For Those In Love

Whilst the blues were undoubtedly Dinah Washington's Forté, it is still good to find her working with sophisticated material like these 10 songs. They are quality standards, typical of the sort of material a jazz soloist might have chosen at the time (1955) and far removed from the mawkish material that was more often handed to her by the record companies. She responds well and shows that the suggestion that she wasn't a natural with ballads was unjust. Additionally Mercury, for whom she recorded for a decade, often surrounded her with quality jazz musicians, as they have here. On some albums the soloists were given their head very much at Washington's expense, but on these 1955 sessions they are well handled by Quincy Jones in his coherent charts. The result is one of the singer's best collections. The jazz musicians, with the exception of the ubiquitous Clark Terry, are like a group on a day out from the Home For Under-Recorded Jazz Musicians--saxophonists Paul Quinichette and Cecil Payne, trombonist Jimmy Cleveland, pianist Wynton Kelly, guitarist Barry Galbraith, bassist Keeter Betts and drummer Jimmy Cobb. They take mighty advantage of their chance in the spotlight. --Steve Voce