Vocalist Annie Ross, of the famed Lambert, Hendricks and Ross vocalese bop team, has released a whole new album. Accompanied by the father and son team of Bucky and John Pizzarelli on guitars, Ross exchanges the high pitched chirping of her 50s tributes to Count Basie and Wardell Gray, and has let her matured voice emphasize nuance, feeling and inflection in this tribute to jazz’s most influential singer, Billie Holiday.
This collection of eleven songs is an embracingly intimate affair, with Ross selecting gentle, reflective and subtle tunes that, while comparable to Holiday’s Lady in Satin, is in another dimension as in exchange for desultory fragility, Ross emphasizes sensitivity and contemplation. The twin guitars by the Pizzarelli clan provide linen drapery for Ms. Ross’ reclining takes of “For All We Know” and “Violets for Your Furs.” She sounds like she’s been there and back when she opines “You Don’t Know What Love Is” and is resigned on the end of the relationship on “You’ve Changed,” showing the difference between singing a song and living it. While the range and dynamics has diminished over the half century, its exchange for experience in expression was a justifiable trade. A session worth savoring.
Red Anchor Records