Taking an extraordinarily bold step just five years into her recording career, Lyn Stanley showcases her stylistic range and heartfelt intuition as a vocalist on this epic, warmly produced, playfully titled 17 track tribute to legendary jazz and pop singer Julie London.
While Stanley’s voice, while emotionally resonant, isn’t anywhere near as husky and smoky as her muse’s, she makes each song her own - beautifully conveying a sense of hushed intimacy on ballads like “Cry Me A River” and “I’ve Got a Crush on You” and subtle swing on various tunes, including “Blue Moon” and the lively opener “Goody Goody.”
Working with some of the jazz world’s hippest most renowned studio cats – including guitarist John Chiodini, bassists Chuck Berghhofer and Michael Valerio and pianist Mike Garson – Stanley breezes, sashays and seduces on colorful arrangements which, remarkably, were created spontaneously, without written arrangements in the studio. Among the most unique of these is the gentle bossa treatment of “As Time Goes By” and a dusty flamenco caress of The Doors’ “Light My Fire.”
Stanley’s confidence in paying homage to London and her repertoire extends to her including several tracks – including a sparse, hypnotically percussive “Heard It Through the Grapevine” and a torchy, Latin tinged twist on “It’s Impossible” – that Stanley felt would have been perfect for the sultry songstress.