Etta Jones - Dont Go to Strangers '1960 [2014]

Tracks list

Dont Go to Strangers was Etta Jones first album for the independent jazz label
Prestige when it was released in 1960 (having been recorded in a single session
on June 21 of that year), and although Jones had been releasing records since
1944, including a dozen sides for RCA in 1946 and an album for King Records in
1957, she was treated as an overnight sensation when the title tune from the
album went gold, hitting the Top 40 on the pop charts and reaching number five
on the R&B charts. An elegant ballad on an album that had several of them,
including the masterful If I Had You and a marvelous reading of All the Way, a
song usually identified with Frank Sinatra, Dont Go to Strangers featured Jones
airy, bluesy phrasing and uncanny sense of spacing, and was very much a jazz
performance, making its success on the pop charts all the more amazing. Listen
to Jones restructuring of the melody to the opening track, the old chestnut Yes
Sir, Thats My Baby, to hear a gifted jazz singer sliding and shifting the tone
center of a song like a veteran horn player, all the while leaving the melody
still recognizable, but refreshing it until it stands revealed anew. Apparently
there were no additional tracks cut at the session, since bonus material has
never surfaced on any of the albums subsequent reissues, although thats hardly a
problem, because as is, Dont Go to Strangers is a perfect gem of a recording. ~
Steve Leggett

Tracks:

01. Yes Sir, Thats My Baby (4:23)
02. Dont Go To Strangers (3:52)
03. I Love Paris (4:01)
04. Fine And Mellow (5:53)
05. Where Or When (3:42)
06. If I Had You (3:52)
07. On The Street Where You Live (3:46)
08. Something To Remember You By (3:46)
09. Bye Bye Blackbird (3:17)
10. All The Way (4:40)

Personnel:

Etta Jones - vocals
Skeeter Best - guitar
Frank Wess - flute, tenor saxophone
Richard Wyands - piano
George Duvivier - upright bass
Roy Haynes - drums

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