Very few of the numerous jazz tribute albums that were recorded in the late 1990s are truly essential, and only a minority of these are as chance-taking as Chansons de Piaf. This isn't an album in which yet another retro-bop "Young Lion" provides yet another unimaginative album of the same old Cole Porter, George Gershwin, or Irving Berlin songs done the same old way. The person that Tethered Moon – an acoustic trio consisting of pianist Masabumi Kikuchi, bassist Gary Peacock and drummer Paul Motian – pays tribute to is Edith Piaf, France's most famous pop singer of the 20th century.