Mark Murphy - The Complete Decca Recordings

2013 European CD collection.

Murphy's career can be divided into 3-4 eras. This one represents his first stage, when he was a regular singer of standards. The only problem was that nothing Murphy touches stays standard. Even this songs you've known all your life are put through Murphy's Waring Blender and oozed out into a completely different (and BETTER) flavor. Id LOVE to know what people with 1957-accustomed ears thought when they heard Murphy backed by Ralph Burns orchestra on these Decca sessions. Just wait until you hear him deliver a salacious Let Yourself Go and an exotically flavored Limehouse Blues. He does an agonizingly slow and deliberate take of Robbins Nest that will have you squirm while he snaps and sizzles on Pick Yourself Up and Crazy Rhythm and is delightfully as well as invitingly insouciant on Exactly Like You. Sonic ideas bounce off the walls on every song, and each delivery is fresher than anything put out by todays posers (I wont mention any names, but it rhymes with souffle)."

George W. Harris (September 16, 2013)
www.jazzweekly.com