Rebecca Parris - You Don't Know Me (2007)

Rebecca Parris has performed jazz for nearly two decades, having produced over ten CDs. Admired by vocal icons Shirley Horn and Sarah Vaughan, Rebecca is known for her ability to convey a song's underlying emotion through masterful phrasing and the infusion of feeling. She has an inherent sense of swing and musical structure, lending authenticity to her improvisations. You cannot listen to Parris for more than a few moments without being startled by her talent - startled by the range and subtlety and power of her voice. "I hear a little Carmen McRae when I listen to Rebecca," says Ron DellaChiesa, the jazz disk jockey at WGBH in Boston. "And a little Sarah Vaughan. I think she's on that level. Her phrasing is what is most extraordinary. She never sings a song the same way twice in a row." The fact is, Parris is a practitioner - a guardian, one might say - of an art form that is becoming scarce; an artist preserving a great American tradition more for its own sake than for her own glory or profit.

"You Don't Know Me" has all of the earmarks of a winning hand. Parris has stacked the deck with aces, including a top rhythm section (Brad Hatfield, piano; Peter Kontrimas, bass; and Matt Gordy, drums with Jim Lattini on the title cut) and three stellar guests: two of the best tenor saxophonists in jazz, Houston Person and Jerry Bergonzi and vibraphonist Gary Burton, an old friend, with whom she previously recorded. Each guests on a number of vintage selections. In her earlier years, Rebecca,like Dinah Washington in her prime, possessed the vocal authority to confront a formidable song and overpower it if she so chose. Today she is more the stylist who can read lyrics with the all-knowing assurance of a Carmen McRae, Billie Holiday or Peggy Lee. --Bob Perkins, jazz program host, WRTI Philadelphia.