Track Listing

1. Life Is Just a Bowl of Cherries
2. You Make Me Feel So Young
3. Makin' Whoopee
4. Bye Bye Blues
5. It's So Peaceful in the Country
6. Joy of Living
7. It's a Big Wide Wonderful World
8. June in January
9. Isn't This a Lovely Day?
10. Indian Summer
11. It's a Grand Night for Singing
12. I Got the Sun in the Morning
13. Playboy's Theme
14. Alone Too Long
15. Queen of Hearts
16. Red Silk Stockings and Green Perfume
17. Finesse
18. Game of Poker
19. It's So Nice to Have a Man About the House
20. Witchcraft
21. Two Hearts Wild
22. You Fascinate Me So
23. Penny Ante
24. Indiscreet

Product Details

• Released on: 1997-06-25
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Import, Best of
• Dimensions: .23 pounds

Album Details
Another of the Truly Great Arrangers from Capitol Records and the One Most Associated with the Classic Albums from Sinatra's Years with the Label. Sinatra Said of Riddle's Work 'Nelson Had a Fresh Approach to Orchestration…'.

Customer Reviews

If you're a trombonist...you have to have this album
Fans of trombone players will find this album unique in the history of commercial albums. It features none other than the legendary George Roberts (in particular on "The Joy of Living"), the bass trombonist who worked in L.A. recording studios for many years, and is nicknamed "Mr. Bass Trombone". He just makes it all sound so easy, and with his penetrating (but never overbearing) sound, he takes what is usually the underpinning of a recording and brings it to the forefront. His casual style comes through even in brief non-melodic punctuations, and he makes "Makin' Whoopee" a pleasure...

Having said all this, it IS a Nelson Riddle album, and as usual, the legendary composer/arranger is at his best, and shows why Frank Sinatra considered him a genius (and is, as you may know, responsible for about 1/3 of the arrangements on Sinatra's classic Capitol recordings...pick 'em up if you don't have them--the Capitol Years boxed set is a MUST have for anyone who loves standards...). His brilliance shows through in every track, with the subtle tension and release that personifies a great arrangement.

Sound is just OK in comparison to the original LP incarnation. Even though it was remastered at Abbey Road Studios, more care could have been taken, I think...

Available only as an import from the UK (and who knows for how much longer...).

Great Music, Poor Sound
This should be a five-star review, and if it were based on the wonderful playing and (most of) the arranging it would be. But what lets the album down is the sound on the "Love is a Game of Poker" tracks. The original LP cover claims this to be "a new sound breakthrough, one that promises to fill your room with dynamic audio excitement!". Well if you're happy with an album that sounds as if it were recorded in a large aircraft hanger and with all the stress on the high frequencies, perhaps you'll agree, but all that white noise gets really tiring after a while. And what was Nelson thinking of when he added all those high pitched jingly bells to almost every background "shot"? The engineers obviously loved them judging by the amount of reverberation they're given!

The real shame is that the quality of the music (except for those bells) is outstanding: just sample "Witchcraft" or "Two Hearts Wild". Imagine if the album had been given the same sound as "The Joy of Living": or, even better, "Can Can" from another double album reissue, both produced by the great Lee Gillette.

THE JOY OF LISTENING
might have been a better title considering who was writing the charts and swinging the baton here! Nelson Riddle's contributions to music in his lifetime are peerless. His charts for almost every singer who's recognized speak for themselves (Nat King Cole's UNFORGETTABLE, the countless sides of perfection for Frank Sinatra that ressurected his fading career in the 50's would span some 20+years, not to mention Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Al Martino, Peggy Lee, Judy Garland and Ella Fitzgerald, to name a meager few) As a trombone player with Charlie Spivak's big band, he was admittedly just OK, but as an arranger he had no equal. He could easilly chart a ballad or a swinger; or make one of the other. Here are two of Nelson's orchestral outings from the good people across the pond at Capitol's UK arm, EMI. Among the standouts here : JUNE IN JANUARY, with an infectious yet ever so slight swing to it, YOU MAKE ME FEEL SO YOUNG, another chart he did with Sinatra, and Nelson's personal favorite song, INDIAN SUMMER. The overall mood on these first 12 sides is playful, gentleand light hearted swing. It is on the second half of the program, the GAME OF POKER sides that Mr. Riddle and the boys really let us have it. The sizzling speed of INDISCREET will have you amazed. And there is no tighter arrangement of brass in the world after you hear the flawless rendition of WITCHCRAFT here. Riddle himself penned a few of the tracks here (the elegant QUEEN OF HEARTS and the dazzling TWO HEARTS WILD, namely) and again, these sides were recorded almost three years after the first 12,(1959) so, if possible, Nelson was even MORE talented by this time (1962).
The good news for we Riddle fans is that EMI plans a similar "2fer" in late March featuring Nelson's two TV Theme albums on one great CD...watch for it! These EMI packages are among my favorite CDs in my collection; painstaking work on remastering is a given, and reproduction of liner notes and original artwork as always. Enjoy listening!