Chicago: The Living Legends

Performer: Alberta Hunter
Engineer: Barrett Clark
Producer: Chris Albertson
Distributor: Fantasy (distributor)

Notes: Personnel: Alberta Hunter (vocals), Lovie Austin (piano), Jimmy Archey (trombone), Darnell Howard (clarinet), Pops Foster (bass) and Jaspar Taylor (drums). Recorded in Chicago on September 1, 1961. Includes original liner notes by Chris Albertson. Digital remastering by Phil De Lancie (1991, Fantasy Studios, Berkeley). This CD reissue is notable for two main reasons. It finds Alberta Hunter (who had retired from music in 1954 to become a nurse and who in the interim had only recorded once, two weeks earlier) in peak form on such numbers as "St. Louis Blues," "Downhearted Blues" and "You Better Change." In addition, it was pianist Lovie Austin's first recording in a couple decades; she was nearly 74 at the time and working as pianist at a Chicago dancing school. Austin's "Blues Serenaders" (a quintet also including trombonist Jimmy Archey, clarinetist Darnell Howard, bassist Pops Foster and drummer Jasper Taylor) has some concise solo space on the vocal pieces and takes three numbers (including Austin's "Gallion Stomp") as instrumentals. A well-conceived and historic set. ~ Scott Yanow

One of the earliest recorded blues acts, Hunter sang with a clarity of diction and tone that made her music accessible to white audiences. At the height of her popularity, she recorded with nearly all her great jazz contemporaries, among them Louis Armstrong, Fats Waller, and Fletcher Henderson. In the '30s Hunter branched out to Broadway. She ended her career in the '80s as a star of the New York cabaret scene.

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