1974 · Album
As Time Goes By: Carmen McRae Alone Live at the Dug
Recorded 1973, Tokyo, Japan (Club Dug) · Victor (Japan) · Produced by Unverified — omitted
Just Carmen, A Piano, and Tokyo
McRae accompanying herself on piano made this the most exposed, unguarded recording of her career.
There is exactly one album where Carmen McRae sat down at a piano, played every note herself, and sang without a single other musician in the room — or rather, in the club. That album is As Time Goes By: Carmen McRae Alone Live at the Dug (1974), recorded at the Dug, a jazz club in Tokyo, and released in Japan on the Victor label. It took two more years before American audiences could get their hands on it, when the independent label Catalyst Records put it out in the US in 1976. The circumstances alone make this worth tracking down.
McRae was known as one of the great jazz vocalists of her generation — sharp phrasing, a sardonic wit in her delivery, a voice that could cut right through sentimentality. She had spent most of her career fronting bands, working with accompanists who were themselves serious musicians. So to hear her alone, comping her own chords and carrying the whole thing herself, is genuinely different from anything else in her catalog. The title track gives you a good sense of what you are getting: a familiar standard stripped down to its bones, with McRae deciding the tempo, the dynamics, everything. There is nowhere to hide in a setting like this, and she does not try to hide.
Is it her best album? Probably not — her recordings with a full band often have more swing and energy. But as a document of how well she understood these songs from the inside out, it is hard to beat. If you are already a fan, this is an essential side of her you have not heard anywhere else. If you are new to her, start somewhere with a full band first, then come back to this one.
Who's playing
Carmen McRaepiano
