Customer Reviews

Classic

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Chris Connor must have found the fountain of youth. As the years pass she only broadens and deepens as an artist yet somehow she always sounds fresh and surprising. This splendid album of great songs is a great example. As ever, Chris selects a mixture of well-known songs and not-so-well-known and gives every selection the full dramatic and sonic treatment. Has any singer ever more tenderly cared for every song she's ever recorded? Chris' powers of interpretation are fueled by her keen intellect but she also has few equals in bringing her songs to life with deepfelt emotion. Whether she's having fun with a song or down in the emotional depths, every song is treated with the utmost respect. This is a terrific album beautifully recorded and indeed it is a classic.

Chris connor sounds as wondeful as ever today, she still has that misty sound in her voice, she has one of the most hauntingly cool and mystifying voices I've ever heard. On this set of standards recorded for the contemporary label, Miss Connor swings lightly with a youthful and gorgeous voice, one of the all time great jazz singers. She's still going strong. This Cd is essential for jazz lovers.

This is the first (and better) of two albums Chris Connor recorded for the Contemporary label in 1986. Keyboardists Miichael Abene and Richard Rodney Bennett, saxophonist Paquito D'Rivera, trumpeter Claudio Roditi, bassist Rufus Reid and drummer Akira Tana -- all better known now than in 1986 -- combine with the former Kenton vocalist on great songs like "Laura," "You Don't Know What Love Is," "Ten Cents a Dance," "Brazil," "We'll Be Tgether Again" and "Blame It on My Youth." It's Chris at her best!

Chris Connor had the great fortune of retaining her gorgeous voice deep into her career: she sings as forcefully and with as much control on this 1986 album as she did on her 1954 Bethlehem sides. Indeed, her smoky alto voice has hardly changed at all in those 32 years (Christy, McRae, O'Day, and many others were not so lucky as they neared the end of their careers). LAURA and BLAME IT ON MY YOUTH are beautiful slow ballads and Connor nails them both - her voice is lyrical and glowing. On the up-tempo numbers such as LET'S FACE THE MUSIC AND DANCE and BRAZIL she sings with assurance and élan - and with the ease of a singer half her age. The powerful, wailing accompaniment by Paquito D'Rivera on alto and Claudio Roditi on trumpet throughout the CD is a major plus in making this a total success. Chris Connor's later work is as magnificent as her earlier things, and this album is one of her best. Very nice!

Just go to her rendition of 'Laura" for starters and you will know why she is one of the greatest singers of all time! That smokey timbre, the feeling she puts into her words, its all perfect. I cant say enough about her. SHe is a jazz legend- if you like this, then you should also latch on to her Gershwin Songbook and delve into her early Bethlehem recordings as well!