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Cybill Getz Better
1978
CD-$9.99
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"Cybill Shepherd knows the material, both in reading the
lyrics and reacting to her accompanists."
ONE OF THE GREAT non-issues of all time, for me, was always
the prejudice some people are supposed to hold against spectacularly
beautiful people. For one thing it most definitely wasn't a problem
I was very likely to have. For another, good looking people usually
seem to do better than their uglier brothers and sisters. But Joe
Baltake, the Passionate Moviegoer, has finally changed my mind.
The problem exists. It took him several years, but he proved it.
Joe is a Cybill Shepherd fancier of great dedication. For me, she
was always a pretty good actress who looked so good that my teeth
hurt just from looking at her. "The Last Picture Show"
alone has her locked into my mind forever. But Joe paid more attention.
He even liked her in the far less impressive films she made later,
the ones I never bothered to see. Film critics, of course, see everything.
Which brings us to the point. Joe walked in early this week with
a record. On the cover was that familiar beautiful woman. In a corner
was an inscription in ink reading, "love to Joe," proving
that she knows who her friends are. He insisted that I listen to
it and turned his treasure over to me, pausing only to threaten
dire events if he didn't get it back. I was dubious. I'M NOT
ANY MORE. "Mad About the Boy" (Inner City) is one
nice record, on which Shepherd sings classics like the Noel Coward
title song, accompanied by such eminences as Stan Getz and Frank
Rosolino.
She is a beautiful model and an accomplished actress. She is also
a fine, very musical singer with a nice touch on both jazz standards
and the Brazilian sound that's fascinated Getz for years.
The album was recorded nearly four years ago, a long time for material
this good to go unheard. It is also the work of a woman who was
a singer before the modeling and acting careers began and has learned
a great deal along the way. She knows the material, both in reading
the lyrics and hearing her accompanists and reacting to them. Perhaps
jazz vocalists won't be extinct when people like Betty Carter and
Sarah Vaughn end their careers after all. THAT'S NOT TO SAY
that Shepherd has their kind of overwhelming pipes. She doesn't.
Very few people, even some great ones didn't. She is much more reminiscent
of singers like the older Frank Sinatra or Lee Wiley, singers whose
ears and intelligence are primary factors in their styles. Getz'
tenor is the major instrument. As usual, it is impeccably right.
Probably the greatest compliment to Shepherd's performance here
is that she reaches the level of her own musicians, most emphatically
on "I'm Old Fashioned." Matter of fact, she even reaches
the level of the songs, which also include marvelous old tunes as
"Speak Low," "I Can't Get Started" and "It
Never Entered My Mind." Instead of being just another aging
model, Shepherd has impressively shown that she's a very good young
jazz singer, a trade that has a great deal more utility than showing
off the latest clothes anyway. Besides, you can still do it when
you're 64. I'm not quite ready to send off a check to the Gorgeous
Liberation Movement, but I am convinced that a fine talent has been
held back because its owner seems to a lot of people to be entirely
too beautiful to sing as well as she does.
RICH AREGOOD
Philadelphia Daily News
"MAD ABOUT THE BOY"
Cybill Shepherd and Stan Getz. (Inner City Records 1097). You could
astound your friends at parties by throwing the voice on "Mad
About the Boy" at them and asking "Guess who?" Warm,
lilting, soft, swinging, raising nice echoes here and there of Lee
Wile y and even of Ella, but it's Cybill Shepherd, backed by saxman
Stan Getz at his own most melodic, imaginative and supportive, with
a rhythm section. The actress is best and most ingratiating when
she is gentlest, confident when she aspires to belt, but on Alberto
Ginastera's "Triste" and on "It Never Entered My
Mind," for examples, she and Getz are a terrific teaming, which
would never have entered my mind.
Charles Champlin
Los Angeles Times
When Cybill mentioned to me, quite casually, that she had recorded
an album a couple of years ago, featuring Stan Getz, that had never
been released, my interest was understandably piqued. I already
had valid evidence of her warm, convincing and unpretentious vocal
talent, through an album she had sent me, made for a small company
in her home town of Memphis, Tenn. The fact that she selected Phineas
Newborn and some of the best black musicians in
Fm 'is company her id some't0hiang about her musical taste.
Cybill Shepherd is no vocal dilettante. She was a singer before
she was an actress; but after her 1968 victory as National Model
of the Year, and her transition from modeling to movies, her aspirations
as a singer were kept largely in limbo.
Now she is back, playing the better jazz rooms, invariably accompanied
by a splendid rhythm section. In selecting Stan Getz as her principal
accompanist (and virtual co star on several tracks), and Oscar Castro
Neves to sketch the charts and play guitar, Cybill indicated her
true sense of direction. Given this elegant setting, and having
made an admirable choice of songs, she reached a peak in this album.
All the right influences can be detected here: a touch of Lee Wiley,
and, as she puts it, "I've listened to Louis Armstrong, of
all periods, and of course Billie Holiday. As for Tony Bennett,
I have practically worn out the first album he made with Bill Evans."
There will be many among us who will practically wear out Cybill
Shepherd's album with Stan Getz. It is the stuff of which jazz vocal
Grammy award winners are made.
Leonard Feather
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