Personnel: Al Jolson; Lou Bring & His Orchestra, Oscar Levant.

Liner Note Author: Scott Yanow .

Although his reputation has been tainted somewhat by his infamous blackface performances, vocalist Al Jolson was one of the most popular American entertainers of the early 20th century, a point driven home by this energetic 1948 live concert. Despite Jolson's age (he would die in 1950 at the age of 64), he sounds remarkably vibrant and youthful while belting out tunes such as "California, Here I Come" and "Alabamy Bound" in his signature bold, vaudeville-inspired style.

Al Jolson's comeback in the late '40s, after the biopic The Jolson Story rejuvenated his career, resulted in a few hit recordings and a lot of singing work, both in concert and on the radio. An Evening With Al Jolson collects 20 of those radio performances from the '40s (though no information is given), each of them as combustive and euphoric as he was known to be in his heyday 40 years earlier. Jolson spends most of the time ably singing material from an earlier era, though not many are among his well-known songs from that era. "Liza (All the Clouds'll Roll Away)" and "California, Here I Come" are the only real Jolson evergreens, but most of the rest are ones he should have been singing (even if he didn't), including "Waiting for the Robert E. Lee" and "Is It True What They Say About Dixie?" The Jolson treatment rarely varied from song to song, however, and the ephemeral nature of these recordings doesn't make for intriguing listening. ~ John Bush