Sarah Vaughan with Clifford Brown

Critical reception

Sarah Vaughan with Clifford Brown was overwhelmingly a critical success. In Bebop: The Best Musicians and Recordings, jazz commentator Scott Yanow notes simply of the album that "[e]verything works", making of it an "essential acquisition". Ink Blot Magazine, characterizing this as one of Vaughan's "jazziest" albums, describes it also as one of her greatest. In its review, All Music states that "Vaughan is arguably in the best voice of her career here" and praises Brown for "displaying his incredible bop virtuosity", indicating that "[i]n whichever incarnation it's reissued, Sarah Vaughan With Clifford Brown is one of the most important jazz-meets-vocal sessions ever recorded". The Blackwell Guide to Recorded Jazz, also praising Brown's "brilliant" trumpeting, delves into Vaughan's vocal stylings in detail, encouraging listeners of the album to note how "sometimes she stretches out a song so deliberately and so reconfigures its melody, that the lyrics lose sense, linguistic phrasing having been replaced by musical phrasing". Blackwell author Barry Dean Kernfeld opines that "[i]t is perhaps this pure devotion to the exploration of sound that has made her such a favourite of jazz listeners". In Jazz: A Critic's Guide to the 100 Most Important Recordings, New York Times jazz commentator Ben Ratliff placed the album as among Vaughan's best, indicating that the recording session seemed among those blessed sessions where "even middle-level musicians can sound like gods". The Penguin Guide to Jazz selected this album as part of its suggested "Core Collection," stating "it is very difficult to find any flaw in what should be recognized as one of the great jazz vocal records," and awarded it "crown" status.

But even while praising the album, some critics found elements of fault. Ratliff expresses distaste for the album's "shizy moments, when...[Vaughan] rockets between hoity-toity...and so blues-singer earthy, in certain low-register moments, that she approaches vulgarity". Kernfeld suggests that Herbie Mann is a weak element amongst the otherwise strong ensemble, "completely overmatched".

Track listing

1. "Lullaby of Birdland" (George Shearing, George David Weiss) – 4:06
2. "April in Paris" (Vernon Duke, E.Y. "Yip" Harburg) – 6:26
3. "He's My Guy" (Gene de Paul, Don Raye) – 4:17
4. "Jim" (Caesar Petrillo, Edward Ross, Nelson Shawn) – 5:56
5. "You're Not the Kind" (Will Hudson, Irving Mills) – 4:48
6. "Embraceable You" (George Gershwin, Ira Gershwin) – 4:54
7. "I'm Glad There Is You" (Jimmy Dorsey, Paul Mertz) – 5:14
8. "September Song" (Maxwell Anderson, Kurt Weill) – 5:50
9. "It's Crazy" (Dorothy Fields, Richard Rodgers) – 5:01

Additional tracks on Complete Recordings with Clifford Brown

10. "Lullaby of Birdland" (partial alternative take) (Shearing, Weiss) – 3:58
11. "Lover Man" (Jimmy Davis, Ram Ramirez, James Sherman) – 3:18
12. "Shulie a Bop" (George Treadwell, Sarah Vaughan) – 2:41
13. "Polka Dots and Moonbeams" (Johnny Burke, Jimmy Van Heusen) – 2:35
14. "Body and Soul" (Frank Eyton, Johnny Green, Edward Heyman, Robert Sour) – 3:14
15. "They Can't Take That Away from Me" (Gershwin, Gershwin) – 2:43
16. "You Hit the Spot" (Mack Gordon, Harry Revel) – 3:02
17. "If I Knew Then (What I Know Now)" (Eddy Howard, Dick Jurgens) – 2:30

Performance

Production