A lovely album from the legendary Terry Callier – another spacious set of gorgeously composed soul for Mr. Bongo! Lookin' Out was largely recorded in the Chicago area, with players that sit in with Terry in his residences at the Green Mill, and the easy, jazzy feel reflects it. What really makes the album special, though, is the return to the mesmerizing, hypnotic style of songs that Terry pioneered in the mid-to-late sixties. Terry's voice and phrasings are as great as ever – and the backings are often acoustic and quite mellow, built around sweet guitar, bass, light strings, synth and horns. This record hearkens to his contemplative records for Cadet as well as, if not more, than his other recent efforts, and you really outta know by now that that's the Terry groove we love most! 17 tracks in all: "Jazz, My Rhythm & Blues", "Midnite Mile", "Africa Now", "Lookin' Out", "Stripper", "Blues For Billie Holiday", "What About Me", and "Faithful". CD

A lovely album from the legendary Terry Callier – another spacious set of gorgeously composed soul for Mr. Bongo! Lookin' Out was largely recorded in the Chicago area, with players that sit in with Terry in his residences at the Green Mill, and the easy, jazzy feel reflects it. What really makes the album special, though, is the return to the mesmerizing, hypnotic style of songs that Terry pioneered in the mid-to-late sixties. Terry's voice and phrasings are as great as ever – and the backings are often acoustic and quite mellow, built around sweet guitar, bass, light strings, synth and horns. This record hearkens to his contemplative records for Cadet as well as, if not more, than his other recent efforts, and you really outta know by now that that's the Terry groove we love most! 17 tracks in all: "Jazz, My Rhythm & Blues", "Midnite Mile", "Africa Now", "Lookin' Out", "Stripper", "Blues For Billie Holiday", "What About Me", and "Faithful". CD

A record that was years ahead of its time – in part because Karen Dalton's a singer with a style that's wonderfully hard to peg! The set was issued on Capitol Records at a time when the label was doing great work with Fred Neil – but Dalton's got this blues-inflected style of singing and a kind of inflection that also maybe echoes Billie Holiday a bit – yet all at a level that's very laidback and easygoing, so that Karen never sounds like some of her contemporaries who were trying a bit to hard to reach for the more soulful side of the spectrum! Instrumentation is mostly acoustic, gut there's some great use of electric bass and a bit of electric guitar – which makes Dalton's 12 string and banjo performances come across more like some of the hipper acoustic sessions on Vanguard at the time. Tunes include a few originals two Fred Neil covers, and a well-chosen Tim Hardin track too – in a set list that includes "In The Evening It's So Hard To Tell Who's Going To Love You The Best", "Little Bit Of Rain", "Blues On The Ceiling", "Sweet Substitute", "Ribbon Bow", "I Love You More Thank Words Can Say", and "Down On The Street". LP, Vinyl record album

A really fantastic album from the young Blossom Dearie – and in a way, a record that kind of sets the tone for all the greatness to come in future recordings! Here, Blossom is already breaking from standard jazz vocal modes – using some of the hipness she'd picked up in France to really further the amazing sense of phrasing that makes her so different from just about anyone else – in a way that's subtle, but which really sounds a heck of a lot different than Verve recordings by artists like Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, or any other of their vocalists of the 50s. The group's a small one, but has a fresh sense of arrangement – as Dearie's piano is at the lead of a combo that features Mundell Lowe on guitar, Ray Brown on bass, and Ed Thigpen on drums – all hip enough players to really get her sense of rhythm and timing. Titles include a sublime early version of "Once Upon A Summertime" – plus "Moonlight Saving Time", "Doop Doo De Doop (A Doodlin Song)", "It Amazes Me", "We're Together", "Love Is Here To Stay", "Teach Me Tonight", and "Down With Love". CD

A really fantastic album from the young Blossom Dearie – and in a way, a record that kind of sets the tone for all the greatness to come in future recordings! Here, Blossom is already breaking from standard jazz vocal modes – using some of the hipness she'd picked up in France to really further the amazing sense of phrasing that makes her so different from just about anyone else – in a way that's subtle, but which really sounds a heck of a lot different than Verve recordings by artists like Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, or any other of their vocalists of the 50s. The group's a small one, but has a fresh sense of arrangement – as Dearie's piano is at the lead of a combo that features Mundell Lowe on guitar, Ray Brown on bass, and Ed Thigpen on drums – all hip enough players to really get her sense of rhythm and timing. Titles include a sublime early version of "Once Upon A Summertime" – plus "Moonlight Saving Time", "Doop Doo De Doop (A Doodlin Song)", "It Amazes Me", "We're Together", "Love Is Here To Stay", "Teach Me Tonight", and "Down With Love". LP, Vinyl record album

A tribute to Billie Holiday – with Johnny Griffin's tenor fronting some larger backing on strings and brass – but hipper than most efforts of this type, thanks to some great arrangements by Melba Liston and Norman Simmons! The record's a good change from some of Johnny's more full-on bop sessions from the same time – and it's nice to hear that his tenor works equally well on mellow tracks and ballads, stretching out with a deep edge and a wonderful tone. Other players include Clark Terry on trumpet, Barry Galbraith on guitar, and Ron Carter on bass – and titles include "God Bless The Child", "Gloomy Sunday", "Travelin' Light", "Left Alone", and "Detour Ahead". CD

Charlie Haden's ode to the silver screen, Raymond Chandler, and 1940s Hollywood – with help from Ernie Watts on tenor, Alan Broadbent on piano, and Lawrence Marable on drums – plus vocals from Jo Stafford, Jeri Southern, and Billie Holiday. CD

A weird batch of folksy rock tunes – composed and produced by Harley Hatcher for Sidewalk Enterprises, and sounding a lot more like a Sidewalk or Tower soundtrack than something on RCA. The groups are the usual obscurities that would show up on a Mike Curb soundtrack – pictured on the back cover, but still leaving us to wonder if they really existed at all. Tracks include "Holiday Rider" by The Saturday Revue, "Jailer Let Me Go Home" and "A Hurt In My Heart" by Don Epperson, "Playin Hard To Get" by Billie & Blue, and "Wine Women & Song" by Terry Stafford. LP, Vinyl record album

A very unusual special on the history of jazz – recorded live, with performances by Billie Holiday, Brownie McGhee, Coleman Hawkins, Buck Clayton, and others! Dick Hyman directs, and Leonard Feather narrates – and obviously, things get very interesting on sides three and four, as things move into more modern jazz territory! LP, Vinyl record album

A nice mid 70s 2LP set – one that features the complete first Jazz At The Philharmonic concert – with performances by Nat King Cole, Illinois Jacquet, Billie Holiday, Les Paul, and JJ Johnson. LP, Vinyl record album

Hard to imagine Etta Jones being lonely and blue – especially when she sounds as great as this! The album's one of Jones' early classics from Prestige – a date that really has her classing things up a lot, and drawing on bits of Billie Holiday and Dinah Washington's styles, to mix in with the bluesier tones of her roots – put together with a great deal of charm, and a new sophistication that made Etta one of the hippest jazz singers of the 60s! Backing is by a cool small combo – with Patti Brown on piano, Wally Richardson on guitar, and a bit of tenor from Budd Johnson – and titles include "I'll Be There", "In the Dark", "Gentlemen Friend", "I Wonder", and "Miss You So". LP, Vinyl record album

Hard to imagine Etta Jones being lonely and blue – especially when she sounds as great as this! The album's one of Jones' early classics from Prestige – a date that really has her classing things up a lot, and drawing on bits of Billie Holiday and Dinah Washington's styles, to mix in with the bluesier tones of her roots – put together with a great deal of charm, and a new sophistication that made Etta one of the hippest jazz singers of the 60s! Backing is by a cool small combo – with Patti Brown on piano, Wally Richardson on guitar, and a bit of tenor from Budd Johnson – and titles include "I'll Be There", "In the Dark", "Gentlemen Friend", "I Wonder", and "Miss You So". CD includes 3 more bonus tracks from a date recorded with Gene Ammons on tenor – "But Not For Me", "If You're But A Dream", and "Cool Cool Daddy". CD

Abbey Lincoln takes on the legacy of Billie Holiday – in a strong live set recorded with a small group at the end of the 80s! The setting's a bit more relaxed here than on some of Abbey's other albums of the period – a bit looser and sometimes more languid, but only in the best sort of ways to get at the moodiness of Billie Holiday's approach to the tunes. A few numbers seem to bristle with a bit more of that Abbey Lincoln sense of pride – that righteous legacy that runs straight from Billie's classic "Strange Fruit" – but overall, the spirit of Holiday's more traditional approach definitely guides the performance. The group's a quartet – with Harold Vick on tenor! CD

Great later work from Abbey Lincoln! The album Talking To The Sun is something of a comeback set for Abbey Lincoln – an extremely powerful set from the early 80s, and one that helped set the tone for some great albums to come! Abbey's working here in a bold style that includes a fair bit of original material – done in collaboration with alto saxophonist Steve Coleman, whose edgey tone really adds a lot to the record! There's a sense of voice here that takes us back to Abbey's bold experiments with Max Roach in the early 60s – a righteous tone that effortlessly mixes politics and art, yet which never forgets its key mission of music. The set includes original compositions "The River", "Talking To The Sun", "People On The Street", and "Prelude/A Wedding Song" – plus a nice take on the Mercer/Mancini number "Whistling Away The Dark". On the second two records, Abbey Lincoln takes on the legacy of Billie Holiday – in a strong live set recorded with a small group at the end of the 80s! The setting's a bit more relaxed here than on some of Abbey's other albums of the period – a bit looser and sometimes more languid, but only in the best sort of ways to get at the moodiness of Billie Holiday's approach to the tunes. A few numbers seem to bristle with a bit more of that Abbey Lincoln sense of pride – that righteous legacy that runs straight from Billie's classic "Strange Fruit" – but overall, the spirit of Holiday's more traditional approach definitely guides the performance. The group's a quartet – with Harold Vick on tenor – and titles include "For All We Know", "No More", "Gimme A Pigfoot", "God Bless The Child", "For Heaven's Sake", and "Don't Explain". CD

One of the most distinct early dates from reedman Charles McPherson – a unique "with strings" session recorded as a tribute to Billie Holiday – and with a style that shows off sides of McPherson's playing that wouldn't show up on other records for years to come! The album's got a beautifully understated quality – hip, adult arrangements by Ernie Wilkins – neither in his Basie-esque style of the early years, nor in any sort of slavish relationship to the Billie Holiday recordings of the 40s and the 50s either – which makes for a mode that just lets Charles flow with this wonderfully soulful tone on his alto – almost in a way that points towards some of Stanley Turrentine's music to come in such a setting. The core group features piano by Barry Harris, guitar by Earl Dunbar, bass by Sam Jones, and drums by Leroy Williams – plus larger backing by a string section – and titles include "Don't Explain", "Miss Brown To You", "Lover Come Back to Me", "Lover Man", and "God Bless the Child" – but all shaped beautifully and personally by McPherson! LP, Vinyl record album

An overlooked gem from Carmen – one of her few albums for Columbia from the 60s, and a wonderfully swinging small group session that's got a much more relaxed feel than some of her earlier sets! The album's ostensibly a tribute to Billie Holiday – but it's taken in a way that's completely unlike Holiday's own work – filled with life, joy, and a swinging sensibility that's carried off perfectly by arranger Norman Simmons – who heads up a small combo on piano, working with Walter Perkins on drums, Bob Cranshaw on bass, Nat Adderley on cornet, Eddie Lockjaw Davis on tenor, and Mundell Lowe on guitar. Carmen's vocals are wonderfully groovy – and tunes include "I Cried For You", "Them There Eyes", "My Man", "Strange Fruit", "Miss Brown To You", and "Some Other Spring". LP, Vinyl record album

A rare and exceptional vocal jazz LP – cut by the obscure Marilyn Moore, then the wife of Al Cohn – who's pictured in profile on the cover of the record! Marilyn's got a style that's somewhat raspy – clearly inspired by Billie Holiday at times, and not what you'd expect in comparison to some of the cooler, clearer female singers who worked on Bethlehem in the 50s. The backing is in a small group mode – with Cohn on tenor and bass clarinet, plus Don Abney on piano, Joe Wilder on trumpet, Barry Galbraith on guitar, Milt Hinton on bass, and Osie Johnson on drums – all in a nicely relaxed mode to fit the mellow, moody sound of the record. There's a nice sense of darkness throughout – a bit more edge than you might expect – and titles include "Trouble Is A Man", "Ill Wind", "Born To Blow The Blues", "Lover Come Back To Me", and "You're Driving Me Crazy". CD

Breathily beautiful work from singer Priscilla Paris – an unusual take on the music of Billie Holiday, done with a relatively sweet feel overall! Paris is definitely trying for Holiday's tone at times – but her sound is always a bit warmer and airier – almost as if Claudine Longet were doing a tribute to Billie, with a spacious late 60s feel that's almost A&M at times! Backings are by Sid Feller and Don Peake, and players on the date include Jimmy Rowles on piano, Jim Crutcher on bass, John Guerin on drums, and Peake on guitar – plus a bit of added strings. Titles include "In My Solitude", "Girls Were Made To Take Care Of Boys", "Just Friends", "I Love You Porgy", and "My Man". LP, Vinyl record album

A real discovery in music – previously unreleased material recorded by Diana Ross in 1972 – all done in a jazz-based vein! The album was done after Diana's appearance in Lady Sings The Blues, and follows in a clear Billie Holiday-inspired approach to American standards – one that has Gil Askey providing some gently jazzy backings, and Ross singing in a style that's sad and mellow enough to fit the "blue" in the title! Why Motown never issued this one at the time is a real mystery to us – because the record is really wonderful, and a needed deepening of Diana's talents from the time. Plus, given that the whole record was never "finished off" in the 70s, there's a laidback, almost slightly rough quality to the whole thing – presenting Ross in a more earnest interpretation of the mode than might have been the case if it was slicked up for the charts. Titles include "What A Difference A Day Makes", "No More", "Let's Do It", "Smile", "But Beautiful", "Had You Been Around", "Little Girl Blue", and "Love Is Here To Stay". CD also features 4 bonus tracks – "Easy Living", "Solitude", "He's Funny That Way", and "T'Aint Nobody's Business If I Do". CD

A fantastic early demonstration of the solo powers of Diana Ross – a live date from Vegas, and one that has her commanding the stage not just as a singer of soul music, but as a female star ready to rival the talents of any of her contemporaries in the mainstream! Ross shines here with a brilliant brightness right from the start – working with a large ensemble that echoes all her best Motown roots, but which also pushes things out in fuller, more vibrant modes too – as Diana runs through tracks that include old soul favorites, jazz standards, and even some surprising choices from the charts – at a level that's filled with poise, class, and soul throughout. Titles include a great "Supremes Medley", plus "Don't Rain On My Parade", "Corner Of The Sky", "I Love You Porgy", "My Man", "The Lady Is A Tramp", "Ain't No Mountain High Enough", and a "Lady Sings The Blues Medley" with titles from the Billie Holiday songbook. CD

An overlooked gem from The Kinks – a set that's got all the wit of their late 60s material, a bit of the rootsy currents of Muswell Hillbillies, and a lot more bite than the group would have in some of their next few albums to come! Ray Davies' pen is razor-sharp, as is his vocal approach – and the songs are maybe even more gritty than the group would have done a few years before – furthered by some of the instrumental currents that also bring in a few acoustic elements and some Americanized riffs, which are then also matched by an occasional twang in Ray's vocal presentation. Plus, the double-length set also features one album of studio material, and a second live album – almost as a "bonus" thrown in for good measure. Studio tracks include the hit "Celluloid Heroes", plus "Here Comes Yet Another Day", "Maximum Constipation", "Unreal Reality", "Hot Potatoes", "Motorway", and "Supersonic Rocket Ship" – and live cuts include "Skin & Bone", "Alcohol", "Banana Boat Song", "Lola", "Holiday", and "Mr Wonderful". LP, Vinyl record album

An overlooked gem from The Kinks – a set that's got all the wit of their late 60s material, a bit of the rootsy currents of Muswell Hillbillies, and a lot more bite than the group would have in some of their next few albums to come! Ray Davies' pen is razor-sharp, as is his vocal approach – and the songs are maybe even more gritty than the group would have done a few years before – furthered by some of the instrumental currents that also bring in a few acoustic elements and some Americanized riffs, which are then also matched by an occasional twang in Ray's vocal presentation. Plus, the double-length set also features one album of studio material, and a second live album – almost as a "bonus" thrown in for good measure. Studio tracks include the hit "Celluloid Heroes", plus "Here Comes Yet Another Day", "Maximum Constipation", "Unreal Reality", "Hot Potatoes", "Motorway", and "Supersonic Rocket Ship" – and live cuts include "Skin & Bone", "Alcohol", "Banana Boat Song", "Lola", "Holiday", and "Mr Wonderful CD