Keely Smith

The swing revival was custom made for singers like Keely Smith. Keely Swings Basie Style… With Strings follows 2000's Swing, Swing, Swing and 2001's Grammy-nominated Keely Sings Sinatra, capping off a trilogy of lovingly performed classic jazz. Smith's backward glance, however, isn't just pure nostalgia. Keely Swings Basie Style, for instance, begins with Count Basie-style arrangements and then applies them to a number of songs not necessarily associated with the bandleader. The addition of strings provides another distinctive layer. Smith begins with "April in Paris" and brings her warm vocals to bear on a number of other classics, including "Happiness Is a Thing Called Joe" and "How High the Moon." There's a particularly lovely take on "Mood Indigo" and a bouncy version of "Cherokee (Indian Love Song)"…

This DRG two-fer brings together two worthy and neglected Louis Prima/Keely Smith Capitol albums from the late '50s. Hey Boy! Hey Girl! is the soundtrack album from the lounge duo's 1959 film of the same name. Not as cheesy as it might sound at first, it features Louis and Keely (and Sam Butera & the Witnesses) at their Las Vegas peak. The title track is a brisk, lightly swinging duet from the pair while "Oh Marie" almost delicately reprises Prima's Sicilian heavoly scatting classic from the previous year's The Wildest! Saxophonist Butera gets his own hipster vocal on "Fever," and Keely sings at least two ballads, "You Are My Love" and "Autumn Leaves," to lend the proceedings a little class…

Lots of pop vocalists have tackled the vaunted SONGS Lennon-McCartney songbook, but this 1964 release from the late, great Keely Smith was the first album by an artist of her ilk devoted to the lads from Liverpool. And perhaps the best one, too…with sparkling arrangements by Ernie Freeman and Benny Carter, and production from Keely’s soon-to-be husband Jimmy Bowen, the record alternately seduces and swings, and Keely’s voice—with its bluesy phrasing and lilt patented on The Strip—is the perfect instrument to interpret these Fab tunes.