Chris Connor - New Again

Styles: Vocal 
Year: 1987
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 43:02
Size: 99,8 MB
Art: Front

(3:07)  1. Dearly Beloved
(4:12)  2. Down In Brazil
(3:49)  3. I Never Meant To Hurt You
(3:18)  4. Love Locked Out
(5:42)  5. Astaire Medley
(3:08)  6. Mad About The Boy
(4:19)  7. Antonio's Song
(4:14)  8. I Wish I'd Met You
(5:03)  9. My Foolish Heart
(6:04) 10. Jukebox Medley

The follow-up album to Chris Connor's Classic is similar in the moods it covers, the style of music and the instrumentation. Michael Abene and Richard Rodney Bennett split the keyboard duties, trumpeter Claudio Roditi and Bill Kirchner (on various reeds) have some short solos, and flutist Dave Valentin makes a couple of guest appearances. Connor, at 59, still had a powerful and haunting voice, as she shows on "Dearly Beloved," "My Foolish Heart," and even on a couple of medleys (one of Fred Astaire tunes and the other a "Jukebox Medley"). Listeners should acquire a good sampling of Chris Connor's 1950s recordings first, but her two Contemporary CDs have their value too. ~ Scott Yanow https://www.allmusic.com/album/new-again-mw0000200370

Personnel:  Vocals – Chris Connor;  Acoustic Bass – Michael Moore;  Drums – Buddy Williams; Flute – Dave Valentin; Keyboards – Michael Abene, Richard Rodney Bennett; Percussion – Sammy Figueroa; Tenor Saxophone, Alto Saxophone, Soprano Saxophone, Flute, Clarinet – Bill Kirschner; Trumpet, Flugelhorn – Claudio Roditi

New Again

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Claire Martin, Scott Dunn & Royal Philharmonic Orchestra - I Watch You Sleep

Styles: Vocal
Year: 2023
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 71:04
Size: 167,7 MB
Art: Front

(4:30) 1. I Watch You Sleep
(5:37) 2. Autumn in New York
(4:25) 3. It's Only a Paper Moon
(3:34) 4. For Ev'ry Man There's a Woman / It Was Written in the Stars
(5:35) 5. Round About
(4:32) 6. I'll Always Leave the Door a Little Open
(4:59) 7. I Wish I'd Met You
(5:13) 8. Don't Play Games with Love
(4:30) 9. Goodbye for Now
(3:27) 10. Early to Bed
(4:06) 11. I Never Went Away
(2:53) 12. Let's Go and Live in the Country
(4:24) 13. Not Exactly Paris
(3:59) 14. My Ship
(4:01) 15. I Wonder What Became of Me
(5:13) 16. It Was Written in the Stars

A flawless song list comprising Richard Rodney Bennett originals plus some of his favourite standards, stunning arrangements by conductor Scott Dunn, plus the unfailingly mellifluous vocals of Claire Martin, combine to produce an extraordinarily beautiful tribute to Bennett which marks the tenth anniversary of his death.

Whether it's the majestic sound of the RPO strings in the Bennett/Siegel opener ’I Watch You Sleep’ – an utterly gorgeous song in the hands of Bennett's great friends and erstwhile musical partners Martin and Dunn which, aside from Shirley Horn's exquisite version on her 1988 trio album, Softly, has been covered remarkably infrequently the iridescent vibraphone which introduces a deluxe arrangement of Vernon Duke's ‘Autumn in New York’ with its vivid imagery of “glittering crowds and shimmering clouds in canyons of steel”; the clarion call of Ryan Quigley's flugel in ‘Round About’ (another overlooked gem from the team of Duke and lyricist Ogden Nash which seems to hover atmospherically in the air); or the adroit splicing together of a brace of Harold Arlen/Leo Robin songs,

‘ For Ev’ry Man There's a Woman/It Was Written In The Stars’, penned for the 1948 US film noir Casbah, the 16-track album presents an incredibly touching statement from the heart. Whether navigating through the elegiac orchestral textures of ‘I Never Went Away’ or intimate duo and trio versions of ‘I Wonder What Became Of Me’ and ‘I Wish I’d Met You’, Martin's enormous gifts as a storyteller have never sounded more potent.
https://www.jazzwise.com/review/scott-dunn-with-claire-martin-and-the-royal-philharmonic-orchestra-i-watch-you-sleep-scott-dunn-celebrates-richard-rodney-bennett

Personnel: Claire Martin - vocals; Rob Barron - piano; Matt Skelton - drums; Jeremy Brown - double bass; Ryan Quigley - flugelhorn; Scott Dunn - conductor, arranger, piano on tracks 15&16; and with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.

I Watch You Sleep

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Claire Martin & Richard Rodney Bennett - Say It Isn't So

Styles: Vocal
Year: 2013
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 36:40
Size: 85,0 MB
Scans: Front

(2:20)  1. Steppin' Out with My Baby
(2:40)  2. Change Partners
(3:45)  3. Get Thee Behind Me, Satan - I Got Lost In His Arms
(2:13)  4. He Ain't Got Rhythm
(2:48)  5. Love, You Didn't Do Right by Me
(3:22)  6. How Deep is the Ocean
(3:00)  7. Lonely Heart
(2:44)  8. Shakin' the Blues Away - Blue Skies
(2:58)  9. Better Luck Next Time
(3:13) 10. Say It Isn't So
(3:44) 11. What'll I Do?
(3:37) 12. Waiting at the End of the Road

Following their two previous duo albums, 'When Lights Are Low' and 'Witchcraft', 'Say It Isn't So' presents a final third chapter in the remarkable musical partnership of Claire Martin and the late Richard Rodney Bennett.

Like 'Witchcraft' the new album is a songbook, focusing here on the work of the great Irving Berlin. Such is the rapport between the duo that every one of the 12 songs strikes vocal jazz gold: the emotional honesty, the perfect pacing and the genuine warmth of the music-making is heard in every phrase, not to mention Linn's superb recorded sound.

Martin sprinkles her magic over everything she touches here, from an effervescent ‘Steppin' Out' to a heart melting ‘What'll I Do'. I've never heard the latter sung more beautifully. Bennett really shines in a terrific arrangement of ‘He Ain't Got Rhythm', clearly having a ball with the lyric (He attracted some attention/When he found the fourth dimension/but He Ain't got Rhythm). A magnificent finale to a unique collaboration.
http://www.linnrecords.com/review-claire-martin-richard-rodney-bennett-say-it-isnt-so-jazzwise.aspx

Say It Isn't So

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Sandra King, Richard Rodney Bennett - Making Beautiful Music Together

Bitrate: MP3@320K/s
Time: 55:10
Size: 126.3 MB
Styles: Jazz vocals
Year: 1997
Art: Front

[2:39] 1. Love Of My Life
[4:19] 2. Blame It On My Youth
[3:04] 3. Love, You Didn't Do Right By Me
[2:53] 4. There Is No Music
[2:54] 5. A Beautiful Friendship/We Could Make Such Beautiful Music Together
[3:27] 6. Second Chance
[3:37] 7. I'm Way Ahead Of The Game
[3:07] 8. On Second Thought
[3:50] 9. I Never Know When
[3:58] 10. I Haven't Got Anything Better To Do
[3:09] 11. Early To Bed
[3:41] 12. Empty Space
[3:21] 13. Boy Wanted
[4:03] 14. If You Never Come To Me
[3:20] 15. I Have The Feeling I've Been Here Before
[3:41] 16. I'll Always Leave The Door A Little Open

Sandra King vocals, Richard Rodney Bennett piano, Greg Cohen bass.

Sandra King treasures the memory of a day in the mid-1970s when she came to Ronnie Scott's jazz club in London to rehearse for an engagement. As she and her accompanist Pat Smythe ran through Duke Ellington's "In a Sentimental Mood," King noticed a man watching her from the back. He came closer, and she found herself face to face with Stan Getz. He proceeded to tell her how much he admired her singing. "Stan was finishing a two-week booking there that night," she recalls. "He asked me if I'd like to join him on stage to sing a couple of songs. I was terrified, but I went down there and sang while he played behind me. It's an experience I'll never forget."

Making Beautiful Music Together

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Sandra King, Richard Rodney Bennett - The Magic Window

Bitrate: MP3@320K/s
Time: 53:24
Size: 122.2 MB
Styles: Vocal jazz
Year: 1988/1995
Art: Front

[2:40] 1. Like Someone In Love
[4:04] 2. Only The Lonely
[3:21] 3. It Could Happen To You
[3:38] 4. I Could Have Told You
[3:58] 5. Going My Way
[2:39] 6. What Does It Take
[4:57] 7. The Second Time Around
[3:34] 8. Humpty Dumpty Heart
[5:28] 9. Medley You Think Of Everything Welcome To My Dream
[2:37] 10. And His Rocking Horse Ran Away
[4:26] 11. I'll Only Miss Him When I Think Of Him
[2:57] 12. I Thought About You
[4:32] 13. All My Tomorrows
[4:27] 14. The Magic Window

Sandra King-voc, Richard Rodney Bennett-voc & pno, Gene Bertoncini-gtr, Michael Moore-bs in a celebration of Jimmy Van Heusen's music. Recorded at Mapelshade Studios, Glen Dale, MD (11/10/1986/11/11/1986).

The Magic Window

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Richard Rodney Bennett - Take Love Easy / The Lyrics Of John Latouche

Size: 121,0 MB
Time: 51:25
File: MP3 @ 320K/s
Released: 2016
Styles: Jazz Vocals
Art: Front

01. All Of A Sudden It's You (Feat. Linc Millman) (2:22)
02. It's The Going Home Together (Feat. Linc Millman) (3:56)
03. Not A Care In The World (Feat. Dick Sarpola & Tony Tedesco) (2:46)
04. Day Dream (Feat. Dick Sarpola & Tony Tedesco) (4:23)
05. A Nickel To My Name (Feat. Linc Millman) (2:18)
06. She Makes Me Believe She's Mine (Feat. Dick Sarpola & Tony Tedesco) (4:29)
07. You Took Me By Surprise (Feat. Dick Sarpola & Tony Tedesco) (2:48)
08. Lazy Afternoon (Feat. Dick Sarpola & Tony Tedesco) (5:25)
09. Taking A Chance On Love (Feat. Dick Sarpola & Tony Tedesco) (2:58)
10. Strange (Feat. Linc Millman) (3:03)
11. Cabin In The Sky (Feat. Dick Sarpola & Tony Tedesco) (3:01)
12. Take Love Easy (Feat. Dick Sarpola & Tony Tedesco) (3:28)
13. Love Turned The Light Out (Feat. Dick Sarpola & Tony Tedesco) (3:40)
14. I've Got Me (Feat. Linc Millman) (3:12)
15. The Next Time I Care (Feat. Dick Sarpola & Tony Tedesco) (3:28)

A remarkably prolific composer and versatile pianist, Richard Rodney Bennett divided his attention among three primary musical interests: film music in an often Romantic style, concert music owing much to serialism, and jazz and cabaret music. Bennett began following all of these avenues by the 1950s, but he never allowed the paths to intersect. Each pursuit maintained its own integrity and in no way could he be considered a crossover artist. He was writing music even as he was learning to read, and produced three string quartets by the time he was 18. Bennett enrolled in the Royal Academy of Music in 1953, studying composition with Howard Ferguson and Lennox Berkeley. He graduated in 1956, then spent 1957 - 1959 as a scholarship student in Paris with Pierre Boulez. Here, Bennett was thoroughly indoctrinated in Boulez's technique of total serialism and the German avant-garde, but his only surviving work from this period is Cycle II for Paul Jacobs. Bennett almost immediately took a highly personal approach to serialism, focusing on the melodic possibilities of a tone row and readily exploring its harmonic potential. A turning point came in 1981 with his ballet Noctuary, which fused the tonality of the Scott Joplin piece on which it was based with Bennett's usual atonal serialism. After this, Bennett's techniques became much freer; while still atonal, his highly expressive music shook off the strictest controls of serialism and often indulged in quotation of earlier composers. Bennett's catalog includes four string quartets, three symphonies, concertos for almost all the principal instruments (including harpsichord), and a great deal of chamber music. He frequently wrote for woodwinds throughout his career, but began to focus more intently on them in the late '80s upon befriending many wind players in his capacity as a piano accompanist. Since 1956, Bennett had also been writing film scores in a much more conservative style. He became a favorite composer of Joseph Losey, among other directors, and among his some 50 cinematic efforts are scores for such popular movies as Far from the Madding Crowd, Nicholas and Alexandra, Murder on the Orient Express, and Four Weddings and a Funeral. It was also in the 1950s that Bennett became interested in jazz, particularly as a pianist. He kept this fascination largely to himself until the 1990s, when he began touring the world with a solo cabaret act, singing and playing jazz pieces and torch songs. ~by James Reel

Take Love Easy / The Lyrics Of John Latouche

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Sandra King & Richard Rodney Bennett - Making Beautiful Music Together

Size: 129,6 MB
Time: 55:16
File: MP3 @ 320K/s
Released: 1997
Styles: Jazz Vocals
Art: Front

01. Love Of My Life (2:39)
02. Blame It On My Youth (4:19)
03. Love, You Didn't Do Right By Me (3:04)
04. There Is No Music (2:53)
05. Medley: A Beautiful Friendship/We Could Make Such Beautiful Music Together (2:54)
06. Second Chance (3:27)
07. I'm Way Ahead Of The Game (3:41)
08. On Second Thought (3:07)
09. I Never Know When (To Say When) (3:52)
10. I Haven't Got Anything Better To Do (3:58)
11. Early To Bed (3:09)
12. Empty Space (3:41)
13. Boy Wanted (3:21)
14. If You Never Come To Me (4:03)
15. I Have The Feeling I've Been Here Before (3:20)
16. I'll Always Leave The Door A Little Open (3:41)

Personnel: Sandra King vocals, Richard Rodney Bennett piano, Greg Cohen bass.

Sandra King treasures the memory of a day in the mid-1970s when she came to Ronnie Scott's jazz club in London to rehearse for an engagement. As she and her accompanist Pat Smythe ran through Duke Ellington's "In a Sentimental Mood," King noticed a man watching her from the back. He came closer, and she found herself face to face with Stan Getz. He proceeded to tell her how much he admired her singing. "Stan was finishing a two-week booking there that night," she recalls. "He asked me if I'd like to join him on stage to sing a couple of songs. I was terrified, but I went down there and sang while he played behind me. It's an experience I'll never forget."

Making Beautiful Music Together

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Mary Cleere Haran, Richard Rodney Bennett - The Memory Of All That: Gershwin On Broadway & In Hollywood

Styles: Vocal, Cabaret
Year: 1999
File: MP3@256K/s
Time: 49:42
Size: 91,1 MB
Art: Front

(2:39)  1. The Real American Folk Song
(2:55)  2. 'S Wonderful
(4:05)  3. Do It Again
(2:35)  4. Nashville Nightingale
(4:07)  5. The Man I Love
(2:16)  6. I'll Build A Stairway To Paradise
(2:00)  7. I'd Rather Charleston
(3:08)  8. Funny Face
(4:03)  9. Sweet & Low Down / Fidgety Feet / Fascinatin' Rhythm
(5:34) 10. Someone To Watch Over Me
(4:06) 11. Boy, What Love Has Done To Me
(2:15) 12. They All Laughed
(3:28) 13. Love Walked In
(3:35) 14. Who Cares?
(2:49) 15. Lady, Be Good / Somebody Loves Me

The Memory of All That: Gershwin on Broadways and in Hollywood showcases timeless Gershwin classics such as 'S Wonderful, Funny Face, Fascinatin'Rhythm, and Lady, Be Good, as well as rarely performed material from the rich Gershwin songbook. The result is pure Gershwin and it's Haran and Bennett at their best, from their saucy rendition of I'd Rather Charleston and the delightfully whimsical They All Laughed to the soulful yearning of The Man I Love and the ragtime-inspired The Real American Folk Song. This studio recording captures the magic of Mary Cleere Haran and Sir Richard Rodney Bennett's critically acclaimed Gershwin Centenary Celebration performance at New York's legendary Algonquin Hotel.

Mary Cleere Haran has built a well-deserved reputation as a top-notch interpreter of the classic American songbook, a minimalist stylist wonderfully in tune with her material. On this Gershwin collection, she and pianist Bennett balance classics ("The Man I Love", "Someone to Watch over Me") and obscure nuggets such as "Nashville Nightingale" and especially "I'd Rather Charleston," on which Haran wickedly mimicks Adele Astaire's no-nonsense nasal tones. While it's hard to single out any particular number, "Funny Face" might represent the singer at her best, her voice a silken thread delicately, lovingly wrapped around each word. Unfortunately the recording doesn't include Haran's funny, erudite between-songs patter, which those lucky enough to attend one of her shows delight in almost as much as in her flawless interpretations. ~ Elisabeth Vincentelli -  Editorial Reviews http://www.amazon.com/The-Memory-All-That-Hollywood/dp/B00000JI71

Personnel: Mary Cleere Haran (vocals); Richard Rodney Bennett (vocals, piano); Linc Milliman (bass).

The Memory Of All That: Gershwin On Broadway...

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Mary Cleere Haran - This Funny World: Sings Lyrics By Hart

Styles: Vocal, Cabaret
Year: 1995
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 61:58
Size: 142,2 MB
Art: Front

(4:18)  1. Manhattan
(3:06)  2. I Married An Angel
(3:32)  3. I'll Tell The Man In The Street
(2:30)  4. Way Out West
(5:06)  5. Everybody Loves You - Sleepyhead
(3:51)  6. With A Song In My Heart
(3:06)  7. Chicago
(5:04)  8. A Tree In The Park
(4:20)  9. Falling In Love With Love
(4:09) 10. Easy To Remember
(3:11) 11. A Lady Must Live
(3:56) 12. This Funny World
(3:45) 13. Wait Till You See Him
(3:10) 14. Everything I've Got
(4:36) 15. My Friend The Night
(4:12) 16. The Blue Room

Mary Cleere Haran emerged in the 1980s' revival of interest in classic pop and cabaret singing. The second of eight children in an Irish Catholic family, she was the daughter of a professor of theater and film at San Francisco City College and grew up immersed in the music and movies of the 1930s and '40s, forming a permanent attachment to the songs of the classic pop songwriters of that era. She began singing as a teenager and moved to New York in the late '70s, where she made her Broadway debut playing a band singer in The 1940s Radio Hour in 1979. 

She toured with the show, then settled in New Jersey and began performing the club circuit. She made her official cabaret debut at the Ballroom in New York in 1988, where she was acclaimed by critics. She began to appear in other prestigious clubs in major cities, and made her recording debut in 1992 with the album There's a Small Hotel (Live at the Algonquin) on Columbia Records. Also busy as a researcher and television producer for PBS, Haran continued her live performance career while making regular recordings This Heart of Mine: Classic Movie Songs of the Forties (1994), This Funny World: The Songs of Lorenz Hart (1995), Pennies from Heaven (1998), and The Memory of All That: Gershwin on Broadway. Crazy Rhythm was issued in fall 2000. ~ William Ruhlmann http://www.allmusic.com/artist/mary-cleere-haran-mn0000859476/biography

Personnel: Mary Cleere Haran (vocals); Richard Rodney Bennett (arranger, piano); Fred Sherry (cello); Ted Nash (tenor saxophone); Bill Charlap (piano); David Finck (bass); Tim Horner (drums).

This Funny World

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Mary Cleere Haran - Crazy Rhythm

Styles: Vocal, Cabaret
Year: 2002
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 56:05
Size: 128,8 MB
Art: Front

(4:56)  1. Medley: Sidewalks of New York/Manhattan
(3:23)  2. Medley - Crazy Rythm, Runnin' Wild
(4:30)  3. Tree In The Park
(1:54) 4. When The Midnight Choo Choo Leaves For Alabam
(2:28)  5. Pack Up Your Sinners And Go To The Devil
(3:28)  6. What'll I Do
(2:15)  7. They're Blaming The Charlston
(4:00)  8. The Half Of It Dearie Blues
(4:25)  9. It Had To Be You
(2:02) 10. Monkey Doodle Doo
(4:10) 11. Harlem On My Mind
(3:26) 12. Poor Little Rich Girl
(2:24) 13. There'll Be Some Changes Made
(4:55) 14. Moanin'Low
(2:50) 15. Please Don't Talk About Me When I'm Gone
(4:51) 16. Lullaby of Broadway

Early in Mary Cleere Haran's dazzling new cabaret show, ''Crazy Rhythm: Manhattan in the 20's,'' at the Oak Room of the Algonquin Hotel, she assures us that the distant decade of jazz, flappers and speakeasies was not a dream. Moments later, as she and her invaluable accompanist and vocal partner, Richard Rodney Bennett, sail into ''Crazy Rhythm,'' a frantically upbeat Charleston by Joseph Meyer, Roger Wolfe Kahn and Irving Caesar, from the 1928 show ''Here's How,'' the essence of what we call the Roaring 20's is revealed to have been a beat. Buoyant and high-stepping, it was a rhythm propelled by a hysterical urge to throw off the chains of the past, live for the moment and if possible become airborne. As she has done in earlier cabaret shows, especially last year's brilliant and moving evocation of the flaming talent that was George Gershwin, Ms. Haran has created an impressionistic mosaic of an era by blending songs, witty quotations and show business lore with funny self-explanatory asides. Among the personalities she sketches are F. Scott Fitzgerald, Josephine Baker and the brassy speakeasy hostess Texas Guinan.

Leading ''Crazy Rhythm's'' list of musical revelations are its numbers that reveal the friskier, racier side of the young Irving Berlin. ''Pack Up Your Sins and Go to the Devil,'' a comic gem from the 1922 edition of his ''Music Box Revue,'' is a hilarious pitch for the superior life style of the netherworld, a place awash with jazz and where no ''old reformers in heaven'' are making you ''go to bed at 11.'' It is matched in lighthearted subversion by ''The Monkey Doodle-Doo,'' from the 1925 Marx Brothers show ''The Cocoanuts,'' in which Berlin gleefully alludes to the Scopes trial and the fad for injecting monkey glands to restore flagging virility. The song caps a smart monologue in which Ms. Haran suggests how deeply the writings of Freud and Darwin influenced the era's erotic climate. Anyone who thinks that the denunciation of contemporary pop by finger-pointing moralists is a relatively recent phenomenon should appreciate Berlin's ''They're Blaming the Charleston,'' an irresistible upbeat retort to 1920's cultural alarmists.

Grounding this merriment are classic ballads that Ms. Haran delivers in her signature style, stripping away the sentimentality to uncover the lyrics' private, heartfelt truths with an unadorned simplicity. ''It Had to Be You,'' a number most singers breeze through without much thought is slowed down and delivered as a pensive reflection on romantic destiny. Berlin's ''Harlem on My Mind,'' inflected with a period nasality, is a tour de force of restrained belting. http://www.nytimes.com/1999/09/10/arts/cabaret-review-mary-cleere-haran-jazz-baby-roaring-through-the-20-s.html

Personnel: Mary Cleere Haran (vocals); Richard Rodney Bennett (arranger, piano, background vocals); Linc Milliman (bass).

Crazy Rhythm

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Claire Martin & Richard Rodney Bennett - When Lights Are Low

Bitrate: 320K/s

Time: 51:28

Size: 117.8 MB

Styles: Easy Listening

Year: 2005

Art: Front

[2:36] 1. My One And Only

[1:59] 2. I Was A Little Too Lonely

[3:15] 3. My Mood Is You

[3:04] 4. World Weary

[2:52] 5. When Lights Are Low

[3:14] 6. Fools Fall In Love

[3:36] 7. I Got A Right To Sing The Blues

[3:25] 8. Baby Plays Around

[4:50] 9. The Very Thought Of You

[2:49] 10. What I Was Warned About

[2:57] 11. Baby, Don't You Quit Now

[3:41] 12. No Love, No Nothing

[3:13] 13. Not Exactly Paris

[2:47] 14. Any Place I Hang My Hat Is Home

[3:20] 15. I Keep Going Back To Joe's

[3:43] 16. We'll Be Together Again

A perfectly mixed rusty nail requires three parts scotch to one part Drambuie. It's a potent recipe that accurately describes the first full-length pairing of old pals Claire Martin and Sir Richard Rodney Bennett.

Drambuie is a honey-smooth concoction that masks a powerful kick, and that's Martin. For my money she's not only the finest female British jazz singer of her generation but possibly of all time. Martin handles vocal duty on six of the disc's 16 tracks. The mellow, well-aged scotch is the multitalented Bennett. Though best known for his film-composition work, the dexterous 74-year-old is equally skilled as an arranger and pianist, as demonstrated throughout this masterful olio of familiar standards and lesser-known treasures. It is, though, Bennett the underappreciated singer who here impresses most.

Flying solo on seven tracks, Bennett lends his distinctively bipolar style (simultaneously suggesting the gut-bucket splendor of Dr. John and the black-tie elegance of Fred Astaire) to tunes that delightfully extend from Noel Coward's soigne "World Weary" to Elvis Costello's forlorn "Baby Plays Around." The cherry in this heady cocktail is the trio of tracks on which Martin and Bennett join forces, particularly a sublime interweaving of "The Very Thought of You" and "I Thought About You." Drink up. ~Christopher Loudon

Recording information: Systems Two Studio, Brooklyn, NY.

Claire Martin (vocals); Richard Rodney Bennett (vocals, piano).

When Lights Are Low

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