Search - Lee Wiley :: Night in Manhattan

Wiley, Hackett and Bushkin, Legends of Jazz

Thomas C., Martin | Sarasota, Florida | 06/23/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Lee Wiley was born in Oklahoma in 19l5 and ran away from home at 15 to become a singer with jazz bands. She sang with the best of them, from Eddie Condon to Paul Whiteman and as a night club singer. She was featured on network radio and was a legend in her own time. Her husky, vibrant voice is charged with deep emotion and expression, as though each song was either written for her or she is making it up as she goes along. It is the voice of a woman recently jilted by the love of her life and is now singing songs in praise of love. Hackett's lyric cornet and Joe Bushkin's piano weave notes around her voice like a caress. This was probably recorded in the late 1940s, and is a terrific example of the genius that made jazz great. Save it for romantic late night listening. This is her best. You will never get over it."

Tender

algabal | 12/04/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Lee Wiley's 'Night in Manhattan' must be the most tender, yet elegant, vocal jazz album ever recorded. It's one of the few records that I can put on in any mood or moment and turn into an utter mess of emotions and nostalgia, often for things I've never even experienced. It includes many of my favorite sentimental standards (Manhattan, Ghost of a Chance, I've Got a Crush on you etc.) She's easily on par with Billie Holiday as a jazz singer, and it irks me that practically no one's heard of her: compare a little over 5 million results on google for "billie holiday" vs. a little over 90 thousand for "lee wiley". One song in particular, Oh! Look at Me Now, a rather silly little romantic ditty (with lyrics like: got a new man, what a man / he's no handsome Errol Flynn / I like his face, and his bank is Chase / half a million dollars ain't tin) is turned by Wiley into a weirdly powerful and melancholy classic. I first heard of her in that charming, but light-as-air book 'Conversations with Capote', where Capote too remarks that she "never got the credit she deserved". The album also features the wonderfully warm tones of trumpeter Bobby Hackett, whose own records are quite marvelous.

It spurs one to wonder, with music like this in circulation, how the mind-numbing work of people like Diana Krall still gets wide acclaim."