Aretha Franklin – Yeah!!! (Pure Pleasure)

This 'live' nightclub date with a jazz trio, revealed to be a faked on the Columbia compilations that have since come out, is nonetheless a great LP, maybe the best single Columbia LP from Aretha.

John Hammond discovered her and just wanted great music, but the label couldn't decide if she was a show tune singer, jazz or R&B and never figured out she was all of the above and deserved her own category.

This is the most jazzy Aretha ever and if she'd wanted to concentrate on this one area of her talent, she would still be ruling it. Worth the buy just for the track “Without The One You Love”.
J. Ellis

Review: 

One of the great myths in music is that Aretha didn’t blossom until she signed with Atlantic. It may be true commercially, but her ten LPs or so with Columbia are…well. this is Aretha for goodness’ sake.

This set- recorded live at New York’s Columbia Studios, as opposed to at a gig in a club – shows her taking control of at least three genres, from blues to jazz to standards, with the emphasis on the jazz, and simply soars past Dinah, Sarah and Billie on material like `Misty’. Don’t let the pro-Atlantic mythology over shadow this superb-sounding gem from 1965, which also features Kenny Burrell on guitar is a bonus.