Stage and screen actor, author, comedian, dancer and skilled multi-instrumentalist, Sammy Davis Jr. also possessed a remarkable voice, blessed with a huge tone and fantastic range. This generous 78-track, 3-CD set provides a fascinating overview which includes a healthy selection of A and B sides from releases on the Capitol, Decca, Reprise and Verve labels. CD1 includes ‘Please Don’t Talk About Me When I’m Gone’, which Davis appears to bookend with a short vocalise based on a melodic fragment from Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring. Davis subsequently peels off an astonishing scat in which you couldn’t blow smoke between singer and horn section. Jazz pianist and arranger Gerry Wiggins is an outstanding presence on these first solo recordings. There’s also a hyper-romantic ‘And This Is My Beloved’ (from the Broadway production Kismet) plus a gorgeous take on the Rodgers and Hart standard ‘Glad To Be Unhappy’. CD2 includes duets with Carmen McRae and Gary Crosby (son of Bing), while Davis’s beautifully sustained melodic line in ‘I’ll Know’ (from the brilliant Guys And Dolls) serves as a perfect showcase for his wonderfully distinctive timbre. CD3 includes his brace of hits with fellow Rat Packers Frank Sinatra (‘Me And My Shadow’) and Dean Martin (‘Sam’s Song’), plus the Sammy Cahn-Jimmy Van Heusen-penned ‘Ain’t That A Kick In The Head’ from Ocean’s 11, the 1960 movie in which Davis starred. Dating from 1962, ‘What Kind of Fool Am I?’ is the beautiful title track from the eponymous album which garnered two of Davis’s three Grammy nominations (for ‘Record of the Year’ and ‘Male Solo Vocal Performance’). He was posthumously awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. in 2001.