Best known for hosting the Hollywood Squares,
Peter Marshall is actually a fine middle-of-the-road pop singer who has an attractive baritone voice. On
No Happy Endings, he performs 11 songs having to do with lost and unrequited love. Five of the numbers were recorded by
Billie Holiday for her 1958 album Lady in Satin, a rather sad and dramatic set in which she was joined by an orchestra arranged by
Ray Ellis.
Ellis survived through the years and he wrote the charts for the largely unidentified orchestra heard behind
Marshall. There are short solos from tenor-saxophonist
Nino Tempo (who sounds a lot like
Stan Getz) and trumpeter
Warren Luening, but those mostly stick near the melody. The main difference between the two projects is that while
Lady Day sounded like she was dying during her session, singing with a voice that was almost completely gone,
Marshall has control over his pipes and does not sound quite so sad. Other than the short sax solos, there is no real jazz on this middle-of-the-road ballad date, and its brevity (under 37 minutes) is unfortunate. But
Peter Marshall's voice and his sincerity make it all worthwhile. ~ Scott Yanow