[78-L] Jan Savitt and vocalists

[Taylor Bowie]

I love the Jan Savitt Orch and have a Savitt CD in the car which gets a lot 
of play as I drive around.  I told someone recently that I have on more than 
one occasion played his Decca version of 720 In The Books nine or ten times 
in a row...it is so damn cheery and uplifting for me!

Some seem to object to his frequent use of the "shuffle rhythm" but I 
don't...and I don't get tired of it either.

Also I've come to the conclusion that no other band of the 30s and 40s ever 
had TWO vocalists at one time  who together were as good as Carlotta Dale 
and Bon Bon.

I've never heard Moonlight Serenade sung with such musical feeling as her 
version,  and I don't think anyone including Holiday or Sarah Vaughn or 
whoever else sang You Go To My Head any better.  She is surely the most 
under-rated band singer of the time.

Bon bon on fast numbers can't be beat...and on stuff which on paper looks 
pretty doubtful ("Just A Kid Named Joe" for one example) he sings with great 
feeling and sense of time.  The first I ever heard of him was the  Savitt 
Bluebird of Tutti Fruitti and that hooked me good!

Some might make a case that the two best singers in a band at one time were 
Sinatra and Stafford with Dorsey,  but Jo really didn't get that many 
chances to sing solo on record.

I'd be interested in the thoughts of others about  Carlotta Dale and Bon 
Bon...and Savitt.

Taylor