"A recording executive does not need to be on vacation to try to avoid auditioning young singers recommended by friends. There is a permanent open season on members of our industry for this purpose, so a conditioned reflex is built up anyway, but it is a little firmer where holidays are involved.

"This explains why it was not until the ninth day of an attempted vacation in San Francisco in the late summer of 1955 that I gave in to the blandishments of my good friend Helen Noga, co-owner of the Black Hawk night club, and agreed to go listen to a 19-year-old local boy. 'George,' she said, 'he's the best young singer you ever heard in your life.'

"She was right.

"The extraordinary thing about Johnny Mathis that night at Ann's 440 club, just above the old Barbary Coast district, was that all the qualities you hear in this album were already there, although he had been singing professionally for less than three weeks. Helen Noga first heard him when Virgil Gonsalves, a baritone saxophonist whose sextet was working at the Black Hawk at the time, brought Johnny in for a Sunday afternoon jam session at the club. Helen was impressed by his potential, and told him, 'You know your jazz, but you can do more than work the jazz clubs; try the commercial places.' A couple of weeks later, Ann Dee heard him in a bar across the street from her place on Broadway and gave him his first job.

"Before Johnny finished his second song, I knew I was going to sign him. He had so much that I was not surprised to learn that he was doubling week ends in an opera group production of Leonard Bernstein's 'Trouble In Tahiti.' Obviously he had had more training than most pop singers; his extraordinary breath control and sweeping range indicated that. He could do as many different things as four very different singers might, and do them well. All he needed was experience and seasoning.

"His versatility, I found out later, goes beyond singing; although his well-chosen suits and medium stature give him a deceptively slight appearance, Johnny is one of the best athletes to have been developed in the San Francisco school system. He was an all-city basketball player at George Washington High, and broke city records in the high jump and hurdles. At San Francisco State College, he specialized in the high jump. His closest rival was his friend Bill Russell, best known as the star of the San Francisco University Dons, winners of more consecutive games than any other college basketball team. The two friends made quite a combination off the field as well; Johnny was 5 feet 7 at the time, and Bill towered 15 inches over him. (Both have grown since then.) Johnny's best jump, 6 feet 5, at Reno, Nevada in 1954, broke Bill's stadium and state record. To give non-sports fans a gauge for this leap, only four times in the history of the Olympic games has the high jump winner cleared this height.

"To get back to Johnny Mathis, singer, I left San Francisco with a contract and no recordings; I felt it best to wait until he had a chance to develop further. A return trip in January 1956 to record Louis Armstrong gave me a chance to evaluate Johnny's progress. By then he was the sole attraction at a new club, The Fallen Angel, located (most appropriately) at Sally Stanford's old mansion on California Street. Johnny's repertoire, already unusually broad, had grown enormously, and so had his poise and control. He had learned what to do with his hands, how to make and maintain close contact with his audience, and to program his songs most effectively. Best of all, he had grown so much in quality that I had no doubt that the time had come to record.

"For his first recordings, I determined to bring Johnny to New York, where I knew arrangers and musicians better than anywhere else. I visualized a series of intimate small-band sessions with a variety of arrangers, each given carte blanche as to instrumentation and treatment within the over-all interpretation of each song as taped as a guide by Johnny in San Francisco. Johnny's singing is thoroughly jazz-oriented, so naturally arrangers were chosen who had a thorough command of the jazz idiom, as well as the ability to write imaginatively for a pop vocalist.

"The five arrangers in this album have one other thing in common; all are keenly interested in contemporary serious music, and have done a certain amount of what might be called experimental writing. Under the circumstances, it is not surprising that these arrangements contain many elements seldom encountered in pop vocal accompaniments; however, even Bob Prince's shifting time signatures in the instrumental section of Star Eyes are within the reach of the average listener. As hoped for, each arranger's individuality comes through, so that there is a change of pace in this set which is perhaps unique in vocal albums.

"The variety of songs in this set is as great as the variety of Johnny's singing and of the sounds of the arrangements. Johnny can and does make the jump from the tenderness of In Other Words or Autumn In Rome to the violence of Babalu, the swing of Easy To Love, the exoticism of Caravan, or the downright rhythm-and-blues atmosphere of Angel Eyes. His improvisational flights in all tempos and moods are a reflection of his awareness of modern jazz.

"Bringing Johnny to New York for the recordings worked out better than expected. No one would hire him 'cold' except Ralph Watkins of Basin Street, who took him for a week end simply to accommodate Bert Block of the Joe Glaser office and myself. That Sunday night, Max Gordon of the Blue Angel auditioned Johnny at his club and promptly signed him for a series of engagements; after four weeks at the Angel, Max moved him downtown to his other club, the Village Vanguard, where the more intimate atmosphere proved even more suited to Johnny's style. This album will be released the week after Johnny is introduced to the Columbia Records organization at their annual convention, less than a year after he started singing. At the moment, only San Francisco and New York know about Johnny Mathis, but the evidence is here that a career of unusual promise has already begun..."

Columbia Records/George Avakian