Nancy Qualls Corbett

This fine album was sadly lost in the shuffle when it was released the same year as another Nancy Wilson album, The Swingin's Mutual!, her highly successful collaboration with the George Shearing Quintet. This is a shame, because Something Wonderful is one of Wilson's best albums, and her tastiest, with famed big-band arranger Billy May. Only 23 years old at the time, Wilson had a commanding blues- and soul-drenched jazz voice that was fully formed at the time of this recording, and unlike so many young singers, she was already committed to communicating lyrics rather than just showing off her vocal chops. This is beautifully illustrated in the narrative gem "Guess Who I Saw Today," which justly went on to become one of Wilson's signature tunes…

This fine album was sadly lost in the shuffle when it was released the same year as another Nancy Wilson album, The Swingin's Mutual!, her highly successful collaboration with the George Shearing Quintet. This is a shame, because Something Wonderful is one of Wilson's best albums, and her tastiest, with famed big-band arranger Billy May. Only 23 years old at the time, Wilson had a commanding blues- and soul-drenched jazz voice that was fully formed at the time of this recording, and unlike so many young singers, she was already committed to communicating lyrics rather than just showing off her vocal chops. This is beautifully illustrated in the narrative gem "Guess Who I Saw Today," which justly went on to become one of Wilson's signature tunes…

On Nancy Wilson's previous album, 2004's R.S.V.P., the legendary vocalist teamed up with a given instrumentalist on each track. She must have liked the formula, because she's done it again on Turned to Blue. Here the oft-honored jazz singer leaves room in each number - save for the title track, a Maya Angelou poem set to music and arranged by Jay Ashby - for a different soloist, bringing in such heavyweights as Hubert Laws on flute, saxists Jimmy Heath, Andy Snitzer, Bob Mintzer (who appears to be summoning Stan Getz on the opening number, Gordon Jenkins' "This Is All I Ask"), James Moody and Tom Scott, pianist Dr. Billy Taylor, and steel pans player Andy Narrell, among others…

This fine album was sadly lost in the shuffle when it was released the same year as another Nancy Wilson album, The Swingin's Mutual!, her highly successful collaboration with the George Shearing Quintet. This is a shame, because Something Wonderful is one of Wilson's best albums, and her tastiest, with famed big-band arranger Billy May. Only 23 years old at the time, Wilson had a commanding blues- and soul-drenched jazz voice that was fully formed at the time of this recording, and unlike so many young singers, she was already committed to communicating lyrics rather than just showing off her vocal chops. This is beautifully illustrated in the narrative gem "Guess Who I Saw Today," which justly went on to become one of Wilson's signature tunes…

On Nancy Wilson's previous album, 2004's R.S.V.P., the legendary vocalist teamed up with a given instrumentalist on each track. She must have liked the formula, because she's done it again on Turned to Blue. Here the oft-honored jazz singer leaves room in each number - save for the title track, a Maya Angelou poem set to music and arranged by Jay Ashby - for a different soloist, bringing in such heavyweights as Hubert Laws on flute, saxists Jimmy Heath, Andy Snitzer, Bob Mintzer (who appears to be summoning Stan Getz on the opening number, Gordon Jenkins' "This Is All I Ask"), James Moody and Tom Scott, pianist Dr. Billy Taylor, and steel pans player Andy Narrell, among others…

Through the songs or ‘chansons’, we are given the chance to be transported back to a point when the word, note, instrument and performer collided to document impressions of a world lived long ago and yet with which we share so much. As songs that had a vibrant life beyond the words, we are afforded an entrance into the evergreen world of instrumental music of the Renaissance, into music that filled the taverns and dwellings of Paris and beyond. This is why these works maintain such relevance for us today. For Chansons musicales is not simply an exercise in museum-driven reconstruction, notwithstanding the world-class research that underpins the project. These are living and breathing works.

Basically a reissue of the 1968 album Nancy and Lee, with some bonus tracks. This has all of the duo's hits ("Summer Wine," "Jackson, " "Sand, " "Lady Bird, " and "Some Velvet Morning"), which easily outclass the filler material. And those hits are about as inspired as middle-of-the-road pop gets, especially the eerie "Some Velvet Morning, " one of the strangest songs ever to crack the Top 40.

Being a former teenage rock journalist, Cameron Crowe has made no secret of his love of pop and rock music, or the inspiration he derives from it. He's one of the few film directors who places pop music at the center of his films, littering his pictures with references to rock & roll, even at times where it may not be necessary – witness how Tom Cruise and Penelope Cruz inexplicably morph into the cover of The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan in Vanilla Sky…