Blossom Dearie: Blossom Dearie (Verve By Request series) [VERVE]

Why you'll love it

This Verve By Request reissue is a 180g mono pressing, mastered at Sterling and made at Third Man Pressing in Detroit. Her first album for Verve pairs her light, swinging voice with Herb Ellis, Ray Brown and Jo Jones.

This edition

• Verve By Request series
• 180g vinyl
• Mono

About the album

Blossom Dearie had already been to Paris and back before Verve signed her. She'd formed and arranged for the vocal group the Blue Stars in France and recorded for Barclay, so by the time she cut this in 1956 she knew exactly how she wanted to sound: intimate, playful and very quietly clever.

She plays piano herself, with Herb Ellis on guitar, Ray Brown on bass and Jo Jones on drums, and the quartet swings with a feather-light touch. Cashbox praised her fragile, intimate phrasing. "Thou Swell" and "'Deed I Do" bounce, "Lover Man (Oh Where Can You Be)" glows, and she slips into French for "It Might As Well Be Spring," "Tout Doucement" and "Comment Allez Vous." The arrangements leave plenty of air around her voice, and the songs mix time-tested standards with newer pieces like "Now At Last" and "A Fine Spring Morning."

AllMusic's Scott Yanow wrote that her sincerity and swing win you over after a few songs, and praised her piano as first class. Fourteen songs in about forty minutes, which is roughly how long it takes to fall for her, give or take a chorus.

Also at Kops: more Blossom Dearie on vinyl · browse Vocal Jazz

Tracklist

Listen

On Verve / UMe (cat# B0037206-01), a reissue of the 1957 album.