parts of the world. He is the author of numerous books on musical subjects.

This text is taken from “Lunario della musica: Un disco per ogni giorno dell’anno” published by Einaudi, courtesy of the author and the publisher.