The Rebirth Aka Ai no Yokan (2007) Masahiro Kobayashi, Makiko Watanabe

Apeerless interpreter of ballads, standards and blues, singer Etta Jones had a knack for conveying uncommon emotional power in a popular song form, just like her biggest influences Billie Holiday and Dinah Washington. Etta’s soulful, long-standing partnership with tenor saxophonist Houston Person was one of the great teams in Jazz, as evidenced by these definitive sessions from the 70-80's.

Sweet electric fusion from The Players - a Japanese combo led by keyboardist Hiromasa Suzuki, who also wrote and arranged all the tunes on the set! The style here is kind of a cross between CTI modes and some of the more dynamic fusion of the European scene - funky at points, but also somewhat free and open too - lots of tight rhythms at the bottom, but soaring solo work from Suzuki on a variety of keyboards, plus saxes from Mabumi Yamaguchi and guitars from Tsunhide Matsuki.