DEVIN GORDON
THE JAZZ SINGERS (Smithsonian). The fans of jazz singers are a fanatical lot. Billie Holiday fans don’t hang with Ella Fitzgerald fans, and Joe Williams partisans wouldn’t give the parsley off their fish to the Frank Sinatra crowd. So when a scholar like Robert O’Meally tries to survey all of jazz vocalizing from 1919 to 1994 in a mere five CDs–and inevitably slighting somebody’s favorite–he’s begging for trouble. But he’s not going to get it here. This fair-minded collection–of everything from torch singing to blues belting to scat–makes quibbling look craven. Untutored listeners, this is where you start. As for more experienced fans, you just might learn something, too.
EMBRYA by MaxwellColumbia
