1. The Dixieland Band
2. Blue Moon
3. I Was Lucky
4. Night Wind
5. Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea
6. Eeny Meeny Miney Mo
7. It’s Been So Long
8. Goody, Goody!
9. Mutiny in the Parlour
10. I’m Gonna Clap My Hands
11. You Can’t Pull the Wool over My Eyes
12. The Glory of Love
13. Sing Me a Swing Song
14. These Foolish Things
15. There’s a Small Hotel
16. You Turned the Tables on Me
17. You Came to My Rescue
18. Here’s Love in Your Eyes
19. Smoke Dreams
20. There’s a Lull in My Life
21. It’s Swell of You
22. Feelin’ High and Happy
23. Day in, Day Out
24. I Cover the Waterfront
25. I’ve Got a Crush on You
26. Embraceable You
27. Don’t Cry, Baby
Backing bands:
Benny Goodman & His Orchestra
The Bob Crosby Orchestra
Gene Krupa & His Orchestra
Gene Krupa & His Swing Band
Harry James & His Music Makers
Joe Sullivan & His Café Society Orchestra
Teddy Wilson & His Orchestra
This collection, issued to mark the centenary of Helen Ward’s birth, contains twenty-seven tunes labeled Ward’s “finest,” which they very well may be; it
is certainly representative. Ward sang with a variety of bands during the thirties, forties, and fifties, several of them represented here, but her most
lasting relationship was with the Benny Goodman band, the one with which she really got her start in November of 1934 and which is to be heard backing her
on fifteen of the tracks on this CD. She stayed with Goodman as featured singer through 1937, returning to tour and record with his band in 1953 and to
record with it again in 1957 and 1958. Between 1937 and 1957 she recorded with various bands from time to time but did not tour with them.
Ward did not have a trained voice, but it was one that was extremely fluid, and she could render ballads and up-tempo numbers with equal dexterity.
Evidence of this flexibility is amply demonstrated on this disc: she can get her pipes around Blue Moon and Eeny Meeny Miney Mo with
ease. She sounds like “the girl next door,” and that could well have been part of her appeal. Just as Bing Crosby insisted that his voice was “ordinary”
and that many men could deliver a song as well as he, I would guess many women would think that they could sing as well as Ward, that their voices could
equal hers. Added to all of that is the fact that she was “easy on the eye,” and that would have endeared her to the young men to whom swing was the music
of the day, Goodman’s brand in particular. It is no surprise, therefore, that she was a drawing card for Goodman, and he was loath to see her leave the
band, even, as she surmised in the 1993 TV documentary Benny Goodman: Adventures in the Kingdom of Swing, proposing marriage to her (which
she accepted) in an attempt to retain her. (He later, she said, withdrew the proposal, saying that he could not afford any distraction from furthering his
musical career.)
Her flexibility extended not only to different types of material but also to different purveyors of same. On this disc we hear her perform with other big
bands, such as those of Bob Crosby and Harry James, and also with smaller aggregations, such as Teddy Wilson’s octet and Joe Sullivan’s septet. In each
case she exhibits the same exuberance and freshness that she does on the Goodman tracks. One can detect no special accommodation for each group—she simply
sings in her manner and it “fits.” While hardly a jazz singer, she was a pop singer who could definitely swing a tune, and she had a number of “hits” that
reached #1, including several in this compilation, such as It’s Been So Long, Goody Goody, These Foolish Things, You Turned the Tables on Me, and Day In, Day Out.
This CD provides almost 80 minutes of excellent entertainment for anyone who enjoys the music, the bands, and particularly the vocals of Helen Ward. It is
a first rate introduction for anyone who is unfamiliar with her work.
Note
: this CD should not be confused with another on a different label (ASV/Living Era) that has practically the same title and almost the same content. It
contains a total of 25 tracks, of which 22 appear on this CD.
Bert Thompson
CD Reviews
RETROSPECTIVE RTR 4222
