Search - Various Artists :: A Jazz Romance - A Night In With Verve

Reaching deep into its cavernous vaults, Verve has extracted a rich bountiful of moody and sentimental jazz, perfect for those long, expectant evenings or those equally long, rain-filled days. Nicely packaged with nostalgic, sepia-toned photographs on both the box and each individual CD, A Jazz Romance contains nearly 60 songs guaranteed to set a distinctly low- keyed mood, equal parts sultry and sad. The vast majority of the material is from bygone days of the '40s and '50s, with the more recent entries retaining that flavor. The four discs are entitled In Dreams, Ever, Believing, and Always. They're rather interchangeable, sharing many of the same artists and each having as many vocals as instrumentals, yet each does have some distinction from the others. In Dreams features the great saxophones of Johnny Hodges on "The Last Time I Saw Paris" and Ben Webster on "In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning." Ever has marvelous versions of "My Man" by Sarah Vaughn and "The Shadow of Your Smile" by Dexter Gordon. Believing contains a contemporaneous version of "Some Other Time" by guitarist Mark Whitfield and Diana Krall, along with an outstanding example of Rahsaan Roland Kirk's versatility on "Alfie." Always, perhaps the dreamiest of the lot, has Chet Baker on "Alone Together," Illinois Jacquet on "Star Dust," and Stan Getz doing "Thanks for the Memories." Concentrating exclusively on the romantic side of jazz, this compilation contains an abundance of subtle, emotional music offering great listening in addition to setting the all-important mood. --Wally Shoup