Live in Japan (Sarah Vaughan album)


Live in Japan is a 1973 live album by the American jazz singer Sarah Vaughan, recorded at the Nakano Sun Plaza Hall in Tokyo, Japan.
The two volumes were released separately. A double compact disc set was issued in 1993. In 2007, the United States Library of Congress honored the album by adding it to the National Recording Registry.

Reception and significance

The album was praised in the original LP sleeve-notes by jazz critic Nat Hentoff: "There is Sarah's striking sense of design. The basic framework of each song is carefully structured and personalised, and that makes her frequently stunning improvisations... all the more absorbing.... Hers is so resonant and rich a sound you feel you can almost touch it... in sum a nonpareil illustration of a master singer at the peak of her expressive energies."
The Billboard magazine review from December 15, 1973, commented that "Sarah's virtuosity is something constant...she is superb is gliding, floating, soaring, caressing each word, each note, breaking down words into syllables and extracting the true meaning from each phrase." The review described Vaughan's performance of "Wave" as "a soft, delicate experience in which the scales the vocal spectrum."
In his 2003 book Jazz on Record: The First Sixty Years, critic Scott Yanow described Live in Japan as featuring Vaughan at the "height of her powers" and wrote that "Sassy's voice is often heard in miraculous form on this set."

Track listing

;Disc one
  1. "A Foggy Day" - 1:21
  2. "Poor Butterfly" - 5:04
  3. "The Lamp Is Low" - 1:37
  4. "'Round Midnight" - 5:37
  5. "Willow Weep for Me" - 3:00
  6. "There Will Never Be Another You" - 1:34
  7. "Misty" - 3:12
  8. "Wave" - 7:03
  9. "Like Someone in Love" - 2:29
  10. "My Funny Valentine" - 5:32
  11. "All of Me" - 1:56
  12. "Where Do I Begin" - 5:05
  13. "Over the Rainbow" - 7:01
  14. "I Could Write a Book" - 2:15
;Disc two
  1. "The Nearness of You" - 6:58
  2. "I'll Remember April" - 3:33
  3. "Watch What Happens" - 3:04
  4. "I Cried for You" - 1:33
  5. "Summertime" - 4:01
  6. "The Blues" - 7:32
  7. "I Remember You" - 5:09
  8. "There Is No Greater Love" - 4:03
  9. "Rainy Days and Mondays" - 6:11
  10. "On a Clear Day" - 1:54
  11. "Bye Bye Blackbird" - 7:39
  12. "Tonight" - 1:12
  13. "Tenderly" - 3:27

    Personnel