| ALBUMS | SINGLES/E.P.'S | CAST RECORDINGS | MISCELLANEOUS |
Best Beat Forward (1958)
I May Be Wrong
(Harry Ruskin/Henry Sullivan)*
Easy To Love
(Cole Porter)
This Can't Be Love
(Richard Rodgers/Lorenz Hart)**
A Fine Romance
(Jerome Kern/Dorothy Fields)
Cheek To Cheek
(Irving Berlin)*
Old Devil Moon
(E. Y. Harburg/Burton Lane)**
Love (Your Magic Spell Is Everywhere)
(Elsie Janis/Edmund Goulding)*
You're An Old Smoothie
(DeSylvia/Whiting/Brown)
Falling In Love With Love
(Richard Rodgers/Lorenz Hart)**
S'posin'
(Andy Razaf/Paul Denniker)
If I Love Again
(J. P. Murray/Ben Oakland)*
The Song Is Ended
(Irving Berlin)**
ALBUM INFO
Arranged and conducted by George Siravo
*) Arranged and conducted by Sid Bass
**) Arranged and conducted by Marion Evans
Produced and directed by Herman Diaz, Jr.
Recorded October 1-4, 1957
This is the original back sleeve notes:
Without exception, everytime Diahann Carroll steps onto
the stage of the Hudson Theater to sing for us, she generates a rare kind
of television magic - an almost vacuum-like silence. I've always felt the
two greatest ways an audience can respond to a performer is with waves of
laughter or with a deafening hush. 
Too
often, I'm afraid, a singer's presence on television means it is a dandy time
for a mass exodus to the refrigerator for a snack. When Diahann is singing,
nobody stirs. At home she holds viewers in rapt attention. In the theater
she melts the mechanical intrusions of cameras and cables.
One night after she had sung a full schedule of three songs beautifully
and excitingly, I invited her over to our "panel" and told her I felt that
one word best summed up Diahann Carroll. The word was "Class". The theater
audience burst into spontanious applause, delighted because someone had verbalized
a feeling they could express only by clapping their hands.
Hearing this album, it was no surprise to find some of the great Jerome
Kern, Richard Rodgers and Cole Porter tunes and other fine standards on the
roster. Diahann has great reverence for the masters, who, I'm afraid, are
all too often ignored on TV. Impeccable taste is both the hallmark and the
acid test of a real singer. The dozen songs under this cover are proof
enough of what niche Miss Carroll fills.
We've been lucky to count Diahann as a "part-time regular" on NBC-TV's
"Tonight." For all her youth, she's proved herself to be every inch a professional.
She resorts to no trick vocal gimmicks, which, I confess, are personal pet
peeves of mine. Her voice has purity and sureness. She sets an undeniable
mood of excitement. She possesses a rare feeling for a lyrical - meaning she
understands what she's singing. And her beauty goes almost without
saying - she's the picture of fragile loveliness. Offstage, she's warm, simple
and unpretentious.
As I say, the girl has class. And class never goes out of style.
-Jack Paar
CD EDITIONS
Sadly this great album has yet to be released on CD. The track A Fine Romance is available on the various artists album, Golden Hits Of The Silver Screen - see the Miscellaneous albums page.
DIGITAL RELEASE
Best Beat Forward was released digitally on January 23,2011. The digital bundle also includes the Diahann Carroll Sings Harold Arlen Songs album, previously available on both CD and on iTunes. This release, imaginatively entitled Sing Harold Arlen/Best Beat Forward: Two Classic Diahann Carroll Albums, is available both from Amazon.co.uk (see link below) and from iTunes
