What makes a singer cross the line from pop to jazz or cabaret? Who cares about labels? I do, actually. Weíll do a future feature on that just that question answered by some singers we like. Meanwhile, here are more discs by singers of various stripes.

OSCAR BROWN, JR. Live Every Minute. Minor Music 801071, 47:53, allegro-music.com

This is a swinging album by a significant jazz-folk-blues singer, recorded in 1998 in Hamburg with the NDR Big Band. Tenor Stanley Turrentine appears on two tracks and Pee Wee Ellis plays tenor and soprano on four others. Brown lays down some happy lyrics on Tommy Turrentine's "As Long As You're Living," and some clever hipster dialog between a daddy-o and his very young son over Bobby Timmons' "Dat Dere." The ballads ("It's October," "World Full of Grey") are a generally bit too earnest; His voice is chesty, and his delivery a tad regal, sometimes missing the note he's aiming for. The self-penned ballad "A Column of Birds" is an exception, vocally and lyrically. It would make a beautiful balada in Spanish translation. When Mr. Brown shouts blues and jive, however, he's a master. (He's best known for his '60s Columbia LP with "The Signifyin' Monkey.") Here the wolf and young ëcatí looking for "Mr. Kicks" (another original) kicks hard; a fab track with a hot band.

FAY CLAASEN. Specially Arranged For Fay. Jazz'N Pulz BMCD 801, 59:34, allegro-music.com; milleniumjazzorchestra.nl

Singers are tricky things. More than instrumentalists, they have to be concerned not only with timbre and phrasing, but they also have to convey meaning. Singing in a foreign language presents its own problems. Then there's matter of the instrument itself. Some voices you just like, and others make you want to find a knife. How can you defend liking some clearly unattractive voices? You don't; it's a little like love. Bob Dylan, anyone? How can anyone abide the lovely Judy Collins? In my youth, I'd been physically threatened because of my uncontrollable giggling while listening to Cleo Laine, and physically ill from the nasality of one of Morgana King's 1970s discs, yet friends have rightly wanted to strangle me for taking them through the nasal passage of Esther Phillips and some others who seemed to have their diaphragms, well, you know.

Fay Claasen is a Dutch chantoosey whose voice is too often just a little above or below the note, or stuck in the back of her throat. Many will like this sound. In her favor is the support of a wide variety of fantastic musicians, and interesting and intelligent programming, and excellent production and packaging support by the cleverly named Jazz'N Pulz label.

Specially Arranged For Fay is a really dreadful title for a good disc arranged and conducted with complete originality and style by Joan Reinders with the Millennium Jazz Orchestra, both new to me. Chestnuts include "Nature Boy," "Love For Sale" and "Speak Low," but making the program really interesting are the unexpected arrangements of "Giant Steps," "A House Is Not A Home," and Bill Evans' "Very Early," which leads off the disc. Reinders is neither a (Nelson) Riddler nor avant; indeed, he has that special touch that some of Stan Kenton's arrangers have. Interesting, Bill Holman was a previous leader of this orchestra. I'd very much like to hear the Millennium on its own. Taste this before buying, but do try. It's very attractively designed in a quality, laminated four-fold digipak.

PHIL COLLINS/ SYLVANO BAZAN TRIO. I Wish I Knew. TCB 23202, 56:18, allegro-music.com

It really isn't fair of me to list this disc as a Phil Collins disc, as he's only a "special guest" billed large on the cover. He appears only on "Teach Me Tonight." He does a lovely version of it, at first sounding somewhat like Phoebe Snow (who does my favorite version of this tune). I don't like Collins' own work, excepting Lamb-era Genesis, and this is rather a nice piece of work. Both his voice and his phrasing are fine. On the rest of the disc, pianist Bazan's trio offers a joyously infectious set of mainstream jazz, half standards, half originals.

BOB DYLAN. John Wesley Harding. Columbia CH 90320, SACD Hybrid, 38:58, bobdylan.com

I'm supposing most readers don't need a review of the music, although I confess it's only a decade, perhaps, ago when I was able to get enough beyond Dylan's voice to enjoy him singing his songs. Previously (I know this is heresy) I'd felt that I'm glad Dylan wrote all those neat songs for Joan Baez to sing. The issue here is the first of the complete Dylan to be reissued by Sony in hybrid SACD. I have the original vinyls, but never got the CDs. I'm loathe to repurchase music I already own unless there's extra material I can't live without (Marvin Gaye's What's Going On: Deluxe Edition) or music part of my soul in sound so improved that the vinyl became a joke (the first Columbia CD release of Laura Nyro's New York Tendaberry which miraculously removed all of the pre-echo, most of the hiss and none of the top).

This is the first time I really noticed pumping of volume and speed (tape stretch?) and possibly some splices during "All Along The Watchtower." on both original elpee and SACD. One listens differently when comparing editions. There are minor burps which might indicate splices twice during the song, on the indicated words: "what" any of it is worth; and you and i, we've all "been" through that.

Both sides of my JWH elpee have the matrix 1C. The CD at hand(not the SACD layer; I'm still awaiting a suitable player) is stunning by comparison. The acoustic bass is a bit grainier than on the vinyl, no doubt a result of decades of tape decay, but it is solid and strong. Dylan's voice is much- let me emphasize much- more vivid and upfront on the CD, as are all the other instruments. The volume is higher, and I have no idea how the engineers accomplished this, but there is no tape hiss yet the top is all there, no chop-the-top at all. A stunning achievement, and as this is a hybrid SACD that will play on any machine, there is no need to even question whether to proceed to buy this release.

It's all attractively done, a practically exact replica of the original sleeve and label, no texts in either original Lp nor SACD. The series is, sadly, all in Digipak, which I despise both for their hogging shelf space (with a jewelcase, one can get a double-tray or use sleeves that hold the booklet, traycard and disc, halving your self space needs) and for the lack of remedy for broken hubs. All praise to Legacy's complete remastered Simon and Garfunkel box in original cardboard sleeve replicas, taking a mere inch of space for five discs. I'll bet the Dylan SACDs will eventually be available that way from Japan at the usual high prices.

CONNIE EVINGSON. Sings the Beatles: Let It Be Jazz. Summit DCD 1021
www.summitrecords.com
www.connieevingson.com

Any singer taking on the Beatles, especially fourteen cuts, had better have something interesting to say; these songs are mind-melded onto many generations of the worldwide public. It is a very strange but real that "A Day In The Life," not present on this album, is a staple in the repertory piped in on the Mexico City Metro, which offers mostly American music from the sixties like "Nights In White Satin." but let me get back to Let It Be Jazz.

For many reasons, this disc was a surprise. Summit is well known as a label for classical wind players with specific, often contemporary, repertoire.
Before listening, one notices a nice variety, including "Fixing a Hole," "I'm Looking Through You," and McCartney's simple but fun vehicle "Oh! Darling." One is also grateful to not see "Michelle," "Yesterday," or "Ob-La-Di." A quick scan of the personnel shows that this was done with several sets of musicians, the only ones familiar to me bassist Anthony Cox and guit-sitarist Dean Magraw (try his Broken Silence CD on Red House RHR CD69).

"Blackbird" puts the lyric over a "Take Five" kind of swing. Evingson's voice is easy on the ear and she is willing to take each song on its own trip. One of the strength of the disc is that her musicians are not only jazzbos but come from the worlds of cajun and dawgmusic (no, you hip-hoppers, the original country-bluegrass dawgmusic).
Every arrangement has the right taste, but doesn't clobber you with it. For example, "Wait" begins with a guitar jangle reminiscent of Hejira-era Joni Mitchell, but soon a piano takes the track into a Latin swing that floats tropical without the need for sunglasses. The piano of "The Night Before" is influenced by the piano of Joni and Laura Nyro. It makes one realize how strong these relativity early lyrics are, because the words float above the patina. Connie Evingson plays with the lines the way a good singer/songwriter will. She is the inverse of the tacky snap-finger-and-scat cat. Even the Peggy Lee-Feverish take on "Can't Buy Me Love" works completely. Her phrasing here could fool you into thinking this was a lost late sixties Atlantic session. A pop "From Me To You" just doesn't hold up, but although the opening reggae riff for "Fixing A Hole" had me in doubt, the bright vocal above it with fine guitar work by Dave Singley. I'm still not sure what I'd do about the "hey, hey hey"s myself had I been a singer, but it works well. "Good Day Sunshine" is just too darn cheerful. "When I'm 64" has a loungey, slinky bossa beat given cachè by Daryl Boudreaux's accordion and she comes off as delightfully flirtatious. The "Vera, Chuck and Dave" is the only phrase that misses, but I'm nitpicking, because I'd rather just get off my keyboard and dance to this. The disc ends with a second take on "64," a Keystone Kops rat-a-tat which is pretty but lacks the substance of the first take, and although Dave Karr's clarinet is witty, she errs by affecting a bad British accent on an already spotlighted "Vera, Chuck and Dave." (Note to Summit: the term "bonus track" usually refers to tracks added to fill out a reissue, not just a different take on a new disc.)

This disc brought down my raised eyebrows with humility, and although I'm curious to hear her four previous releases, and the promised follow-up to Let It Be Jazz. Hey: How about a disc of just Starkey and Harrison songs?

KITTY MARGOLIS. Left Coast Life. Mad-Kat MKCD1008, 56:18, kittymargolis.com

This is a fun and varied outing by a San Francisco singer who can front many styles with style. She tackles "I Want To Be Happy" as i she were a Betty Carter, with rapidly descending phrases, speedily clumped phrases of words, and breaks when he band takes off. The self-penned "It's You" uses a jazz-pop girl voice with a guitar doing a bossa rhythm, but with cleverly-used (overdubbed Margolis) "backup singers." Her lyrics are surprisingly solid; so many contemporary jazz singers pen lyrics which either are vapidly simplistic or, on the opposite extreme, try way too hard to be hip. Kitty's are hip, actually, but there is no strain, no painted-on goatee and beret. Sample her "You Just Might Get It," where her voice often does horn-like slurs but the lyric too calls for it.

Margolis covers Randy Newmanís "Lonely At The Top" and Tom Waits' "Take It With Me," as well as Roger Waters' "Money." The Newman she takes pretty straight, alluding to the master's own voice, with a light dixie background. The Waits is one of a few tracks featuring accordion with that continental touch. To her credit, she recognizes the classic stature of anything from Dark Side of The Moon. "Money" is slowed down with a rich acoustic bass line commented upon by spare guitar slurs and organ, and she lets the text come through by "interpreting" the straight-forward lyric. Instead of copying the ironically caustic tone of the original, she slightly emphasizes selected words to highlight meaning, using a jazz-singer phrasing. There's little showing off here and much to show off. Filed on my shelf between Tom·s Marco and the Marine Girls.

FRANK SINATRA. Sings Cole Porter. Columbia Legacy CK 61058, 53:17,

FRANK SINATRA. Sings Gershwin. Columbia Legacy CK 61057, 50:28,

FRANK SINATRA. The Voice of Frank Sinatra. Columbia Legacy CK 62100, 55:30, legacyrecordings.com/franksinatra

Forever, folks have been trying to convince me Sinatra is a great singer. The only album I ever liked was his Watertown, a song cycle on his own label Reprise. What others hear as art, I hear as artifice. Here, although I still don't care for his voice or his phrasing, I didn't know how absolutely fastidious he is about enunciation. Maybe it's his later Capitol discs I encounter most often. Legacy has remedied this situation for me. Fans, however, will not need a debate, but collectors demand data. The first thing I was asked about these releases was, "What are the labels like?" They are blood red Columbia 78s with the double sixteenth note and microphone in circles on top, the print silver.

(An aside: Legacy's beautiful Billie Holiday reissue, which I recently borrowed from a friend, missed an obvious opportunity to reproduce the various original labels, doing so on one page of the book instead, with a giant BUT: all this is obviated by the absolutely amazing clarity of the audio mastering; despite what I'd heard from friends, the audio from bass to top is totally improved, like the difference between "Night and Day" if you will; this is a must purchase for purely musical reason. Maybe naysayers played 'em on boom boxes? Now back to Blue Eyes.)

The inner traycards reproduce various original 78 sleeves, adding a cute, black and white, slim caricature of Sinatra, who resides beneath the clear part of the tray beside the booklet. He's wearing a smoking jacket vertically emblazoned with Sinatra Sings, the title of this series. Many of the Porter anthology and nearly all of the Gershwin are previous unreleased, at least officially, radio and teevee broadcasts. His pre-song patter is endearing, and utterly natural: "Hey, I bet you didn't know this was a Gershwin song," he tells the audience before "Soon." Many other tracks are labeled "unrecorded song and/or alternative arrangement."

The Voice of Frank Sinatra is the one, to my surprise, I intend to not begift the FrankieFreaks begging at my door once word spread of these releases. This will be my one Sinatra disc in a vast silver and vinyl library I'm trying to weed.

It's not the label, or the original Sinatra (I'm not sure which) sleeve or ad inside the traycard: "If it's terrific it's Frank Sinatra." It's not the repros of the four different sleeves for the 78 album, 45 album, 10 inch Lp or the 12 inch Lp versions of this 1945 recording. Even I'll admit itís that his phrasing of "You Go To My Head" and "Someone To Watch Over Me" which holds my attention, and so flows the rest of the disc. This might be my entrèe for a reevaluation of earlie Sinatra. Also, you never know when some romantic evening a date will ask to hear Frankie, when you had Johnny Hartman with Coltrane in mind.

I'd always associated "Try A Little Tenderness" with Redding; I'd never known until now this is a chestnut. The orchestration by Axel Stordahl here is gentle and romantic, unlike some overblown string-things I've heard him do to other singers. Add excellent notes, detailed recording data, and ten alternate takes added to the original eight-song release of The Voice of Frank Sinatra, and it's a must-buy. Oh, and the audio: clear, warm, "tube-like," excellent mastering by Andreas Meyer and crew. As always, Legacy goes all out in these reissues. To FrankieFans: You'll want them all. To The Doubters: The Voice will doubtless win you over. Who knows what might happen later.

The Gershwin and Porter collections likewise surprised me, but didn't convince me as did The Voice that Sinatra is a great singer. These tracks are desirable mostly for previously un(officially)released radio and teevee checks. The audio transfers are the best I've encountered with this material, and the entire notes and packaging are exemplary.

CANDI STATON. Young Hearts Run Free/ House of Love. Ambassador Soul Classics/Spy 40002-2, 73:39.

Ms. Staton has one of the best voices of any singer in any genre, period. She has an earnestness and a texture in the gullet that makes every song immediately believable. I would listen to her sing the phone book. Coming from the world of southern soul and gospel, she hit the charts hard with her song "Young Hearts Run Free" and her major dance hit, "Victim." Her albums have, like most soul discs, been erratic, with a few must-have tracks with some filler.

These two classic Warners albums are reissued here, contain the two hit mentioned above, are remastered in 24-bit sound by Ivan J. Goldberg, and for most readers, reissues matter in only two concerns: extra tracks and special packaging, and sound. The former is generic. As is wont with Collectibles and many other twofer reissue labels, there are the two original albums reproduced on the cover, and there are no extra tracks. The tiny print but intelligent essay by David Nathan puts Staton's Warner discs with long-term producer David Crawford in a proper musical and historical context. There is full recording data (excluding musician's names) for each track.

First, the Young Hearts album. Most of the songs are fun, generic disco tracks, with word that are neither embarrassing nor gripping. On ballads, however, Staton glows. "What A Feeling" has a rap (in the original sense, the singer speaking directly to the listener) where you not only feel for the narrator's plight (all good pop tunes and operas are of found love or lost love, of course; the best contain both), but you fall in love with her too. Al Green's "Living For You" is nice to have, but not better nor interestingly different from his.

"Yesterday Evening" is a beautiful soul ballad that could easily be from by Margie Joseph or Carole King; "I Wonder Will I Ever Get Over It" is the kind of southern soul ballad that could also easily be a country hit except the "ooh la la" chorus places it firmly in southern soul. "I'm Gonna Make You Love Me" mildly discofies the classic Supremes/Temptations song in a duet with producer Dave Crawford, who has an unobjectionable, generic soul voice. She closes out with her gospel roots in Thomas Dorsey's "Take My Hand, Precious Lord," but permit me to backtrack to the dance cuts.

House of Love begins with one of all-time great soul and dance songs, "Victim."
The twelve-inch single of "Victim," which became a major street, club and radio hit as soon as it reached oxygen, was withdrawn within weeks of commercial release to force consumers to buy the House of Love album, which contained the full-length 8:31 dance track, unshortened in the dance mix. I never had the chance to buy it back then; I had to get the album.

"Honest I Do" is one of those weird songs where the lyric is actually stronger than the dance aspect, but since my tushie is moving as I type this; hey. It has a nice sitar effect, strong pointillistic guitar solos, and her voice shines through the mix beautifully, as do the backup singers. I don't recall if there was a dance mix beyond the 5:53 here. "Summer Time With You" is a disco ballad, enjoyable, and again her strong but sultry voice carries the day. It would make a good match with Musique's "Summer Love Theme." "I Know" is uptempo, little known, and would have made a great radio and club hit back then had Warners extended the track from its 3:42.

Now for the sound. I've long lost my vinyl copy, and a Unidisc 12" reissue was weak-sounding, but I have "Victim" on a brilliant non-mixed dance compilation Club Floor Classics: The 70s (Warner Bros. 46604-2), curated by Kevin Tong in 1998. The Club Floor Classics sounds fine, or so I thought until I A-B'ed it with this new release which has tighter, punchier bass by far, and a chorus I had thought was a synth line now can clearly be heard as a human chorus. I'm assuming the other tracks are superior as well.

This CD is must-have for all r'n'b aficionados, and for anyone wanting the best-sounding version of "Victim." appropriately only with piano and backup chorus. (Many of Staton's 1990s gospel albums have been execrable in arrangement and lyrics, but may I recommend her underground housemusic gospel hit with the group The Source, "You Got The Love," best on its stripped-down 1986 Source Records (Chicago) twelve-inch, although it's been perennially remixed.)

Also available in this first batch of Ambassador Soul Classics are Brenda Russell, Debra Laws, Dionne Warwicke and twofers from the Sweet Inspirations and Change, all in excellent, refurbished sound.

LILIAN TERRY/ FRANCESCO CROSARA. Emotions. TCB 22152, 59:49, allegro-music.com

Ms. Terry is a fascinating singer with many strengths and a bunch of flaws which make the stone genuine. Her son Crosara is the pianist and arranger of this set whose many musicians include Von Freeman, the Chicago tenor player making it no surprise that this is a Chicago production of Sparrow, whose Southport label has put out many fine jazz and avant releases.

Terry's voice is that of a wise old broad; from a wooden cask rather than gin-soaked. Her phrasing is individual, and makes many of these songs genuinely new. Opening with "God Bless the Child," a risky move for anyone, one is struck by a martial drum solo which serves as an introduction to a Blood, Sweat & Tears-style (the second album) horn arrangement which is just plain weird. The notes confirm this was an intentional BS&T cop. Her phrasing is so apt, so not Billie Holiday, that one is in awe, despite an errant staccato vocal phrase near the end.

It's a pleasure to hear Duke's "Prelude to a Kiss" with vocals, and the decision to sing "A Night In Tunisia" in an Egyptian dialect, with tabla, no less, is likewise bizarre, as is the violin by Adel Fadel, more Gypsy than it is Arabic. (It's interesting that she was born in Cairo, and lived in Italy and France, but she sounds American to me. Her face looks French, and is reminiscent of a handsome version of singer-comedienne Anna Russell.) There are four songs in Portuguese. Paulinho Garcia sings on "Samba em Preludio," but isn't easy on the ear until Terry joins in and the two intertwine beautifully.

Two tracks are piano solos, and the piano "solos" as well are fine. Lilian Terry sometimes strains a bit, both for a note or for effect, but there is a clear musical sense behind everything she does here. A 1985 Soul Note collab with Diz, a long-term friend of hers, came and went through my collection. This one has me scratching my head, but heads need a good scratching now and again.

LAURA TURNER. Soul Deep. Curb D2-78767, 59:23, musikinternational.com

One of those Sarah Brightman turns pop Kate Bush/Jane Siberry types. This is demonstrated on the opening of the first track with its thick orchestration, and large floats of soprano before a could-be-disco track like a speedier Enigma comes in. Indeed, the final track is a remix which could easily be segued into "Sade, Pt. 1." "Illusion of a Kiss," with its swirling strings and flamenco guitar, if done a few decades earlier and speeded up, would surely be mixed for a Simon Susaan (Harem Records) disco hit, perhaps for Patti Brooks. Not at all bad. I'd enjoy hearing it in someone else's house, and therefore it will and should probably get a broad mainstream audience, because the vocal hooks are hooky in a clever way.

You notice foremost the lovely voice and the details of the orchestra with pop arrangement. The lyrics and structures are on the simple side, but not trite. "Angel de la Madrugada" is not an update of Merilee Rush, but a duet ballad in Spanish with Ray Vega, complete with prelude and postlude. I have a lot of friends who will like this. I'm gift-wrapping it as I type. A PBS special replete with orchestra will surely be in the works. Your move.

DIONNE WARWICKE. Then Came You. Ambassador Soul Classics/Spy 40004-2, 38:30.

This 1975 Warners album from the proto-disco era has been long out of print. The arrangements by Jerry Ragovoy are anthemically joyous, as is Warwicke's voice. A few of the Ragovoy-written lyrics are weak. Actually, so is the hit title track, not written by Ragovoy, but the Spinners vocals and Philadelphia's Sigma Sound production carried the day. The other nine tracks are from the Hit Factory in New York.

This set emerged from Miss Dionne's numerological epoch, when she was advised to add the "e" to her surname to rise up from a chart slump. She did, and, voilá, instant hit with "Then Came You," a collaboration with (no "The" printed here) Spinners. Then she tumbled, again looked up to the psychic skies, heard she should drop the "e" and, dèja vu, "That's What Friends Are For."

Powerful cuts here include "Sure Thing," "Who Knows," and "How Can I Tell Him," Ragovoy borrowing Bacharach/David-style piano, horn fanfare and bittersweet lyrics. "Getting In My Way" lets Warwicke use her lungpower. Ragovoy's "I Can't Wait To See My Baby's Face," originally a 1963 hit for Baby Washington out-Bacharachs Bacharach at his own game; the take here is a masterpiece in every way. "Move Me No Mountain" is a superb song whose music derives from Stax via psychedelic-era Motown; wah wah, backup girls and lots of van de Pitt-style strings. Don't think I'm bashing Ragovoy; if you listen to Dionne's original Scepter discs, most now available in two-on-one-CD reissues from the UK, the cuts are hit or miss.

This is a mostly-excellent album, the few weak tracks toward the beginning. All Warwicke fans should have this, here in its first appearance on silver disc, except for a brief sojourn in Australia. I don't have the original Lp to compare to this richly clear 24 bit job by Ivan J. Goldberg, who remastered the entire Spy/Ambassador series. Informative notes, in tiny typeface, by David Nathan, from whom I gleaned some of the discographical information above.

ETHEL WATERS. The Best of Ethel Waters. Columbia Legacy CK 65852, 55:05, legacy.com

This is an indispesable disc for anyone into classic blues from a sly, sexy vantage. From Ethel Waters' high, sexy voice to her lowdown, throw-you-on-the-mattress growl, she is one fine horndog, and no weak singer to boot. These sveneteen tracks are more recent and better transferred than those on Ethel Waters 1925-1926 on Classics 672. Standards such as "Please Don't Talk About Me When I'm Gone" are anything but standard in Waters' hands. One has to be willing to overlook, nay, enjoy the inherent racial aspects of this "jungle music" and Africanism as one would for Jospehine Baker. There are embarrassing or cute, depending on your POV, attempts at dialect: "Out in the streets, there's feets..."

Many of these songs have been covered by Mae West in her films and rcordings, which is where I learned the majority of the dirtest blues here. In "Come Up And See Me Sometime," she implored her lover to "Just bring a needle, for the record machine/ If you don't get my meaning you're as dumb as you can be." There are the requisite songs about "dying to be low-down" because she's got "Harlem On My Mind." The "Hottentot Potentate" had to deal with the powerful Empress Jones. Regarding Hollywood, she warns those picture people that, "If you go out west, please wire Mae West, tell her stay west. She's an Eskimo; see Waters sometimes." The eskimo allusion is double for her contemporaries and for modern film buffs: besides a rebuff dubbing Mae cold, West's film in the Klondike was a major hit.

It's not just that Ethel Waters sings so many risquè blues, but her voice and delivery that makes this release truly a best of, and a mandatory acquisition should you not already have this material in other formats.