Go Slow - The Life of Julie London by Michael Owen

© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

"Beautifully crafted and stunningly researched, this entertaining biography of Julie London reminds us of why she matters, now and for always. It is a great read!"

— Michael Feinstein, singer and entertainer

"Go Slow offers us a long-awaited, highly detailed look at a neglected jazz and

pop singer who has always been worthy of greater recognition and attention.

The author provides lots of new information and historical context, while, to

his credit, resisting the temptation to make outrageous claims for his subject.

I learned a lot that I didn't know and it made me want to hear more."

-Will Friedwald, author of Stardust Melodies and Sinatra! The Song Is You

"Michael Owen tells the unique story of a singular talent and reluctant

celebrity with dispassionate appreciation, weaving personal life and

professional history into the tale of a woman who was steadfast in her

personal passions and career path without the ego and ambition that drives

so many other singers and actors. Neither sycophant nor assassin, Owen

deftly chronicles Julie London's life with both empathy and objectivity."

— Michael Cuscuna record producer, writer, and discographer

"Go Slow is a sensitive, informative biography, inviting the reader to

discover Julie London's unique and solitary contribution to the history

of American music. With an ear for tone and an eye for story, Michael

Owen leads us seamlessly through a life fashioned for style, revealing

an instinctive range where just enough sound can occupy a space,

exploiting every lyrical nuance along the way.

"As Go Slow discloses, through years of struggle and turmoil, an irony

was born that would further distill some of Julie's finest work as an interpreter of popular song. Esteemed jazz vocalists and musicians loved

and respected her. A generous spirit to her family and friends,Julie

London was one grand dame and there will never be anyone like her.

Thanks to Michael Owen, we begin to understand why."

— Kevin Tighe, actor, Emergency!

In his essay for the July 31, 2017 edition of The Wall Street Journal entitled The Versatile Robert Mitchum, Peter Tonguette shares that:

“Filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich once asserted that movie stars were not far removed from the gods and goddesses of Greek mythology. “They were no longer actors playing parts,” Bogdanovich wrote in his 2004 book Who the Hell’s in It, because all their roles merged into one definitive character, one special folk hero, similar to but not necessarily identical with the original mortal.”

Stars usually displayed a finite series of easily identifiable attributes — not unlike Greek deities who stood for particular virtues or vices. Think of Cary Grant’s breezy poise or Jimmy Stewart’s sputtering sincerity, qualities that neither performer deviated from too often.”

If we expand Bogdanovich’s analogy to include the late actress and song stylist, Julie London, then perhaps the best mythological comparisons would be with the Greek Goddesses Aphrodite [Venus] and Erato.

Aphrodite (/æfrəˈdaɪti/ af-rə-DY-tee; Greek: Ἀφροδίτη Aphrodite) is the Greek goddess of love, beauty, pleasure, and procreation. She is identified with the planet Venus; her Roman equivalent is the goddess Venus. Erato was one of the nine Mousai (Muses), the goddesses of music, song and dance.and love and erotic poetry [later adopted by the Romans as part of their Pantheon of Gods].

But such comparisons would perpetuate the unfortunate fact that, all too often in her career, Julie London was perceived as an object of eroticism and as a chanteuse, a songstress often referred to as a “torch singer,” to the point that when she wasn’t being cast in movies and television roles that capitalized on her beautiful face, shapely figure and sultry voice she was posing provocatively on LP covers for albums filled with songs for young lovers to do what young lovers long to do.

But that was the image.

The reality of who Julie London was is much deeper than these facile and superficial portrayals.

Now, thanks to Michael Owen’s well-researched and explorative biography, we begin to see what a skilled, multi-talented entertainer Julie London was and to understand that the key to Julie’s legacy was her versatility.

One of the central facts that Michael’s book brings home is how hard Julie worked to make a career in show business. From his detailed descriptions, the reader gains an appreciation of the long hours spent in rehearsals, travels, waiting on movie sets from sunup to sundown, studying scripts, learning dance steps, practicing lyrics, dealing with agents, brokers and a host of other “intermediaries,” all of this, particularly in Julie’s case, while trying to maintain some semblance of a normal family and home life.

Michael’s sensitive and insightful biography of Julie certainly takes the glamor off an ostensibly glamorous life.

Throughout her career, Julie struggled to overcome issues of confidence, anxiety, low self-esteem, insecurity, chronic shyness and a dread of performing in public.

But despite these severe emotional and psychological “demons,” Julie got there: she realized her professional and personal goals by not giving up on herself and by benefitting immensely from the love and adoration of her soulmate, pianist and songwriter, Bobby Troup.

Through Michael’s skillful storytelling, readers are treated to an intimate look at what went into developing the creative life that was Julie London, the entertainer, while also being allow access to the family and home life that completed her as a human being.

Sadly, all too often, show business people during this era led personal lives that were ongoing disasters that ended badly.

But this was not the case with Julie and Michael’s description about her qualities of character help us see and appreciate the heartwarming story of how Julie and Bobby were able to make show business a means-to-an-end toward balancing creative expression with the satisfaction of a happy home life.

So if you want to read a biography about a centered, mid-level celebrity who loved show business and left it, so to speak, for the satisfaction of deep personal and familial love and a life in tune with her inner needs, then you’ll find Michael Owen’s Go Slow: The Life of Julie London to be a deeply gratifying book.

Michael closes the book with this all-encompassing perspective on Julie and her career:

“Julie London could have been a star for the ages, one who was remembered as that rare thing: a performer who successfully crossed and recrossed the barriers between acting and singing. That sort of success did not come. Her innate reluctance to exert herself as an actress—to stretch beyond her limitations—and, some would say, her lack of ability, meant that she remained a middle-level star. Clearly, she wanted to work as little as possible and therefore was largely content to leave her career up to the whims of chance. By her own definition, Julie London was happy to be known as a wife, a mother, or a friend rather than as a singer, an actress, or a celebrity.

But did she ever look back and wonder how she had been able to find her place in the sun? Did she ever think about what her life would have been like had she made even a few different decisions? Probably. Yet there is little doubt that Julie London would surely have dismissed any extended praise of her work as a singer or actress with a deep shrug of the shoulders, a long drag on her cigarette, a sip of her vodka and orange juice, and a well-placed expletive.

For all her success as an interpreter of lyrics, in the end a snatch of dialogue from her 1956 movie The Girl Can't Help It may shine a light onto the woman behind the facade and help us understand why she was not reluctant to slip away from fame into a self-imposed obscurity. "If a girl's gonna make it big in show business," talent agent Tom Miller says as he recalls his reluctant star, "she's got to be vitally interested in it." A teenaged Gayle Peck may have vowed to become a star one day, yet it was the older and wiser Julie London who had the final words on her career. "You gotta have the ego for it. And I never really did."”

The Chicago Review Press’ Caitlin Eck, Publicity Manager, and Ashley Alfirevic, Publicity Associate, sent along the following media release which contains more details about the book and you can find order information about the book’s various formats by going here.

Following the Chicago Review Press media release you’ll find a video montage set to Julie performing Free and Easy on a the Stars of Jazz TV program that Bobby Troup hosted.  Free and Easy might have served as an alternate title for Michael’s book about Julie.

Dazzling new biography—Go Slow: The Life of Julie London—explores a storied and sultry career in music, film

and television

“CHICAGO—Julie London was a pop-jazz singer and actress during the height of glamour in Hollywood. Her smoky voice, cool sexuality and self-confident demeanor captivated audiences around the world. The mysterious bombshell persona often concealed a shy and rather introverted manner that remained at her core no matter how many performances she gave. Ironically, it was this lifelong fear of singing to anyone but herself that helped to create the iconic breathy sound for which she became known.

Go Slow: The Life of Julie London (Chicago Review Press; July 1, 2017) by Michael Owen explores the struggles, heartache and overwhelming loss of identity that consumed Julie's youthful start, as well as the many leaps of faith she took in order find joy in the world of entertainment. The book follows Julie London's life and career through its many stages: her transformation from 1940s movie starlet to the coolly defiant singer of the classic torch ballad "Cry Me a River" of the 1950s, and her journey from Las Vegas hotel entertainer during the rock 'n' roll revolution of the 1960s to the no-nonsense nurse she portrayed in the 1970s hit television series Emergency!

A self-proclaimed wallflower, Julie London had little interest in fame. Hollywood scouts were taken by her stunning and curvaceous appearance and she signed a studio contract when she was 16. Her early career stumbled from roles in one unsuccessful movie after another, and over time, the allure of acting began to wane. Marriage to actor Jack Webb turned sour, and the stress of divorce, raising her children, and incessant gossip left Julie adrift. Struggling to find herself, her life was changed when she took the advice of her new sweetheart, songwriter Bobby Troup, to try singing. The unexpected #1 success of her first album—and its hit single, "Cry Me a River," which spent 20 weeks in the Billboard charts—reignited the interest of the movie studio executives who had previously consigned her to the shelves.

Through photos, film stills, thoughtfully collected interviews and exclusive archival materials, Go Slow: The Life of Julie London offers an intimate look at Julie London's memorable public career and the sharp contrasts of her private life.

Michael Owen is a writer, archivist, and researcher. A historian of popular music and culture, he is the Consulting Archivist to the estate of the songwriter Ira Gershwin, for which he is currently completing a scholarly, annotated book of Ira Gershwin's 1928 travel journal as part of the Gershwin Critical Edition project. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife and their cat.

Go Slow: The Life of Julie London

By Michael Owen    Chicago Review Press    Distributed by IPG    Music/Biography ISBN: 9781613738573    336 pages    6x9   19 color photos, 36 b/w photos   Cloth    $29.99 ($39.99)”

Bobby Troup – Stars of Jazz

© -  Steven A. Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

“About Bobby Troup...

He sang as though he had just half a voice. No volume, it was all about confiding. Some­times he croaked out a line, next minute he'd released a word as though he was doubtful about delivering it to the world at large. Bobby Troup never played to the gallery, never went for the big one. Yet, despite - or rather because of - such reluctance, allied to a lemon-twist quality that fell oddly on unaccustomed ears, the man from Harrisburg, PA. still qualified as Mr. Cool, the vocal equivalent of a Paul Desmond alto solo maybe. He sounded like no one else. And no one else has ever sounded like him.”

- Fred Dellar, Mojo Magazine

We wrote about composer, pianist and vocalist Bobby Troup in an earlier feature about him and Julie London which you can locate in the blog archives by going here.

Many of us first “met” Bobby in the 1950s when he hosted the Emmy award winning ABC television series, Stars of Jazz.

Can you imagine - a regular, weekly series on a major television network devoted to Jazz?

It was cool and so was Bobby.

Since it was based in Los Angeles, most of the groups that appeared on the show were associated with was then labeled the “West Coast” school of Jazz.

There are two wonderful books on this subject: Ted Gioia, West Coast Jazz: Modern Jazz in California, 1945-1960 and Robert Gordon, Jazz West Coast, The Los Angeles Jazz Scene of the 1950s.

A number of years ago, The California Institute of Jazz made available to those in attendance at its Spring 1999 4-day festival celebrating West Coast Jazz , a wonderful CD of the music from the Stars of Jazz series.

Ken Poston, the director of the institute, wrote the following in the insert booklet which accompanied the compendium:

“This anthology has been assembled exclusively for JAZZ WEST COAST II, presented by the California Institute for the Preservation of Jazz. All of the material comes from various Bobby Troup Stars of Jazz television broadcasts. Stars of Jazz debuted in the summer of 1956 on KABC, Los Angeles. It was unheard of in the mid 1950s to televise jazz on a regular basis, but because of the dedication of producer Jimmie Baker, program director Pete Robinson and host Bobby Troup the program aired for over two years. It was sponsored by Budweiser and eventually went from a local to network broadcast. The selections on this disc represent the incredible range of artists that were beamed into your living room every night.”

—Ken Poston

Incidentally, Ken’s organization, which now carries the name – The Los Angeles Jazz Institute [LAJI] – continues to sponsor semi-annual, four day festivals, as well as, one-day commemorative events. You can find out more about these programs by visiting Ken’s website.

In addition to the LAJI’s repository of goodies, Ray Avery, the late photographer and Jazz recordings maven, was allowed to photograph the Stars of Jazz.

A compilation of Ray photographs from these shows was published in 1998.

Cynthia T. Sesso, who in her own right is a major authority on Jazz photography, licenses Ray’s work along with the images of a number of other photographers who specialized in Jazz.

Cynthia has been a great friend to JazzProfiles over the years in allowing us to use photographs by her clients on these pages.

You can find out more about Cynthia and her work at her website. She may also have copies of Ray’s book about Stars of Jazz still available for sale.

Her are some excerpts from the book’s introduction regarding how Ray came to be involved with the show and Bobby Troup’s role as contained in an interview that Ray gave to Will Thornbury.

© -  Cynthia T. Sesso/CTSimages, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

“…, my photography flowed naturally out of my involvement in my record store. At that time I wasn't well known as a photographer. I just happened to be there and I had an entrée because I was in the record business. Most of the small record companies knew about me because I was carrying their product in my store, they would invite me to record sessions. I was very seldom paid for a session, except if they bought some photos. …

One day a friend of mine asked if I'd seen "Stars Of Jazz" and I said I hadn't, so I checked the newspaper and found out when it was going to be on. I just went down, I think it was the second or third show, and I asked them if I could photograph it. They were very friendly and said yes, of course, just be careful and don't fall over any cords or walk in front of any cameras."

The host for all but two Stars of Jazz episodes was Bobby Troup. He embodied the essence of the show - straightforward, genuine and creative. Perhaps some of the show's viewers from outside the jazz world were pulled in through Troup's accessibility. He wore a crew cut. He was a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in business and had written many of the nation's favorite songs "Route 66", "Daddy", "Lemon Twist", songs that crossed over from the jazz to the popular charts. In addition to writing songs, he was also an active musician and would perform often on the show.

"Bobby was the perfect man", notes Jimmie Baker. 'There were some people who wanted to have a bigger name, but nobody else could do it. Nobody else had the appeal that Bobby had." Avery adds, "Bobby was a good musician, had written great songs and he could be a great master of ceremonies. That's a combination they couldn't find in anyone else. He spoke really well - he didn't want any of those corny jazz lines in the script, which was good. He was a really good interviewer. He made people feel so comfortable when they were there. And of course they respected him as a musician, many of the sets featured Bobby at the piano."

"All the musicians had so much faith in the presentation of "Stars of Jazz"," Troup says. "They thought it was the best jazz show they'd ever seen. Did you know the story of how "Stars of Jazz" got started? Pete Robinson, Jimmie Baker, and Bob Arbogast were all jazz buffs. I mean they really loved jazz, and there was this executive, Seligman, graduated from Harvard, Phi Beta Kappa, and they were on him constantly to let them do this jazz show. Finally just to get them out of his hair, he said 'OK, I'll give you a studio, a camera, you have to write it, you have to arrange every musician, no more than scale, and I'll give you three weeks to run the show.' The first show was Stan Getz. And they screened quite a few people and for some reason or another they picked me to be the host. I'm sure glad they did. Every night was a highlight, every night. I did the show for scale, it amounted to $60 maybe $70 a night. When we went network I got scale for network, which was more."

Avery adds, "in those days there weren't the camera men that there are today. Now you go to a concert and there's fifty people with cameras, but before, maybe half a dozen of us would show up. Consequently, the photos taken in my early period are the ones that are in demand now because not many people have them."”

Ironically, Seligman, who authorized Stars of Jazz and was very boastful of the program when it won an Emmy Award, never supported the show for a regular timeslot when it went national on ABC.

Despite the critical acclaim it received, the show was cancelled of January, 1959 due to “low ratings.” Seligman was also responsible for ordering that the tapes of the 130 episodes of Stars of Jazz be erased so that they could be reused. After all, each tape cost $400. Of course, what was recorded on them was priceless!

I guess “Those whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad?”

Mercifully, Jimmy Baker of the show’s production team was able to save 35mm’s and 81 of the early kinescopes, all of which now reside for posterity in the UCLA Film Library.

                                                           

More of the music from the series is available on a commercial RCA CD - Bobby Troup Stars of Jazz [74321433962] - from which we’ve drawn the music for the following tribute.

In his insert notes to the recording, Pete Robinson, one of the show’s producers, wrote the following:

“It has been observed that People Who Live in Glass Houses Shouldn't Throw Stones, and since Bobby Troup's particular glass house is a collective one, consisting of 17- and 24-inch television screens the country over, it is most important that his participation in the realm of jazz be exemplary. It is.

As one playing of the enclosed collection will attest, Mister Troup's qualities of tempo, intonation, taste and interpretation place him in good stead as a jazz singer of considerable merit. Nominations in the Down Beat and Playboy polls add further to his vocal status.

These fans, however, will come as no sur­prise to the initiated. Bobby's work has had more than a little exposure on records. What IS new is the extraordinary group of jazz musicians who here­with are represented in tandem with Troup. Bobby's presence as narrator of ABC-TV's "Stars of Jazz" for the past three years has found him rubbing elbows with players from every corner of jazz. (A total of 714 of them at this writing, for those who find security in statistics.)

It was, then, only a matter of time until an elite group of these jazzmen should come together with Troup for the purpose of recording. When Shorty Rogers and Jimmy Rowles became available to provide arrangements, the time was ripe.”

The audio track on the video is Bobby singing Free and Easy which he co-wrote with Henry Mancini. The trumpet solos are by Pete and Conte Candoli and Jimmy Rowles wrote the arrangement.

Bobby Troup – Stars of Jazz [From the Archives]

© -  Steven A. Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

I am re-posting this piece in order to show-off our brand, spanking new Stars of Jazz video tribute that you will find at its conclusion.

Doesn't anyone say "brand, spanking new" anymore?

“About Bobby Troup...

He sang as though he had just half a voice. No volume, it was all about confiding. Some­times he croaked out a line, next minute he'd released a word as though he was doubtful about delivering it to the world at large. Bobby Troup never played to the gallery, never went for the big one. Yet, despite - or rather because of - such reluctance, allied to a lemon-twist quality that fell oddly on unaccustomed ears, the man from Harrisburg, PA. still qualified as Mr. Cool, the vocal equivalent of a Paul Desmond alto solo maybe. He sounded like no one else. And no one else has ever sounded like him.”

- Fred Dellar, Mojo Magazine

We wrote about composer, pianist and vocalist Bobby Troup in an earlier feature about him and Julie London which you can locate in the blog archives by going here.

Many of us first “met” Bobby in the 1950s when he hosted the Emmy award wining ABC television series, Stars of Jazz.

Can you imagine - a regular, weekly series on a major television network devoted to Jazz?

It was cool and so was Bobby.

Since it was based in Los Angeles, most of the groups that appeared on the show were associated with was then labeled the “West Coast” school of Jazz.

There are two wonderful books on this subject in English: Ted Gioia, West Coast Jazz: Modern Jazz in California, 1945-1960 and Robert Gordon, Jazz West Coast, The Los Angeles Jazz Scene of the 1950s.

A number of years ago, The California Institute of Jazz made available to those in attendance at its Spring 1999 4-day festival celebrating West Coast Jazz , a wonderful CD of the music from the Stars of Jazz series.

Ken Poston, the director of the institute, wrote the following in the insert booklet which accompanied the compendium:

“This anthology has been assembled exclusively for JAZZ WEST COAST II, presented by the California Institute for the Preservation of Jazz. All of the material comes from various Bobby Troup Stars of Jazz television broadcasts. Stars of Jazz debuted in the summer of 1956 on KABC, Los Angeles. It was unheard of in the mid 1950s to televise jazz on a regular basis, but because of the dedication of producer Jimmie Baker, program director Pete Robinson and host Bobby Troup the program aired for over two years. It was sponsored by Budweiser and eventually went from a local to network broadcast. The selections on this disc represent the incredible range of artists that were beamed into your living room every night.”

—Ken Poston

Incidentally, Ken’s organization, which now carries the name – The Los Angeles Jazz Institute [LAJI] – continues to sponsor semi-annual, four day festivals, as well as, one-day commemorative events. You can find out more about these programs by visiting Ken’s website.

In addition to the LAJI’s repository of goodies, Ray Avery, the late photographer and Jazz recordings maven, was allowed to photograph the Stars of Jazz.

A compilation of Ray photographs from these shows was published in 1998.

Cynthia T. Sesso, who in her own right is a major authority on Jazz photography, licenses Ray’s work along with the images of a number of other photographers who specialized in Jazz.

Cynthia has been a great friend to JazzProfiles over the years in allowing us to use photographs by her clients on these pages.

You can find out more about Cynthia and her work at her website. She may also have copies of Ray’s book about Stars of Jazz still available for sale.

Her are some excerpts from the book’s introduction regarding how Ray came to be involved with the show and Bobby Troup’s role as contained in an interview that Ray gave to Will Thornbury.

© -  Cynthia T. Sesso/CTSimages, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

“…, my photography flowed naturally out of my involvement in my record store. At that time I wasn't well known as a photographer. I just happened to be there and I had an entrée because I was in the record business. Most of the small record companies knew about me because I was carrying their product in my store, they would invite me to record sessions. I was very seldom paid for a session, except if they bought some photos. …

One day a friend of mine asked if I'd seen "Stars Of Jazz" and I said I hadn't, so I checked the newspaper and found out when it was going to be on. I just went down, I think it was the second or third show, and I asked them if I could photograph it. They were very friendly and said yes, of course, just be careful and don't fall over any cords or walk in front of any cameras."

The host for all but two Stars of Jazz episodes was Bobby Troup. He embodied the essence of the show - straightforward, genuine and creative. Perhaps some of the show's viewers from outside the jazz world were pulled in through Troup's accessibility. He wore a crew cut. He was a graduate of
the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in business and had written many of the nation's favorite songs "Route 66", "Daddy", "Lemon Twist", songs that crossed over from the jazz to the popular charts. In addition to writing songs, he was also an active musician and would perform often on the show.

"Bobby was the perfect man", notes Jimmie Baker. 'There were some people who wanted to have a bigger name, but nobody else could do it. Nobody else had the appeal that Bobby had." Avery adds, "Bobby was a good musician, had written great songs and he could be a great master of ceremonies. That's a combination they couldn't find in anyone else. He spoke really well - he didn't want any of those corny jazz lines in the script, which was good. He was a really good interviewer. He made people feel so comfortable when they were there. And of course they respected him as a musician, many of the sets featured Bobby at the piano."

"All the musicians had so much faith in the presentation of "Stars of Jazz"," Troup says. "They thought it was the best jazz show they'd ever seen. Did you know the story of how "Stars of Jazz" got started? Pete Robinson, Jimmie Baker, and Bob Arbogast were all jazz buffs. I mean they really loved jazz, and there was this executive, Seligman, graduated from Harvard, Phi Beta Kappa, and they were on him constantly to let them do this jazz show. Finally just to get them out of his hair, he said 'OK, I'll give you a studio, a camera, you have to write it, you have to arrange every musician, no more than scale, and I'll give you three weeks to run the show.' The first show was Stan Getz. And they screened quite a few people and for some reason or another they picked me to be the host. I'm sure glad they did. Every night was a highlight, every night. I did the show for scale, it amounted to $60 maybe $70 a night. When we went network I got scale for network, which was more."

Avery adds, "in those days there weren't the camera men that there are today. Now you go to a concert and there's fifty people with cameras, but before, maybe half a dozen of us would show up. Consequently, the photos taken in my early period are the ones that are in demand now because not many people have them."”

Ironically, Seligman, who authorized Stars of Jazz and was very boastful of the program when it won an Emmy Award, never supported the show for a regular timeslot when it went national on ABC.

Despite the critical acclaim it received, the show was cancelled of January, 1959 due to “low ratings.” Seligman was also responsible for ordering that the tapes of the 130 episodes of Stars of Jazz be erased so that they could be reused. After all, each tape cost $400. Of course, what was recorded on them was priceless!

I guess “Those whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad?”

Mercifully, Jimmy Baker of the show’s production team was able to save 35mm’s and 81 of the early kinescopes, all of which now reside for posterity in the UCLA Film Library.

                                                           

More of the music from the series is available on a commercial RCA CD - Bobby Troup Stars of Jazz [74321433962] - from which we’ve drawn the music for the following tribute.

In his insert notes to the recording, Pete Robinson, one of the show’s producers, wrote the following:

“It has been observed that People Who Live in Glass Houses Shouldn't Throw Stones, and since Bobby Troup's particular glass house is a collective one, consisting of 17- and 24-inch television screens the country over, it is most important that his participation in the realm of jazz be exemplary. It is.

As one playing of the enclosed collection will attest, Mister Troup's qualities of tempo, intonation, taste and interpretation place him in good stead as a jazz singer of considerable merit. Nominations in the Down Beat and Playboy polls add further to his vocal status.

These fans, however, will come as no sur­prise to the initiated. Bobby's work has had more than a little exposure on records. What IS new is the extraordinary group of jazz musicians who here­with are represented in tandem with Troup. Bobby's presence as narrator of ABC-TV's "Stars of Jazz" for the past three years has found him rubbing elbows with players from every corner of jazz. (A total of 714 of them at this writing, for those who find security in statistics.)

It was, then, only a matter of time until an elite group of these jazzmen should come together with Troup for the purpose of recording. When Shorty Rogers and Jimmy Rowles became available to provide arrangements, the time was ripe.”

The audio track on the following video is the Dave Pell Octet performing Marty Paich's arrangement of Mountain Greenery.