Worry Less, Live More

Jazz-rooted former pop singer Curtis Stigers has made a fine homage to Frank Sinatra’s 1966 Sinatra at the Sands album with Count Basie’s orchestra, recorded live as the original was. Stigers is much more gruff and rugged than a smoothie like Michael Bublé, as hip in his timing as Kurt Elling, if not as unpredictable – and he could hardly be in more cracking company than the Danish Radio Big Band, which catches the punchy Basie sound and the twists of Quincy Jones’s arrangements with immense aplomb.

B.B. King has cut a lot of albums since the success of Live at the Regal. And, like the live shows they document, none of them are any less than solid and professional, hallmarks of King's work aesthetic. But every so often B.B. truly catches fire; his playing and singing comes up an extra notch or two, and the result is a live album with some real sparks to it. Live in Cook County Jail is one of those great concerts that the record company was smart enough to be there to capture, documenting B.B. firing on all cylinders in front of an audience that's just damn happy for him to be there…