Recorded live in 1975 and unreleased until now, this moving session by jazz singer Irene Kral offers up some of her most heartfelt renditions of many tunes associated with Irene over the years, plus a few surprises not recorded before. This wonderful live recording was performed at The Catamaran Hotel in San Diego, California and features Irene Kral with Mike Wofford on piano, Bob Magnusson on bass, and Tony Marillo on drums.
FEATURING:
Irene Kral, Vocals
Mike Wofford, Piano
Bob Magnusson, Bass
Tony Marillo, Drums
"Yet she remained an insider's favorite. Singing in a clear, diamond-hard voice, she offered a dose of the truth: love stories with no lacey trimmings, torch songs without self-pity, impeccably sculpted into neat vocal packages. Stereo Review critic Peter Reilly would call her singing "as classically pure and humanly radiant as a Renoir painting ... as fine and lasting as an Hermès wallet or a Rolls-Royce car." "But in 1975, when she made the splendid live recording you now hold, Kral was a Van Nuys housewife in the midst of a grueling battle with cancer." "But when Kral died at forty-six on August 15, 1978, no one could say she hadn't fulfilled her musical promise. This CD, culled from four performances at the Catamaran, a San Diego jazz spot, is Irene Kral at her peak."
James Gavin, New York City, 2003
[James Gavin is the author of Deep in a Dream: The Long Night of Chet Baker, published in 2002 by Knopf.]
