Heart to Heart
In 1959 producer Clyde Otis teamed his two favorite singers, the seasoned jazz star Dinah Washington and the young R&B; crooner Brook Benton, in the studio and came up with two top-10 pop hits from the resulting album,The Two of Us. Washington is Diane Schuur's biggest hero, and the young jazz vocalist wanted to do her own version ofThe Two of Us. She found an unexpected but appropriate partner in B.B. King, who is best known for the blues, of course, but who also has experience with the kind of jazz, country, and R&B; standards Schuur had in mind for the project. The result isHeart to Heart, a duet album that brings out the best of both singers. Schuur's tendency to oversing is held in check by the rootsy nature of the material and King's down-to-earth presence in the studio. And King gets a chance to stretch out beyond his usual repertoire and show how well he can croon on numbers like Irving Berlin's "I'm Putting All My Eggs in One Basket" and Harry Warren's "At Last."--Geoffrey Himes