Kay Starr: Jazz Singer (Remastered)

For this 1960 session, Kay Starr joined the Van Alexander & His Orchestra — with whom she had worked on earlier recordings — to produce an album of so-called "jazz singer songs." With her deep, husky saloon singer-type voice, Starr swings a set of 12 songs all arranged by Alexander in a variety of tempos. Helped along on such tracks as "I Never Knew" by a wailing, soulful electric organ and a singing ensemble, Starr applies her one-of-a-kind technique to these hardy standards. She brings to most of the tunes that "hillbilly"/blues inflection she developed very early in her career when she was singing on radio stations first in Dallas and then in Memphis. Her blues biases are prominent on such cuts as "My Man" and "All by Myself." Starr reminds the listener that she could swing with the best of them with up-beat romps of "Breezin' Along With the Breeze" and "Happy Days and Lonely Nights." Because of her pop hits, Starr has been underrated as a jazz singer. But with an album such as this, that underestimation is clearly undeserved and wrong, and this album helps document her place as a top-flight jazz vocalist.