For all the talk about later legendary "Atlantic" years that would catapult her in the long deserved spotlight and make her a part of R&B aristocracy, Aretha Franklin had very interesting apprenticeship with mighty "Columbia Records" and these albums definitely deserve reassessment, since she was given fair chance to shine and show off that glorious voice. The fact that years from 1961 to 1966 produced no hits could be perhaps not be entirely blamed on "Columbia" as they were very successful with other music acts, it might be that Franklin simply had to wait for the right time and soul explosion that eventually shifted her focus from Broadway standards to more current sounds.
From the whole bunch of "Columbia" albums, this fake-live jazz album is still my favourite - released in 1965. as "Yeah!!!" it has confident, young Franklin leading small combo trough the dozen of standards where her gospel roots are clearly audible. Everything she later became renown for is already here in place: soaring vocals, improvisations, authoritative piano playing, you name it - far from being Jerry Wexler creation, this young lady was dazzling from the start and if this album came decade earlier it could have been sensation. However, in 1965. the album of jazz standards was nothing new and when you think that biggest stars of the year were The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Animals, Sonny & Cher, Bob Dylan, The Lovin' Spoonful and the whole arsenal of "Motown" musicians, the idea of late-night jazz combo tearing trough "Misty" or "Love For Sale" might have missed the zeitgeist of time, no matter how brilliant Franklin was.
Just a year before, Franklin released her affectionate tribute to Dinah Washington and it seems this is where her heart was at the time. Or this is what her husband/manager thought she should do to crack fancy supper clubs market, like Sam Cooke did with his triumphs in New York's Copacabana Club which was the ultimate goal of music entertainers at the time. On purely musical merit, the album is still exciting (fake audience and all) and its a joy to hear what young soul sister does with this material (she even includes swinging version of "If I Had A Hammer"). It is not completely true that these early years were fruitless, since other musicians paid attention - Dusty Springfield even covered "Won't Be Long" from Franklin's very first LP, so people knew about her, it was just a matter of time when wide audiences will become aware of this unique talent. Personally, this was the very first Franklin album I have ever owned (it was finally released in my country in 1983.) so it gave me somehow distorted impression of who this lady was, because it represented her in jazz light but she never left it completely behind - in subsequent decades Franklin would often revisit jazz standards.
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