Fred Astaire – The Astaire Story (1988, FLAC)

1-01 Isn’t This A Lovely Day
1-02 Puttin’ On The Ritz
1-03 I Used To Be Color Blind
1-04 The Continental
1-05 Lets Call The Whole Thing Off
1-06 Change Partners
1-07 ‘S Wonderful
1-08 Lovely To Look At
1-09 They All Laughed
1-10 Cheek To Cheek
1-11 Steppin’ Out With My Baby
1-12 The Way You Look Tonight
1-13 I’ve Got My Eyes On You
1-14 Dancing In The Dark
1-15 The Carioca
1-16 Nice Work If You Can Get It
1-17 New Sun In The Sky
1-18 I Won’t Dance
1-19 (Ad Lib) Fast Dances
2-01 Top Hat, White Tie And Tales
2-02 No Strings
2-03 I Concentrate On You
2-04 I’m Putting All My Eggs In One Basket
2-05 A Fine Romance
2-06 Night And Day
2-07 Fascinating Rhythm
2-08 I Love Louisa
2-09 (Ad Lib) Slow Dances
2-10 (Ad Lib) Medium Dances
2-11 They Can’t Take That Away From Me
2-12 You’re Easy To Dance With
2-13 A Needle In A Haystack
2-14 So Near And Yet So Far
2-15 A Foggy Day
2-16 Oh, Lady Be Good
2-17 I’m Building Up To An Awful Letdown
2-18 Not My Girl
2-19 Jam Session (Instrumental)

https://mega.co.nz/#!PcAUxDLS!bvYojFB_w3nRB5NgfggChAxcji_DV8vuNOKMiwv X1Sw

In 1952 Fred Astaire joined Oscar Peterson and some of Verve’s best sidemen to lay down 38 jazzy, laid-back versions of songs he had made famous in his Broadway and film career. (Seventeen were compiled as Steppin’ Out: Astaire Sings.) While Astaire was not blessed with great vocal chops, the best American songwriters including George and Ira Gershwin, Irving Berlin, and Cole Porter loved him for his unerring sense of rhythm and sympathetic treatment of lyrics, qualities that are well displayed here. Tony Bennett hit the pop mainstream with his 1994 album of jazzy Astaire standards. Here’s the original. –David Horiuchi

Because he was world renowned as a dancer and quite popular as a movie actor, Fred Astaire has tended to be underrated (if not completely overlooked) as a jazz singer. Although not really an improviser, Astaire’s phrasing always swung and his occasional vocals on record were usually a joy. This two-CD set is something special for it features Astaire with six members of Jazz at the Philharmonic: tenor saxophonist Flip Phillips, trumpeter Charlie Shavers, pianist Oscar Peterson, guitarist Barney Kessel, bassist Ray Brown, and drummer Alvin Stoller. Astaire sings 34 swing standards (many of which he had originally introduced in movies), dances on three ad-lib numbers, and sits out on the instrumental "Jam Session"; the musicians have plenty of opportunities to stretch out. The biggest surprise to this classic deluxe box (which was originally four-LPs) is that Fred Astaire did not do similar projects more often throughout his career. Highly recommended.

AllMusic Review by Scott Yanow