June Christy With The Kentones (2006 2019)

The well-recorded radio transcriptions on this album predate all of singer June Christy's regular solo recordings; she had only been with Stan Kenton's Orchestra for about a year at the time. The identification of the backup personnel has been lost to history (despite the anonymous title of "the Kentones"), but Christy is the star of the 14 concise performances anyway. June Christy had the ability to swing in any song she was given, and in this case, all of the selections (except for "June's Blues") were superior standards. The young singer is heard in her early prime on such numbers as "Don't Worry 'Bout Me," "The One I Love," "September in the Rain," "Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams" and "Get Happy."

This solid collection may strike June Christy fans as a little ironic because rather than stock her albums with standards the way that most of her peers did, the West Coast jazz vocalist was known for unearthing new and obscure songs. It's not that Christy neglected standards (in fact she recorded dozens of them over her 12-year run with Capitol Records), it's just that one gets the feeling that when she sang something like "I'm Glad There Is You" it was because she had something fresh or unique to bring to it. And she does put her own personal and idiosyncratic stamp on 20 of the songs here while two tunes haven't been recorded enough to become standards (the undeservedly obscure "Cry Like the Wind" and the swing-era novelty "Bei Mir Bist Du Schon"). So, when you add the song selection to the fact that this disc features the vocalist in orchestral, small-group jazz and big-band settings, the disc not only offers a much more complete portrait of the artist than the title suggests, but this is also one of the strongest entries in EMI's Sings the Standards series.

The digital EP "With The Pantheons Blind" contains all six bonus tracks from "To Drink From The Night Itself" recording sessions, now available digitally for the first time: "Daggers Of Black Haze" and "The Mirror Black" featuring guest vocals by Rob Miller (AMEBIX, TAU CROSS); "The Chasm" featuring guest vocals by Per Boder (GOD MACABRE); "A Labyrinth Of Tombs" featuring guest vocals by Mikael Nox Pettersson (CRAFT); a demo version of "The Chasm" and a merciless re-recorded version of the early AT THE GATES classic "Raped By The Light Of Christ", originally featured on the band's sophomore album "With Fear I Kiss The Burning Darkness" from 1993.