Polly Bergen & Martha Raye: Out of the Vaults

I’m as guilty as the next music fan of surrendering to the instant-gratification, shop-in-your-pajamas allure of Amazon, iTunes and their brethren sites. But I’ll confess I miss the delight of unearthing unknown treasure in an actual bricks-and-mortar record store; that feeling of coming across an utterly unexpected, jewel-cased surprise.

It still happens occasionally, and perhaps such irregularity now makes discovery that much sweeter. Such was the case a few days ago when, in the unlikeliest of places — the sort of big-box outlet that’s far more concerned with moving large amounts of Jay-Z’s latest than stocking single copies of dust-gathering rarities — I happened upon a recent CD reissue of Polly Bergen’s obscure Little Girl Blue.

Bergen’s debut album, recorded when she was just 25, it was originally released in 1955 as an 8-track 10” on the tiny Jubilee label. Bergen has always been better known as an actress than a singer, especially among contemporary audiences who recognize her as Tony Soprano’s former mistress on The Sopranos and Felicity Huffman’s pill-popping mother on Desperate Housewives.

But early in her career, before she scored big-screen success in such hits as Cape Fear (as Gregory Peck’s wife) and Move Over Darling (as Doris Day’s nemesis), she made a significant name for herself as a smoky torch singer.

Never was Bergen smokier, or torchier, than on these eight standards. Back by a subdued if somewhat fussy combo complete with harp (sadly, the CDs limited liner notes provide no sideman credits, nor do they seem to exist online), she opens with a breezy “The Way You Look Tonight” followed by an appropriately pensive “Someone to Watch Over Me.”

Stylistically, there are subtle hints of Chris Connor, though Bergen’s brand of smolder is much more intense. Sadly, tinkling piano and syrupy strings diminish the power of her minimalist reading of “A Woman Likes to Be Told.” She also does her level best to rise above the lyrical mediocrity of “I Thought of You Last Night.”

That she is as much an actress as a vocalist is first evident on “Autumn Leaves,” drenched in swirling melodrama, but reaches full, histrionic tilt on “When the World Was Young,” a tune so pretentiously overblown that it demands the sort of near-hysteric frenzy Bergen brings to it.

Best track is a toss-up between a dreamily ecstatic “Happiness Is Just a Thing Called Joe” seasoned with a dash of spicy libidinousness, and a fervently desolate reading of the title track that skirts the outer edges of madness.

Complete on: http://jazztimes.com/sections/hearingvoices/articles/27049-polly-bergen-martha-raye-out-of-the-vaults