Sarah Vaughan and the Count Basie Orchestra “Send In the Clowns”

I guess this 1981 record is pretty late in the careers of Sarah Vaughan and Count Basie—though it’s the Basie Orchestra, no Count Basie present—and Sarah Vaughan is more than present—this is some strong, full-of-personality singing, and the record sounds great. The big band is really big, overly big, loud and full—but I like that it’s a vinyl record, and is warm and present, and it doesn’t have that cleaned-up digital robot sound of contemporary big band stuff, like you hear in restaurants. (For me, 1980 forward is “contemporary.”) The Count Basie Orchestra apparently made appearances without him in attendance, and this is one—and they made records after his death (still going strong to this day). I wouldn’t presume to be able to judge Sarah Vaughan performances against each other, as I only have a handful of her records, but if there are ones that sound better than this (and the odds are likely, just because she has lots of records) those must be impressive indeed. By the way, I have another Sarah Vaughan record that is titled “Send In the Clowns”—it’s from 1974, and it’s a good record. She must have loved this song, and her dramatic interpretation here is as good a version of that song as I’ve heard. In spite of the C-word reference, it’s not one of my favorite songs. I always felt like it was around forever, but it’s from a Sondheim musical in 1973—after which everybody and their singing Aunt had to cover it. I do like the sentiment, but I find the song pretty cornball. I’m glad I like the version here. And I like all of the rest of the songs here—lots of the usual standards—all good stuff. My favorite is “If You Could See Me Now.” Great liner notes, by Dan Morgenstern—interesting and smart. And the cover is a nice photo of Sarah Vaughan in action—not as memorable as the clown photo on the other “Clowns” record, but that’s more or less, in this case, I don’t mind saying it, not an entirely bad thing.

4.18.25