Tatum Langley: Tatum's Swingin' Session

Change the face (and figure) on the cover of Tatum's Swingin' Session!!!, the Chicago-based Shout Section Big Band's fifth recording, and what is left is an almost exact replica of an album cover released by Capitol Records in 1961, depicting a swingin' session led by another rather well-known interpreter of popular song surnamed Sinatra...down to and including the three exclamation marks.

It would be good to note that the resemblance endures on the album itself, but there was only one Frank Sinatra, and as the saying goes, we will never see (or hear) his like again, a truism that all the album covers in the world could never change. Having said that, it should be noted that Tatum Langley (Sinatra's stand-in on the album cover) is a very good singer in her own right who lends every one of the fourteen songs on her Swingin' Session!!! the best she has to offer. Her best includes a pleasing mid-range voice, superb diction, an engaging personality and an admirable sense of rhythm, timing and swing.

Even though Langley is no Sinatra or Ella Fitzgerald, lacking whatever indefinable quality made them unique in the pantheon of pop vocalists, neither does she sell herself short, swinging strongly on every number and doing so on-key and with an abundance of vitality and charm. She even swings in a lower-key manner on ballads such as Ray Noble's "I Hadn't Anyone 'Til You" and Irving Berlin's "The Song Is Ended." In that way, she does Sinatra proud, as he never stopped swinging regardless of mood or tempo; the swing component was simply built in.

The wide-ranging Swingin' Session!!! opens with "Deedle's Blues" and includes, among other winners, "Ridin' High," "You Came a Long Way from St. Louis," "Sing," "On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe" and the Beatles' "A Hard Day's Night." Cy Coleman and Carolyn Leigh's "Pass Me By" is a pleasant surprise, and there is even a bonus track, Cole Porter's convivial "You're the Top." Langley nails every one of them, as she does "That's My Style," "All the Cats Join In" and "Swingin' on Nothing," even scatting her way through the groovy "Smooth Sailing."

Even though Langley is clearly the stellar attraction, the support given by the Shout Section band should not be underplayed, as it is essential to the album's success. The band is sharp and on its toes throughout, lending Langley all the reinforcement she needs while throwing in the occasional animated solo to help lighten the load and divert the listener. No, this isn't Sinatra—that pinnacle may never be seen again—but it is a Swingin' Session!!! that lives up to the name, one that is well worth hearing and appreciating more than once.