It's really a no-brainer. If you've got Sammy Davis Jr. and you've got Buddy Rich and his band and you've got a place to record them in, then dammit, you make an album of Sammy and Buddy playing together.
But there's a little more to "The Sounds of '66."
While I haven't been able to dig up whose brilliant idea this record was, they didn't just put Sammy and Buddy & Co. in a Los Angeles studio. They were both performing in Las Vegas at the time — Sammy at The Sands (naturally), but I'm not sure where Buddy was playing.
So on two consecutive nights, they came together at The Sands to record a live set in front of an audience. Compelling as that would be by itself, there's still more.
Sammy and Buddy had both already performed on the nights they recorded together — and they didn't leave their previous shows and get set up on stage at The Sands until after 2 a.m. Instead of sounding tired, however, these consummate pros were loose and energetic, as if they'd just gotten warmed up.
There's one more little detail.
The audience wasn't a collection of Vegas tourist randos. Instead, the seats were filled by other musicians who'd also finished their gigs earlier those nights. Talk about an appreciative crowd. Instead of playing for drunk gamblers, Sammy and Buddy were playing for them.
Sammy was always better with a live audience in front of him, but having Buddy's drums behind him seems to have added an energy to this set that I've never heard before or since.
"The Sounds Of '66" is one of those albums that, if you didn't own it the first time around or you didn't know enough to go looking for a re-release, probably skipped you right by.
Let's fix that, shall we? Here are three choice cuts.
Listen to Sammy's intro to "Come Back To Me" to get a feel for what it must have been like to sit in that audience.
And here are a couple of '60s standards performed like only Sammy could. With a big assist from Buddy, of course.
At 10 tracks running just 32 minutes (including Sammy's brief monologues), this is a tight set — but so energetic that another song or two might have blown up Sammy, the band, and the audience.
Related: Underappreciated Albums: 'But Beautiful — Standards: Volume I'
The only reason I know about "The Sounds Of '66" — and I do this thing quite often — is I decided one day that I didn't have enough Sammy Davis in my library so I went looking for more. It's a haphazard process but I highly recommend it.
I'd also like to thank you, dear VIP supporter, for allowing me the chance to share something apolitical with you. We probably both needed the break.
