Vegas '58 -- Today

1	I Wish You Love Instrumental 0:24
2	Medley: When You're Smiling/The Sheik of Araby 2:14
3	I Gotta Right to Sing the Blues 3:08
4	Talk 0:49
5	Medley: Basin Street Blues/When It's Sleepy Time Down South 3:47
6	Talk 0:46
7	More Than You Know 5:12
8	Lazy River 3:51
9	Talk 0:21
10	Don't Take Your Love from Me 3:49
11	Jump, Jive, an' Wail 4:01
12	Sweet and Lovely 4:34
13	Buona Sera 3:02
14	Medley: Angelina/Che la Luna/Zooma Zooma 5:04
15	Talk 0:26
16	Medley: Just a Gigolo/Ain't Got Nobody 2:03
17	Medley: I Wish You Love/That Old Black Magic 4:12
18	Introductions 2:19
19	What Kind of Fool Am I? 3:09
20	I Wish You Love Instrumental 0:49

Barnes & Noble

Accompanied by a swinging nonet, Keely Smith stirs up some big action at the New York cabaret Feinstein’s at the Regency, her voice and spirit belying this septuagenarian singer’s experience. Sounding half her age, Smith takes on material associated with the heyday of Louis Prima, the Vegas showman with whom Smith shared an act and, as his wife, a life. Smith can work the grand humor in the fun tunes with panache, but her underrated gifts as an affecting ballad singer are also in evidence. (Hear her splendid versions of “More than You Know” and “What Kind of Fool Am I?”) Keeping the audience in the palm of her hand through her personal warmth, displayed in the patter interspersed throughout, Smith proves that after a lifetime in the business she still has plenty more to give. As musically captivating as it is inspiring, this live album is a testament to good old American showmanship at its best. Louis would have approved. William Pearl

All Music Guide

The proposition of deep freezing a late-'50s gig by Louis Prima and Keely Smith with accompaniment by Sam Butera & the Witnesses -- which usually earned its tag, no small praise, as the Wildest Show in Vegas -- and thawing it nearly 50 years later is a risky one; specifically, it risks losing most of the energy that made the show so special in the first place. Nevertheless, when Keely Smith's booking agent, Allen Sviridoff, suggested that she resurrect the sound and feel of a vintage Prima/Smith show for a live appearance, she agreed. Recorded for the Concord label, Vegas '58 -- Today can't help but pale next to the real thing. Most importantly, absent are Prima's volcanic performance personality and Butera's powerful band; in the show, Smith functioned as a cool flame, an able foil for all the exuberant action going on around her. Her 2004 band is energetic and powerful enough, and they do a solid job of recycling some of Prima's own arrangements for his standards like "Basin Street Blues," "Lazy River," "Jump, Jive, an' Wail," and "That Old Black Magic." And Smith makes the date as loose as her old shows with Prima, laughing and giggling and even good-naturedly sharing her possible lack of judgment in trying to reprise Prima's vocal performances herself (which she then confirms by performing them). She does still shine on the material she performed with the classic show, such as "Don't Take Your Love from Me," "That Old Black Magic," and a breathless closer, "What Kind of Fool Am I?" John Bush