'Round Midnight
Betty Carter was once praised in verse by hip-hop'sGang Starrfor "taking her time making the nuances rhyme." Nuance is nothing short of ever present on this breakthrough album from 1963, demonstrating the singer's unique phrasing on such standards as "Heart and Soul" and "One Note Samba," along with her own "Who What Why Where When," epitomizing much of the moody, yearning content of the record. These songs and their stories of coy first encounters and lonely meditation are further shaped by Carter's incomparable enunciation, which is allowed to cradle the lyrics to the point of vowel stretching, thanks to the arrangements ofOliver Nelsonand Claus Ogerman. From the ironic sigh of "The Good Life" to a mischievous rendering of "Two Cigarettes in the Dark," their sound punctuates rather than drowns like so many jazz accompaniments of this period.--M. Eugene Lemcio