Passionate, robust singers with the sensitivity of a Carmen McRae and the sass of a Dinah Washington aren’t exactly thick on the ground these days which is what makes Mary Stallings’ return to the studios a cause for rejoicing. Her voice is, at once, contemporary and timeless, encompassing the entire history of jazz vocals. For her HighNote debut, Mary Stallings, a former colleague of Cal Tjader, Dizzy Gillespie, Count Basie and others sails through a program of standards and obscurities with elegance and ease, her slightly blues-tinged phrasings beautifully supported by pianist and arranger Eric Reed.

“Perhaps the best jazz singer alive today is a woman almost everybody seems to have missed. Her name is Mary Stallings.” —New York Times